The Myth of a Broken Democracy
Across the political spectrum in the United States, a familiar refrain echoes: our democracy is broken. Voter suppression, gerrymandering, dark money, and corporate lobbying all point to a system that no longer serves the will of the people. But what if this is not a failure of democracy itself? What if democracy is being suffocated by something deeper, older, and more corrosive—capitalism?
Sociopathy as a Feature, Not a Flaw
In a recent episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Harriet Fraad argues that capitalism doesn’t just tolerate sociopathic behavior—it demands it. The capitalist imperative is simple: pay as little as possible, extract as much as possible. That logic rewards those who disconnect from empathy, who see other human beings not as equals, but as costs to be minimized. It’s not a bug in the system. It’s the system.
Take Starbucks, for example. When faced with pushback from American workers, they sought profit elsewhere—by sourcing coffee and sugar from child and slave labor abroad. That isn’t a lapse in ethics. It’s capitalism functioning exactly as designed.
Capitalism Kills Empathy
Fraad draws a chilling connection between capitalism and mental illness. Real mental health, she argues, is rooted in connection, empathy, and social responsibility. Capitalism rewards the opposite. Billionaires are celebrated not for their contributions to humanity, but for how effectively they accumulate wealth—often by impoverishing others.
These leaders—Musk, Trump, Teal—aren’t outliers. They are the logical outcome of a system that prizes profit above all else. Raised in wealth, surrounded by servants, trained from childhood to expect others to serve them, they lack any genuine connection to the lives they exploit. That’s not success. That’s pathology.
The Illusion of Shared Wealth
Defenders of capitalism often claim that we all benefit through investment and growth. But Fraad debunks this myth: 10% of Americans own 93% of the stock market. The idea that capitalism serves the majority is a lie we tell ourselves to make exploitation look like opportunity.
When the Powerful Buy the Government
Democracy becomes meaningless when billionaires control the levers of government. From commerce to education to NASA, our institutions are increasingly led by those who profit from privatization and deregulation. Elections become theater; policy becomes product placement. The government doesn’t regulate capital—it obeys it.
There Is Another Way
Fraad points to Mondragon, a city in Spain built on cooperative ownership. Workers vote on decisions. Leaders can be recalled. Executive pay is capped at six to eight times the average worker’s wage. Empathy isn’t punished—it’s foundational.
When the 2008 recession hit, workers at a dishwasher factory voted to reduce their workweek rather than lay anyone off. “It wasn’t optimal,” one woman said, “but it was my decision.” That’s what democracy looks like when it’s not crushed under capitalism’s boot.
A Call to Reckon
If we want to save democracy, we have to stop pretending capitalism is neutral. It isn’t. It rewards greed, punishes compassion, and elevates sociopaths to power. Democracy isn’t broken—it’s being strangled by a system that was never designed to serve the people.
The next time we mourn the failures of democracy, we should ask ourselves: are we blaming the symptom while worshiping the disease?
It’s time to name the real enemy. Not big government. Not bureaucracy. Not even corrupt politicians. The enemy is the economic logic that makes corruption inevitable. The enemy is capitalism.
Photo by David McBee
