In reality, socialism is the loyal opposition to capitalism. It keeps the proles distracted.
The difference between markets and capitalism is that markets need money to circulate, while people see it as signal to extract and store. So the medium becomes the message.
Econ 101 says money is both medium of exchange and store of value, but one is dynamic, while the other is static. Blood is a medium, fat is a store. Roads are a medium, parking lots are a store. The hallway is a medium, the hall closet is a store. The averge five year old can figure it out, but the religion of capitalism is based on obscuring that fact.
Money is a social contract and accounting device, to enable large societies to function, but is treated as a commodity to mine from them. Requiring ever more to be added and ever more metastatic methods of storing what has been extracted.
The financial markets could not function, without the government borrowing up trillions in surplus investment money. The secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth.
As a medium we own money like we own the section of road we are using, or the air and water flowing through our bodies. Its functionality is its fungibility.
We don't hold the copyrights, it's not our picture on it and we are not personally responsible for its value, like a personal check. It is a public utility and has to be treated as such.
There simply isn't the investment potential for everyone to save individually and trying to do so invites an enormous scam. The only way for society to function is with various forms of public commons, but that requires responsibilities to come before rights.
If people want to be powerful, they have to be equally willing to accept responsibility for failure, as success. As those with no power have to accept that respect is earned, not ordained.
A spiritual absoute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell.
Just as no structure can survive without a solid foundation, neither can society.
