Capitalism per se is just a tool. Unfortunately, it’s a tool used to extract resources rather than to contribute to them. Therein lies the fundamental work of local economies: deciding which way the creative value of humans will flow; up to pie in the sky private islands, or down to the soil (soul) of the places we need to exist. Humans can still use money and banks and even big business practices: but they need to be contributing to the future of the resources our grandchildren need, not burning resources and dumping them in the oceans. The solution is simple: all overhead costs of civilization need to be visible at the actual decision point, which is the cash register. The opposite of unfettered capitalism is not socialism: it’s sales taxes and prebates paid to everyone (no means testing). The rate of tax and the size of prebate/UBI determine our usefulness as human beings to our society and places, rather than the consumerization of the income tax codes and social programs that only determine our value to our products (automobiles as the dominant species).

The “restart the economy” mindset can be seen in the slaughterhouses and centralized meat processing systems. Cheap food has made for cheap people; disposable people; at the mercy of economists and aristocrats who would force them back to work rather than giving them a set of tools and a pass on inspections to go back to their communities and butcher cows without trucking, banks or ridiculous labeling that only benefits those who have the capital to establish Systems of systems to extract every drop of value from the land, the animals, the farmers, the truckers and the laborers, and not pay an even exchange for that value. That’s ‘just business’.