Those on the left must not play these kinds of games with capitalism…


We will lose this game every time. Capitalism is above all a belief system. Like a church, it needs believers to work its magic. Capital markets do not crash because some natural resource is suddenly scarce (cotton, oil, cement), or because of a natural disaster (hurricane, earthquake, fire). Capital markets collapse because of a sudden loss or evacuation of belief. This is why it’s nothing but good news for the system to learn that such a large number of Americans believe it’s working. There is nothing else to it than that. It wants nothing more than that. To think there is more to it than that is to play the game with a losing hand. In short, those on the left must do everything they can to resist this very tempting line of attack: We will show the workers that it’s not possible to levitate a table with belief.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...