The Christian Church used to have a concept of the “just profit” a merchant could take in. He was supposed to have enough to make new investments and to collect a little for his own use, but no more. The Church, while it did not ban interest payments as Islam did, was always a little leery of the business culture, rightly recognizing that the merchant would price-gouge to the heavens if he could get away with it.

When inflation hit world-wide during 2023-24, the Canadian government summoned grocery stores to demand to know why food prices were rising so high. It was putting the supermarkets on notice. Infinitely rising prices would not be tolerated. This was done not just to curry favor with the electorate. The modern-day politician is the heir to the clerical worker of the Middle Ages. He contains within himself many of the same impulses and creeds.

Lyndon Johnson, master of the Senate prior to becoming President, was an example of the priest-politician of modern times. In the middle part of the Twentieth Century, he pushed for subsidies to ensure that remote Texas households got electricity. According to the market, remote Texans should have paid an arm and a leg for power. Instead, they paid a reasonable price dictated by the heart, not the head. (America is full of progressive impulses. The battle of The Market vs. The Heart is a seesawing one that goes back and forth, with no clear victor in sight.)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a progressive at heart — but not a Bernie Sanders-level progressive. If Sanders had become president, there would have been a wholesale shift in America’s cultures & values. Sanders’ book, It’s OK to be Angry about Capitalism, says it all in the title. Trudeau isn’t angry about capitalism — in his mild-mannered way, he wants to tame and humanize it, not swing the wrecking ball. In Sanders’ heart is a wrecking ball aimed squarely at the heart of Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

Only North Korea and Cuba resist the siren song of capitalism in the world today. But is the global corporate order so secure? Can the information technology sector eternally skim profits of 25%, 35%, 45% off the mainstream public?

I tell you, if there was a workable alternative to capitalism (other than communism, which has been shown to fail) the powers that be in the Western World would jump on that like an incel boy on free sex. Capitalism is a much-disliked system. The overlordship of the boss is only part of the problem. Capitalism is a cold, merciless mechanism for producing things, and has zero heart. To men with a heart, it comes near to being an abomination at times. The true supporters of capitalism are outnumbered by men who just want a safe, secure, easy, non-cold, non-mechanistic life. Those who march with a giant heart supported on their shoulders want a better world. A world where the almighty dollar is castrated, where the greed impulse is thrown away in the trash “where it belongs.” The just profit concept extends across the spectrum of capitalism, touching all its activities, threatening all its gains. The just profit ideality never dies. It just, like the Phoenix, spreads its wings once it is reborn in fire.