BACCHUS, OR THE DRUNKS

Watercolor on paper.

23x22 cm.

Do vices sustain capitalism? Probably. Many forms of dependency are spread by the mass media themselves, or by the new form of domination represented by social networks. It is not unusual to see, for example, online betting houses sponsoring football clubs, or debates on the free use of illegal drugs, presenting them as almost harmless to the majority of the population. Malthus maintains precisely this, that vices should be encouraged as a form of restraint or social Darwinism to stop population growth and thus ensure that the system has sufficient resources to sustain itself. Social inequalities are, in this case, part of a process of natural selection and not the consequence of an unjust and immoral system. So the poor should not be helped, nor does social justice have any meaning, but on the contrary, fighting for these ideals is a form of destabilization of the system that naturally seeks inequality and increases it. The capitalist system has been changing in recent years from a production- and work-oriented profile to one that is well-defined through financial speculation in the markets. The latter only increases this gap between rich and poor, and accelerates the process of natural selection, making the poor more numerous and having even fewer possibilities of improving their condition.