The problem with putting profit first in a democracy

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The problem with putting profit first in a democracy

Or in a former democracy, as the case may be

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

May 21, 2026

There is something truly amusing about the response of western democracies to the approaching steamroller of artificial intelligence as it threatens to demolish job opportunities around the world. We are like the proverbial deer in the headlight: we can see the threat approaching and yet we can think of absolutely nothing to do about it. It's like we are watching a car crash in slow motion. An actual deer, of course, has an excuse: it has not been equipped by nature to cope with mechanistic threats. But we do not have that excuse. We Homo sapiens have an education and a modicum of free will. We have parliaments and senates with representatives, elected to work on behalf of the public interest. Why then are we standing still, quaking in our boots?

The answer, of course, is that the inexorable logic of unfettered capitalism, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, is leading us straight off a cliff. We have lost track of the main reason for having a capitalist system in the first place, which is to give work to as many people as possible so that they can have a sense of accomplishment in life and will not be discontents, roaming the streets of America looking for a quick buck or (worse yet, from the mainstream point of view) advocating for all sorts of politically incorrect changes to our form of government. Reasonable company profits are needed, of course, to employ anybody, but profits are not everything. What's the point of having an extremely successful company, financially speaking, when it puts absolutely nobody to work?

Of course, we've been here before. That same lopsided focus on profits has rendered the west impotent to meaningfully address problems like global warming and pollution as well. All common-sense fixes are vetoed by the prime imperative of constantly earning profits. And so as the tides and temperatures rise, we stare into the headlights of eventual catastrophe, trapped by our own inflexible economic ideology. One can almost hear Mother Nature saying to herself: "Okay, fine. I'm going to jack the average global temperature up another two degrees. Let's see if THAT causes those stubborn westerners to stop dogmatically insisting on ever higher profits at the expense of every other consideration on Earth!"

This "profits first" mentality is also responsible for the staying power of drug prohibition. It's been over one hundred years now since America first began the unprecedented practice of outlawing Mother Nature's medicines wholesale, and businesses have found plenty of ways to profit from the injustice during that time. The economic power of the modern healthcare industry is due in large part to the outlawing of just two drugs: opium and cocaine. The Drug War gives the field a monopoly on mind and mood medicine and they have spread plenty of drug propaganda to maintain that monopoly, persuading Americans of the abject lie that self-medication is a sin and that we are just not smart enough to use psychoactive medicine wisely. Indeed, I am 67 years old, and I am not even trusted to use my Big Pharma antidepressant wisely without seeing a doctor 1/3 my age every three months, this despite the fact that I have been taking the drug for three decades. Clearly, profits count more for the medical industry than my right to be treated like an adult and to take care of my own health as I see fit.

Nor is it just the psychiatric field and Big Pharma that profit from drug prohibition. There is a lot of money to be made by unnecessarily ruining the lives of American young people, as the following factoids suggest.

Spending on urine testing quadrupled between 2011 and 2014 to an estimated $8.5 billion annually.

State associations for Correctional Offices run ad campaigns against criminal justice reform, including $8 million spent annually by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

Private probation companies earn $40 million a year, in Georgia alone.

Pharmaceutical companies fight drug decriminalization. Example: Inys Therapeutics donated a million dollars to the DEA in an attempt to defeat cannabis legalization in Arizona.

DOJ and Treasury "forfeiture funds" amassed $29 billion between 2001 and 2014. (There's a reason why the police department and the hospital are the two largest and best-looking buildings in small-town America.)

The above numbers were sourced from the excellent book "War On Us" by Colleen Cowles ¹ ². They demonstrate the moral bankruptcy of a society in which profit comes first. This, in turn, helps explain the disturbing equanimity of the powers-that-be about the perils of AI. Silicon Valley billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg tell us that democratic oversight is anachronistic in today's world, that nothing effective can be done by a government of the people. And yet where there's a will, there's a way. When their profits were at stake, publishers found ways to keep us from accessing and downloading their videos, books and music online; they did not say, "Well, that's the Internet for you, there's nothing we can do about sales losses." There is no intrinsic reason why Democratic governments cannot intervene in the high-tech world as well, this time in defense of the right of human beings to earn a living in the age of AI. I do not personally claim to know what an effective intervention of this kind would look like; my only point here is that we should not give up on democracy merely because profit-driven techies insist on their right to "break things."

But what am I thinking? America has already given up on democracy. The existing regime in Washington, D.C., is doing everything it can to destroy democratic norms, both at home and around the world.

Well, that's torn it, as the British say. I had planned to end this essay on a breezy note, referring back to the metaphor about the "deer in the headlight" to provide a sense of closure and so forth. I had it all figured out. And then I suddenly remembered the reality of the world in which I am living in 2026 America, 250 years after the founding of the republic. This country is no more democratic than my left toe! Do you know that our King in Washington D.C. has just announced that he is creating a $1.8-billion slush fund for himself, his family, and the 1,500+ unconscionably pardoned felons who ransacked the Congress on January 6, 2021, set up a gallows for Vice President Mike Pence, maimed Capitol police officers, and defecated on office furniture?

Well, I stand by what I said above: in a democracy, we really do need to put people first and put profit second if we hope to successfully face challenges like job-snatching artificial intelligence. Fair enough? I will merely amend that advice by reminding you that you've got to have a democracy in the first place before you can tweak it as suggested. In other words, batteries not included. Goodwill and common sense sold separately.

Key Takeaways:

The main justification for capitalism is putting people to work, not earning ever-greater profits.
The 'profits first' mentality gives staying power to the evils of drug prohibition
The profit motive keeps us from taking actions to defeat global warming and to keep AI from destroying jobs.
The idea of democratic action is not anachronist in the age of IT.
America is no longer a democracy thanks to the regime in Washington, D.C.

Notes for essay entitled The problem with putting profit first in a democracy: Or in a former democracy, as the case may be:

1: “War on Us – the War on Drugs Is a War on All of Us.” 2019. Waronus.com. 2019. http://waronus.com/. (up)
2: War on Us by Colleen Cowles, J.D. DWP (up)

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The drug war has created a whole film genre with the same tired plots: drug-dealing scumbags and their dupes being put in their place by the white Anglo-Saxon establishment, which has nothing but contempt for altered states.

I've always wondered why we don't just let heroin users be -- or better yet, re-legalize drugs and give them choices. Why are they punished for using heroin daily while we praise 1 in 4 women for taking an even more dependence-causing drug every day of their life?

@HKSExecEd The use of Ecstasy brought UNPRECEDENTED peace and love to the British dance floors in the 1990s. When are political scientists going to acknowledge the potential for such substances to pull our species back from the brink of nuclear annihilation?

The drug war normalizes the disdainful and self-righteous attitude that Columbus and Pizarro had about drug use in the New World.

The benefits of outlawed drugs read like the ultimate wish-list for psychiatrists. It's a shame that so many of them are still mounting a rear guard action to defend their psychiatric pill mill -- which demoralizes clients by turning them into lifetime patients.

We're living in a sci-fi dystopia called "Fahrenheit 452", in which the police burn thought-expanding plants instead of thought-expanding books.

National Geo published an article entitled "Coca: a Blessing and a Curse." Coca was never a curse. Most people used it wisely, just as most people drink wisely. Doctors demonized it because it really worked and it could put them out of business. https://abolishthedea.com/sigmund_freuds_real_breakthrough_was_not_psychoanalysis.php

That's another problem with "following the science." Science downplays personal testimony as subjective. But psychoactive experiences are all ABOUT subjectivity. With such drugs, users are not widgets susceptible to the one-size-fits-all pills of reductionism.

Self-medicating has always been the most basic of human rights, until the medical industry demonized the practice for obvious financial reasons.

Psychedelic retreats tell us how scientific they are. But science is the problem. Science today insists that we ignore all obvious benefits of drugs.

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Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.

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tombstone for American Democracy, 1776-2024, RIP

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The problem with putting profit first in a democracy

Or in a former democracy, as the case may be

Key Takeaways:

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Diary of a Drug Fiend