Problems that Surfaced in the Last 100 Years
1. Crisis Capitalism
Generating problems and the treatments for them, then selling the treatments back to the people. Not cures for the problems, just ongoing treatments.
2. The Wealth Gap
A massive and growing gap between the working class and the owners of capital.
3. War as an Industry
A military-industrial complex that profits off violent conflict and does not stop, as seen by the endless wars in the Middle East.
4. Toxic Environmental Degradation
Industrial chemicals that have destroyed the environment and human health. This is compounded by the consistent ability and willingness of large corporations to lie and delay bans on toxic substances.
5. Loss of Self-Reliance and Food Autonomy
More and more people cannot grow their own food, build their own shelter, or perform basic survival and thriving skills. This vulnerability is directly exacerbated by local and federal bans on people making or preserving their own food.
6. Health Epidemics
A chronic obesity epidemic catalyzed by toxins in the food supply, driving a paired societal mental health epidemic.
7. Weaponized Hatred
Hatred is now farmable and algorithmic. It can be easily weaponized at scale in both domestic and foreign conflicts.
8. Institutional Fraud, Waste, and Abuse
As of March 2026, there are abundant examples of unchecked fraud, waste, and abuse throughout the US Federal government.
9. Ideological Stagnation
Many countries have better governance systems than the US, but there is zero mechanism that propagates the best ideas here. We take their best people through legal immigration, but we refuse to adopt their best policies.
10. Intentional National Debt
The US government has driven the national debt to $38 Trillion, and the speed of debt accumulation is increasing. The only logical conclusion is that this is purposeful: oligarchs possess a deliberate plan for gaining power or wealth from leveraging the national debt against the populace.
11. The Surveillance State and the Erosion of Privacy
The normalized, mass collection of personal data by both tech monopolies and governments. Citizens are treated as data commodities. Constant surveillance alters human behavior, stifles dissent, and creates an architecture for future authoritarianism without the need for physical force.
12. The Financialization of Basic Needs (Real Estate Monopolies)
Housing has transitioned from a basic human need into a speculative, highly-financialized asset class. Artificial scarcity (driven by zoning monopolies and mega-corps buying single-family homes) forces the working class into perpetual renting and insanely expensive living arrangements just to access jobs.
13. Regulatory Capture and "Crony" Capitalism
Massive corporations now literally write the regulations meant to govern them. This creates a moat that prevents small businesses, startups, and self-reliant individuals from competing. It forms monopolies legally enforced by the threat of government violence.
14. The Attention Economy and Algorithmic Manipulation
The deliberate engineering of digital platforms to hijack human dopamine systems. This results in the destruction of societal attention spans, the radicalization of political discourse, and massive psychological damage to younger generations who are addicted by design.
15. Healthcare Bureaucracy and Medical Debt
The shift from local, outcome-based medical care to a hyper-financialized insurance maze. Administrative costs vastly outweigh the cost of actual care. Illness becomes an industry where curing a patient is less profitable than permanently managing their symptoms.
16. The Education Bubble and Debt Peonage
The extreme inflation of higher education costs, subsidized by non-dischargeable government loans. Millions of young adults enter the workforce as modern indentured servants, saddled with debt before they can even attempt to build capital or own property.
17. Fiat Currency Devaluation and Hidden Inflation
The abandonment of hard currency in favor of endless money printing (fiat currency) by central banks. This acts as a hidden, regressive tax on the working class. It continuously destroys their purchasing power and forces them into the stock market casino just to preserve their wealth.
18. Media Consolidation and Narrative Control
Almost all major news, entertainment, and communication infrastructure is owned by a handful of mega-conglomerates. It creates a monolithic propaganda machine that crushes independent journalism and dictates the bounds of acceptable public thought.
19. Planned Obsolescence and the Right to Repair
Products (from tractors to smartphones) are deliberately designed to break down quickly and be legally or technically unrepairable by the owner. It forces endless, wasteful consumption and deliberately strips individuals of their mechanical self-reliance.
20. The Atomization of Society
The rapid breakdown of the nuclear family, high-trust local communities, and "third places" (community centers, parks, local diners). People are increasingly isolated and lonely, forcing them to rely on the state and massive corporations to fill the roles once occupied by neighbors and local networks.
Note: Child labor was also a major issue in the early 1900s, but it took a massive organized labor movement to solve it. See Problems that have Been Solved Already.md for context on past ideological victories.