Should America be run like a business?

If we elect Donald Trump and let him run the country like you run a business.

If a commercial company operated the way the federal government does, then it would go immediately bankrupt.

Let me make it clear. Government should not be run like a business.

Now, of course, no one wants their tax dollars wasted. Cutting government waste is a good thing. But you must be careful and methodical. You must make precise cuts with a scalpel, not a - chainsaw! There's a big difference between cutting waste and running America like a business.

First and foremost, the goal of business is to make the most profit possible. Corporations like McDonald's and Walmart, they don't exist for the public good. They exist to maximize their shareholder returns. This often means paying their workers as little as possible.

Before I started comedy, I used to work at McDonald's making minimum wage. Do you know what it means when somebody pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? It's like, "Hey, if I could pay you less, I would." That's why you end up subsidizing Walmart and McDonald's with your tax dollars.

Many Walmart and McDonald's employees rely on government programs like food stamps and Medicaid to make ends meet. When McDonald's says "I'm loving it," the "it" they're referring to is the profits. The aim of government should be to make life better for the people. To provide services that help our nation achieve the common good. It's the very first sentence of the Constitution. See? Promote the general welfare.

And let's not forget.  Running a government like a business isn't just inefficient, it's dangerous. Look at what happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin. He reversed the revolutionary ideals of worker control, turning the state into a top-down autocracy that functioned like a ruthless corporation.  Exploiting labor, Stalin prioritized output over people, and he crushed dissent. The wished for "dictatorship of the proletariat" became just another dictatorship, betraying the workers it claimed to empower. A government should serve its citizens, not treat them like expendable cogs in a profit machine. State capitalism is not a replacement.

The aim of government should be to make life better for the people. To provide services that help our nation achieve the common good. It's the very first sentence of the Constitution. See? Promote the general welfare. (K-Dog's value added content)

But making people's lives better costs money and it doesn't return a profit. Wait, hold on a second. Making a profit is not the point of government. Should we gut health care services for our veterans because it's not profitable? What about inspecting our food? Should we cut Social Security and let seniors starve?

And think about schools, highways, libraries, national parks, mail delivered by the Postal Service. These are public goods that are paid for by the public and are available to everybody. That's the beauty of them.

What politicians really mean when they say they want to "run the government like a business" is they want to privatize services for their corporate backers. Wall Street would love to have its hands on your Social Security. The Trump Organization would love to turn Yellowstone National Park into a private resort for only the wealthiest to enjoy. It's not about efficiency or because these public goods "cost too much." That's rubbish.

Private corporations want to profit at your expense. But we are citizens, not customers. We're voters, not shareholders. Trump and his cabinet are not our CEO and board of directors. They are supposed to be public servants. They are supposed to be working for us.

And let's not forget Trump sucks at running businesses anyway. I can make a whole video about Trump's many, many business failures. And I have. You can watch that next. Businesses take risks in pursuit of money. That is perfectly fine. And if you run a company into the ground, you can go bankrupt like Donald Trump and start a new one. But when you take risks with the US government, you're gambling with people's lives, their constitutional rights, and their pursuit of happiness. You can't just shrug it off and start another country. Again.  The purpose of government is not to show a profit. It's to achieve the common good.

Marxist Theory in Anthropology and Sociology

In the broadest sense imaginable, Marxism is a conflict-oriented economic interpretation of history based on the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It developed into two separate traditions: one political, which aimed to overthrow capitalism in favor of some form of communism, and the other academic, which is far less politically oriented. The academic tradition exists as a form of criticism, an analytical method, and a theoretical lens used to examine everything from literature and architecture to race, gender, and political economy.

The academic tradition is frequently distorted and attacked by reactionaries who will do whatever they can do divorce a connection between Marxism and economics in the popular mind.  Such a divorce in fact makes no sense since the academic tradition was developed by Marx so he could study economics.  The academic tradition being Dialectical Materialism.  It is notable that reactionaries have no idea what Dialectical Materialism is and the louder they scream the louder is their admission of ignorance (Jordan Peterson being a notable example  (K-Dogs value added content)).


Why is Marxism conflict-oriented? In their reading of history, Marx and Engels focused on technological innovation and class conflict as the driving forces behind social development and change. While this is a simplification, they argued that all societies progressed through four stages: primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, and capitalism. Each stage was characterized by distinct technological modes of production and the revolutionary tensions between the wealthy and the poor.

For example, in primitive communism—which Marx imagined as a Stone Age hunter-gatherer society—productive labor was shared equally. Over time, technological innovations like agriculture and animal domestication led to specialized labor, creating class divisions. Some people gained power and established laws to maintain their dominance, resulting in class conflict. This dynamic, Marx argued, drives societal change: new technology exacerbates class tensions, leading to revolutionary shifts in social organization.

That scratches the surface, but leaves way too much out.

Marxist Cultural Theory

In Marxist cultural theory, this historical interpretation was combined with a structural model dividing societies into two parts for analysis:

    The Base (Infrastructure) – This consists of the technological means of production (industry, land, natural resources) and the social interactions
    tied to economic activity (buying, selling, labor relations).

    The Superstructure – This includes media, education, religion, politics, and law—the cultural institutions that shape identities and ideologies.

In classical Marxist theory, the base and superstructure exist in a dynamic relationship, each influencing the other. Marxist sociologists and anthropologists applied this model using dialectical analysis, a method that examines social groups in terms of their conflicting interests. For instance, to understand the bourgeoisie (factory and business owners), Marxist critique would analyze how their economic interests clash with those of the proletariat (working class). The dialectical approach simplifies complex social phenomena into binary conflicts, theorizing how these tensions might resolve or lead to new social structures.
Marxist Criticism

While simplified here, these models were highly influential in the social sciences. They formed the backbone of Soviet anthropology and post-revolutionary Chinese social theory, while also shaping

I am beginning to think this video is a wolf in sheep's clothing.  That last oversimplification was disgusting.  Here is some nuance:

Gramsci's revisions to Base-Superstructure Theory

Rejection of Economic Determinism: Gramsci strongly opposed the crude interpretation that the economic base mechanically determines the superstructure. While maintaining that economic relations are ultimately foundational, he emphasized the superstructure's active role in maintaining social order.

    Two-Layered Superstructure: Gramsci divided the superstructure into:

    Political Society: The state and its coercive apparatus (law, police, military)
    Civil Society: Cultural institutions (education, media, religion) that generate consent.

    Hegemony as the Key Mechanism: The ruling class maintains power not just through economic control (base) but primarily through cultural hegemony - getting subordinate classes to accept the existing order as "common sense" via civil and social.

    Relative Autonomy: Gramsci argued superstructural elements like ideology have significant autonomy from the base and can react back upon it.
    Counter-Hegemony: Revolutionary change requires winning the "war of position" in civil society before the "war of maneuver" to seize state power.


Western academic criticism.

However, Marxism has faced significant critiques:

    Anthropological Criticisms: Classical Marxist readings of history were seen as overly deterministic and Eurocentric. They imposed a European model of development onto non-European societies, a flaw heavily criticized up through the 1970s.

    Empirical Criticisms: Since Marx viewed social science as a tool for political change, his theories (and those of his followers) were often accused of partisan bias, raising questions about the objectivity of Marxist research.

By the late 20th century, postmodernism led to a generational shift away from grand Marxist narratives. Yet, many scholars retained Marxism's focus on ideology, power, and economic critique, adapting it to analyze contemporary struggles. Thinkers like Judith Butler, Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, and Axel Honneth have reimagined Marxist dialectics to examine race, gender, labor, trans rights, and minority identities.

Today, Marxism is best understood as a diverse theoretical movement with a complex past—one that reemerged as a profound critique of capitalism and its systems of exploitation, mirrored in global liberation movements.

I have to wind this up in a larger font because Marxists absolutely did not make this video.  It is a slick package that may lead you into thinking you are going to learn about Marxism watching it, but the actual fact is that this is a reactionary video that does everything it can to ignore and cancel the foundation of class struggle on which Marxism is built.

Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, and Axel Honneth have all faced accusations of being reactionary.

QuoteThe dialectical approach simplifies complex social phenomena into binary conflicts.

Is an insult.  And very clever.

Dialectics Is Not Binary Reductionism – It's the Opposite

The dialectical method, properly understood, is a dynamic framework for analyzing contradictions without collapsing them into simplistic binaries. Far from being a "simplification," it reveals how apparent opposites interpenetrate, transform, and generate new syntheses through historical movement.