By KIM BELLARD

I recently read both Plastic, Inc. (Beth Gardiner) and These Are the Plunderers (Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner), and, boy, am I mad. Nothing in either book really came as a surprise, but the degree to which some people are willing to be greedy at the expense of others is still daunting. The latter introduced me to the phrase “Asshole Capitalism,” a phrase that comes from the work of Aaron James, a philosophy professor at University of California, Irvine. It can be summed up as a system where “citizens feel entitled to unlimited personal enrichment even at social cost.”

In other words, capitalism. No wonder a recent survey found that 43% of U.S, adults view socialism favorably (although Vice President J.D. Vance finds it a hard term to define and seems to think it has to do with foreign workers and transgender athletes).

Plastic, Inc. tells the story of how, over the course of several decades, the petrochemical industry has worked to have us consume ever more plastic while not only absolving themselves of the responsibility for what happens to all that plastic but also boldly attempting to make consumers feel guilty about not doing a better job of recycling it. Those of us of a certain age might remember the “Crying Indian” littering ad. Well, that ad was sponsored and paid for by the industries that were producing the litter.

These Are the Plunderers shows how private equity firms blithely take companies and strip them of valuable assets, enriching themselves while often essentially destroying the companies. The authors focus much attention on healthcare, such as nursing homes or emergency room staffing, in which private equity ownership leads to demonstrably higher costs, job cuts, and worse care, while making boatloads of money for the private equity owners. Manufacturing, retailing, and other industries have also had victims.

Capitalism is replete with disregard for the common good. E.G., the fossil fuel industry giving us cheap gas without being responsibly for the ensuing climate change, mining companies that strip the earth while wrecking ecological damage on the environment, or manufacturers that pollute their local communities then close the factories when asked to clean up their waste. Capitalism has a very bad habit of not recognizing either costs imposed on others or costs to clean up their actions. It’s someone else’s problem, and that someone else usually ends up being those of us who pay taxes, or whose health is deemed unimportant.

Cancer alley is no secret, nor are the health risks of the fracking craze that has supercharged the profits of oil & gas companies. We’re becoming more aware of how pervasive microplastics are, and just starting to realize how bad that is for us.