Confused and Confusing –
Somewhere along the way, I developed a bad habit. During my earliest schooling, when I learned to print the letters of the alphabet and spell words, I accidentally confused the lowercase “b” with the lowercase “p.” It is obviously a simple mistake. But it stuck. To this day, when I am writing a note in my scratchy printing style, I have to stop and check for the error.
Worse—and I am sure psychologists would have a fancy Latin word for it—when I learned to type, I continued to confuse the “b” with the “p.” This is no slip of the fingers. This error requires confusion of both hands, different fingers reaching to different rows. It shows up in lowercase and uppercase alike.
Deep, unconscious confusion.
And this seems to be what has ailed this country for centuries. Generation after generation. The Bible speaks of the “sins of the fathers” being visited down the line—three or four generations, depending on who is counting. We have managed to stretch one particular sin across nearly all the years of European occupation in North America.
I am talking about what I call capitalized labor.
From the beginning of civilization, those who owned land sought to extract value from it – livestock, grain, minerals. And the more labor one could command, the greater the return. The logic is simple: minimize the cost of labor, maximize the yield. That principle was not invented here. It was inherited, refined, and carried across the Atlantic.
And when these people arrived, they found something astonishing: land, vast and promising. Wealth, waiting. All that remained was labor.
The people occupying this land refused to be drafted into the project. So, workers could be brought over under contract – indentured, their passage paid in advance, their labor pledged in return. But there were problems. Contracts ended. Workers became free. And worse, they could run away. Just leave. Disappear into a continent large enough to swallow them whole. The investment walked away.
So the system adapted.
Over time, a more “reliable” form of labor took hold – one that did not depend on contracts that could expire or people who could blend in. Human beings were taken, transported, and reduced to property. And crucially, they were made visible as such. Skin color became a marker. A category. A boundary that could not be crossed or hidden.
The language followed. Human beings were renamed, reduced, reclassified. Not neighbor. Not worker. Not even prisoner.
Something less. Dare I say the word? Is silence a valid atonement?
A mistake. A sin. But not merely a personal one. This was cultural. Systemic. Efficient.
The deeper sin is not just slavery. It is the capitalization of human labor itself – the elevation of profit over person. The quiet, persistent worship of money not as a tool, but as a source of power. A way to master reality. In practice, a god.
And the confusion returns: the “b” becomes the “p.”
We begin to treat value as if it resides in the thing itself – in the bill, in the number, in the account. “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” We say it as though the paper holds the power. As though the value is inherent.
It isn’t.
My dad tells a story about a fellow in my hometown who never really had money. But he did have a checking account.
One day, he bought something from Dad for five dollars. Dad knew the check would bounce. He took it anyway – and signed it over to his grocer friend in exchange for some food.
The grocer also knew it would bounce, so he passed it along to the gas station owner.
The gas station owner used it to settle up with the blacksmith.
And so it went.
A small slip of cash register paper was eventually stapled to the back to make room for all the signatures. The thing kept moving – accepted, endorsed, passed.
I’m told that check ended up in the town museum.
The value of money is not in the ink or the paper. Not in gold. Not in markets. Not even in institutions. Its value is assigned – agreed upon, enforced, and maintained because it is the only thing accepted to settle what we owe.
At some point, even kings learned the trick – turning debt into money, and money into power.
It works. It is necessary.
But it is not ultimate.
Empires require money. So do households. We need a way to measure exchange, to balance what we give and what we take. That will not change anytime soon.
But when we confuse the measure with the meaning – when we elevate the tool into a master we serve – we begin to justify anything that increases its supply.
Including the reduction of human beings.
Until we experience some kind of evolution – moral, spiritual, or otherwise – that recognizes the full humanity of every person, we will continue to produce systems that sort, rank, and diminish.
We may never entirely cure the confusion.
We may always, in one way or another, keep mixing up our “b’s” with our “p’s.”
