For My Wife, and for

Emily and Alyssa

“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”

John Maynard Keynes

"Capitalism is not about free competitive choices among people who are reasonably equal in their buying and selling of economic power. It is about concentrating capital, concentrating economic power in very few hands, using that power to trash everyone who gets in their way."

David Korten

Chapter 1

First there would be poker, then the executions. It’s perverse to dwell on the suffering of others, but on the first Monday of every month I couldn’t think about much else. On the days I bathed, I’d hold the soap in my hands and wonder if it was rendered from the fat of someone I had seen strung up, maybe even someone I knew. Did it come from their stomach fat? From someone’s dimpled thighs? I think probably the fat from all the people executed publicly was melted together with everyone else reclamated that day, or sold at mark-up for the novelty of it.