In the early 20^th century, Adolf Hitler argued that “the Jew” is a parasite race that exploits and ultimately destroy the honest laborer through the parallel forces of commerce, finance and media. Of course, Hitler considered the Jew to be incapable of actual invention. He couldn’t foresee the role of technology.

Those who have brought his theories into the 21^st century see commerce and finance funding and enabling technologies that replace the average worker while drugging them with media. Robots are learning how to manage every aspect of a distribution center; they already dominate enormous swaths of manufacturing itself. Construction may not be far behind. Meanwhile, media promotes all of these changes while drugging the masses into non-resistance through social media, gaming and streaming entertainment. 

All of these fields have tremendously disproportionate Jewish and Israeli representation.

Coronavirus is only accelerating these changes. Automation in the workplace, the power of the online world and the undermining of manual labor are all growing in importance at a destabilizing rate. The modern inheritors of Hitler’s theory might argue that unemployment checks are meant to lull the people while their agency and independence are sucked away. 

The only question for many is whether the riots and protests will come hard and fast enough to break a system based on privilege, discrimination and exploitation.

This conspiracy might be entirely believable to me except for one slight issue: I am a Jew, I live in Israel and I happen to know better. 

I know there is no “Jew.” We disagree with each other far too vociferously to actually manage a complex conspiracy. We are all just trying to live our lives to their fullest, although we define ‘fullest’ in very different ways. Many eschew the pursuit of material success – either for religious or social justice reasons. Others seek to add to human knowledge, understanding and capability. And still others still use their talents to entertain. Some are criminals, some philanthropists and many are poverty-stricken. 

Even though I know the theory is invalid, it reflects a terrifying reality. Today, technology, finance and coronavirus are concentrating wealth and sidelining huge numbers of workers at a frightening pace. Increasingly, they are being pushed into becoming passive observers of the world. In this situation, those who live the life of the mind (Jewish or not) will retain or even enhance their relative standing. And those who are left behind will hate and resent those who seem to have taken what they once had.

The solution is not to condemn those who hate. As I see Jews push back against Jew-hatred with censorship or condemnation, I see people missing the point. The Weimar Republic criminalized anti-semitic speech and tried and convicted people of the crime. Their efforts only served to supercharge the larger social trends that Hitler rode to power. 

I believe the bubbling background of Jew-hatred is a constant in our world. It is driven by any number of causes. The emergence of that Jew-hatred into mass acceptability is not a symptom of antisemitism, it is a symptom of far greater problems. 

Put another way, people do a terrible job of just taking a handout and watching life shuffle by. Religious or not, human beings do not live on bread alone. We must have agency. We must either be creators or destroyers. If we are denied the opportunity to create, only the path of destructions remains open to us.

It is this reality that must color our reactions to the coronavirus. Even as the immediate effects of the virus recede, the long-term effects will remain. We are seeing more automation, more centralization of government control, and soon, far higher taxes to pay for the debts we have incurred. 

People are losing their agency and independence. This will lead to terrible destruction.

Jew-hatred isn’t the problem. It is only a symptom.

The policy shifts I’ve advocate for on this site – and in my mock-Presidential campaign as Candidate Everyone – are about addressing the real problems we face.

I want people involved in creation, even if their work isn’t worth $15/hr. This is why I believe we need a taxation system that makes it easier for people to enter the world of creation, while enabling them to earn what they need to get by. I want to replace our incredibly complex tax structure with a relatively simple progressive sales tax, with negative rates for any individual’s initial spending and credits for business and charitable spending.

I want people to feel they have a voice in their own governance. The original United States had the population of Denver. Even so, they devolved responsibilities to individual states, counties and towns. There were no national police. This is why I support neighborhood management of neighborhood police. Oversight on a city, state and federal level would continue to exist to prevent corruption and illegal discrimination, but neighborhoods would manage their own cops. This model could be extended to other areas.

I want people to control their own healthcare, while not living of fear of losing it. This is why I support government payment for the median cost of health services. People can choose the healthcare they value. If they find services they need for less than the median, they can keep the difference (up to 5% of the median cost). Their choices will drive down the cost of healthcare while driving up the quality.

I want people to control their children’s education, while not being driven away from others in our society. This is why I support government payment for the median cost of education – that can be applied to any program. Just as with healthcare, parents can pocket up to 5% of these savings, driving down median costs. This financial package would be paired with an exchange requirement. Every student would be required to attend a randomly assigned school in their area for several weeks a year. This way Muslim, Jewish, Environmental, Socialist, Christian and other students would be exposed to each other’s cultures even as there are educated in the way their own parents value.

And I want those outside the United States to find their own path towards freedom and agency. This is why I support a foreign policy that empowers the world.

Our society is suffering. We can help. Not with handouts and not with tough love – but with policies that enable people to regain their sense of agency and responsibility. 

Jew-hatred, riots, mass protests and the sundering of civic life in the contest for the high-throne in D.C. are symptoms of body politic that is fundamentally ill.

The window for treatment is closing fast.