The Great Distraction

The Great Distraction: Why Chasing Money Is the Problem—and Owning the Economy Is the Solution

BY: OMOLAJA MAKINEE

Modern capitalist society trains people to believe that their problems are financial rather than structural. Governments, financial institutions, influencers, and even school systems repeat the same message in different forms: get more money. Save more. Invest more. Buy assets. Learn crypto. Trade stocks. Stack pensions. Build credit. Hedge inflation. Buy property. Diversify portfolios. Hold Bitcoin. Hold Ethereum. Speculate in XRP. Chase ETFs, index funds, REITs, bonds, NFTs, commodities, derivatives, futures, options.

This endless list is not accidental. It is a distraction mechanism. The logic presented is simple but false:

If individuals just manage money better, society will be fine.

But history and lived reality show the opposite. The problem is not that people lack money skills. The problem is that money itself has been positioned as the gatekeeper to survival, while the actual abundance of goods, labour, skills, technology, and productive capacity already exists.

Ethno-corporatism begins by exposing this illusion.

1. The False Promise of Financial Solutions

Capitalist governments encourage people to chase money because money keeps people busy, anxious, competitive, and individually focused. When people are told that wealth accumulation is the solution, they stop questioning who owns production, who controls distribution, and why scarcity exists despite abundance.

Consider the contradictions:

  • Food is wasted while people starve.
  • Houses sit empty while people are homeless or living in temporary accommodations.
  • Technology advances while basic services decline.
  • Productivity rises while wages stagnate.
  • Wealth concentrates while labour expands.

These contradictions persist not because society lacks money, but because ownership is centralised in the hands of the 1% class.

Financial instruments—stocks, crypto, savings accounts, pensions—do not solve this. They merely offer individuals a chance to climb within a broken structure. Most people never do. Even those who succeed do so at the expense of others competing for the same narrow financial ladder. Greed and more greed is the order of the capitalist market, accumulation is its bounty, and the separation between the haves and the haves-not is its moral compass.

Ethno-corporatism rejects this ladder entirely.

2. The Supermarket Analogy: Understanding Ethno-Corporatism Simply

Imagine the largest supermarket you can think of. Bigger than any hypermarket, warehouse store, or online marketplace. It contains:

  • Fresh food and cooked meals,
  • Electronics, TVs, phones, computers,
  • Clothing, furniture, tools,
  • Medicine, hygiene products,
  • Everything needed for a decent life.

Now imagine you enter this store as a customer.

  • You have limited money.
  • You can only buy what your money allows.
  • You walk past things you need but cannot afford.
  • You make compromises.
  • You feel scarcity—not because goods are scarce, but because access is restricted by money.
  • You want a better TV but settle for none.
  • You want a proper meal but choose cheaper food.
  • You want dignity but must negotiate affordability.

This is capitalism.

Now imagine something different.

  • You are invited not just to shop—but to own the store.
  • You and your community collectively own the supermarket.
  • You participate in its operation.
  • You help decide production, supply, and distribution.
  • The store gives you money only to trade externally for items it does not yet produce.
    Inside the system, money loses its power over your survival.

Now your mindset changes completely:

  • You are no longer chasing affordability.
  • You are managing abundance.
  • You are no longer a consumer begging access.
  • You are a co-owner directing provision.

Which would you choose? Chasing money to buy goods—or owning the system that produces them?

Ethno-corporatism chooses ownership.

3. Why Capitalism Keeps People Chasing Money

Capitalism cannot allow collective ownership at scale because it relies on:

  • Artificial scarcity,
  • Wage dependency,
  • Competitive individualism,
  • Debt as discipline,
  • Financial anxiety as motivation.

When people are busy chasing money, they do not ask:

  • Why are necessities monetised?
  • Why does work not guarantee dignity?
  • Why does society produce abundance but distribute scarcity?
  • Why does survival depend on market success?

The obsession with financial literacy, crypto wealth, stock portfolios, and passive income is not liberation—it is misdirection. Most people are not poor because they failed to invest. They are poor because they do not own production.

4. Ethno-Corporatism: Bypassing Money, Not Work

Ethno-corporatism does not eliminate work. It eliminates money as the gatekeeper of life. Under ethno-corporatism:

  • Communities own production collectively.
  • Work is organised through functional contribution, not wage desperation.
  • Goods and services are provisioned directly.
  • Money becomes an external accounting tool, not an internal survival mechanism.
  • Value is measured in output and usefulness, not price speculation.

People work because:

  • Society needs things produced.
  • Contribution grants access, dignity, and participation.
  • Collective prosperity replaces individual hoarding.

This is not fantasy. It mirrors how families function, how communities historically functioned, and how large organisations internally operate—without employees needing to buy their own chairs, electricity, or tools with wages.

Capitalism simply refuses to scale this logic to society.

5. Why Africa Is at a Crossroad

Africa stands at a decisive moment.

One path says:

  • Learn the markets.
  • Invest better.
  • Chase dollars.
  • Copy Western financial systems.

The other path says:

  • Own production.
  • Control distribution.
  • Organise collectively.
  • Build systems that serve people directly.

Africa does not lack resources. It lacks ownership. It lacks control over how its labour and goods are organised. Ethno-corporatism offers a path that:

  • Frees Africans from endless financial chasing,
  • Anchors dignity in participation, not money,
  • Restores communal logic in modern form,
  • Aligns production with social need, not market speculation.

Conclusion: The Real Choice Before Us

The choice is not between poverty and wealth.

The choice is between:

  • Chasing money forever in systems designed for scarcity, or
  • Owning the systems that produce abundance.

Capitalism tells you to chase coins. Ethno-corporatism tells you to own the store. One keeps you running. The other lets you build.

Africa must decide—not tomorrow, not someday—but NOW!

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Ethnocorporatism