“Limbo” (2020) covers the story of a Syrian immigrant stuck in the asylum process in Scotland along with several other asylum seekers from around the world.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

“The Water Man” (2020) is an American drama about a teenage boy finds out that the legends of a local immortal may turn out to be more than just legend so goes off to find this creature in one last ditch effort to cure his dying mom.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

“Nobody” (2021) is an American action movie where we see what happens when a wussy American dad turns out to be a bad-ass.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

“Fatima” (2020) is a movie about the events around a supposed series of Virgin Maria appearances to three small children in the small Portuguese village of Fatima.

For years now, the concentration of wealth and power into too few hands has bothered me. That it gets progressively worse with so little action to address this is even more troubling. Why? Because such lopsidedness creates an inherently unstable system state. Historically, even the most resilient of systems break when wealth inequality becomes unsustainable. Increasingly, the have-nots resent being forced into a system in which the barriers to success are so high. Nonetheless, these trends continue.

There are those who see no issue with the status quo, and a minority may view it as morally justified. Conversely, there are others who think nothing less than a full scale teardown and replacement of the private property foundations of capitalism is what’s required. Neither of these options are viable, but there must be a way out of this mess.

I’m not big on pontification or mental exercises, though I admit someone has to fill those roles. I’m a pragmatist. I’m a fan of getting things done. While grand sweeping changes can feel better in a thought exercise, it’s more often small incremental changes that cause major lasting changes. Anyone who’s visited the Grand Canyon can attest to the power of small changes that add up to big ones over time. An obese person could lose 50 pounds by going on a diet that prescribes a mild caloric deficit and exercise over a year. They might gain the same results by getting liposuction, or, in a more drastic example, by amputating a limb. That last one obviously serves as an example of emphasizing the wrong parameter—and profoundly so. The point is, the small incremental changes can lead to bigger ones, and often with less overall turmoil. Additionally, small changes over time become a habit, a way of being in the world with an assumed set of priorities and assumptions that become self-reinforcing. Now, those changes naturally resist reversion to the old attitudes that caused so many problems in the first place.

Accepting this as a foundational principle, I thought hard about it for a while and read a few hopeful anecdotes, but only recently was I introduced to a world of people taking this incremental approach regarding ownership of the economy. This approach isn’t some theoretical, historical, or “unicorn” idea. It’s a real thing at work in the world at this very moment. It is a concept of distributed ownership of companies some call “Capitalism 2.0”. It’s about using cooperative corporate structures to put real power in the hands of a company’s workers, customers, content producers, or the communities built around that company.

While this approach is gaining momentum, it doesn’t yet have critical mass, and it hasn’t become the default economic model, a fact made obvious by a continually widening wealth gap. If this model—one of distributed ownership—solves so many problems, why hasn’t it prevailed? What would allow it to do so? Those are some things I want to explore more and discuss a bit here.

“Demon Slayer: Mugen Train” (2020) is a Japanese anime movie about the journey of a younger apprentice demon slayer as he confronts demon after demon on a train.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

“Together Together” (2021) is an American comedy starring Patti Harrison and Ed Helms . It follows the entire pregnancy process of a single guy and his surrogate as they both navigate the experience and the boundaries around it.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

“The Father” (2020) is an British drama starring Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins . The film is a tour of the experience of dealing with life changes brought on by increasing dementia and how they appear through the mind of the person undergoing that horrible mental degenerative process

(SPOILERS BELOW)

“Wrath of Man” (2021) is an American action/thriller starring Jason Statham in one of his typical stone cold bad-asses, this time in the form of a mysterious cash truck guard with next level skills.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

“The Unholy” (2021) is an American horror movie about a young deaf girl who believes she was cured by the Virgin Mary who speaks to her but is it all what it seems?

(SPOILERS BELOW)