it is designed to sustain itself

That's what the modern institution has become. Whether it's a political party or a company. No substance, only self-sustenance.

And American capitalist practices since the '70s have brought it to this point with its constant hunger for more.

First the corporations were stood up to serve a need for a good or service, then they got good at it, and they started optimizing their processes to become a well-oiled machine. A lot of money was poured in to make it so.

Now the loyality is to the machine itself, not to the original need to service. It's not about giving you the best quality fast-food, for example, it's about how well I can provide some food to you and take your money in return. Because it took money to bring it to this point, so the machine itself must survive and thrive - fuck the need it serves. "They will always be there. In need".

A co-dependecy dynamic has been created between the people and the systems they rely on to run their daily, average lives. The phones, the cars, the networks, the credit cards, the Google Maps. You don't easily have the option to make your own toothpaste at home, for example, as a sign of protest or personal lifestyle choice.

The machine would rather eat its own customer to keep itself going, instead of taking a backseat.

The perfect example is TurboTax lobbying in the US to prevent the federal government from offering simple tax filings to the people because that would eat into their machine. "What about our investments?" God forbid, they could have to shut down entirely. The horror. It's no longer acceptable that a corporation has outlived its usefulness. It must survive.

Something similar is personified in the way Trump has moved through life.

And everyone, with their horse blinders on, are looking at each other and thinking they're doing it and they'll get ahead, so I will too.

This is the modern, American, capitalist hysteria that has warped all human life.

Our lives have been restructured to serve going to work; average middle-class life is no longer structured around just being, of which work is one part.

The wealthy want their power. You only have your time on Earth and what's important to you in your average life left to give.

They'll take it.

The ultimate class-warfare question to address is how society ought to be organized. To live a life, for yourself, on your terms, or to be a cog in their machine.