On Inequality, Happiness, and Our Future

Some thoughts to be continued.

An emergent political order has arisen. We are in changed times. The change of today has benefited from lessons learned from change agents of the past. Like a craft which the artisan masters over time, today's change agents have colluded and usurped the message of prior thinkers. The exploiters of today do not own slaves; they employ and pay them. The exploiters of today do not aim to control the television, radio, or even the internet; they instead put forth appealing new platforms and spend their money until you are using what they want you to use. That is, until you are on their platform of choice, by your own choice, and there can be no accusation of compulsion or control. In this fundamental way, the exploiters of today are not different than those of yesterday.

Adams once reminisced to Jefferson about the war of independence in the United States:

"What do we mean by the Revolution? The War? That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an Effect and Consequence of it. The Revolution was in the Minds of the People, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington."

Adams understood then what we have forgotten today. The small platitudes and freedoms we are or are not granted today are granted or denied by someone. To overcome that control, Adams understood the revolution was one for mindshare. It was his vision of liberation versus the British vision pushed down on the American people. Then, as is today, change is the natural human consequence of recognizing control. The exploiters of today, then, seek control of the means of change and promote their vision for a future where this is normal, and you are happier. Their path to happiness, for you, is this hopeful view of a future painted by them, one that you will be steered towards by captains far wealthier than you.

Unlike donated (that is, mandated) hope, however, fear is an emotion that swells up from within and feels deeply personal. The exploiters of today understand that if hope is a path to happiness, then fear is a path to submission. If you do not buy their vision of hope voluntarily, they scare you into submission by putting up a scarecrow future. This scarecrow represents the grim consequences coming your way if you do not align. The scarecrow puts the fear of unemployment, hunger, class war, racism, sexism, in your mind — and you, by choice now, choose the merrier vision of the future, or you self-exile yourself fighting an unending fight. But, opposites are mapped one to one, and unwittingly, in opposing the fears fed to you, you stroke by stroke paint yourself the same future that your exploiters tried to sell you originally through hope. You either buy in wittingly with hope; or are fed fears that gradually morph your view of the world to the same vision that was pushed upon you; or self-exile yourself by playing in the sandbox of identity wars. The exploiters of today do not care whether you listen to them, or whether you come to their conclusion by your own choice.

Who are these exploiters of today? The answer is simple and yet vast. Like in Socrates' parable of the cave, it is far more comfortable to live in the dark, than it is to see the true reality: there is no grand conspiracy. There are no ultra-rich men and women in Davos scheming control over your mind. Capitalism is not inherently the root of all sin and evil. Neither Biden nor Trump consciously choose to control you. On a stranded boat in the ocean with three men aboard, a two-to-one vote is a tyranny of the majority; with two men on board, each may pursue individual choice within the constraints of the shared boat. But this too must eventually become a tyranny of the fittest. In survival, even without malice, there can only ever be room for one plan. Your exploiters do not seek to exploit you. Rather, based on the modern rubric to grade fitness, the ultra-rich believe they are most fit and that their vision that has been successful thus far is most likely to bring success again. They are not exploiting you; they are just too proud for their own good and their money amplifies their voice.

An intelligent man once taught me: "you identify the outcomes; you identify the incentives; you change the incentives; you change the outcomes." This view of the world compels empowered action and averts the mud fight game of blame.

Three Ways to Manage Man's Productivity

We thus have three ways to manage man's productivity:

1. Let citizens work as much as they can, let them save as much as they can, let them spend their savings as they wish.
2. Let citizens work as much as they can, limit the amount of savings they can accumulate through taxes, let them spend what is left however they please. (Modern Scandinavia)
3. Let citizens work as much as they can, let them accumulate as much as they can, but limit what they can spend their money on by barring investment in factors of production and force them to only consume as they wish. (Modern Russia, China)

You will note, hopefully, in the above three scenarios that encompass all the options available to structure modern society, that the only constant piece of the cycle is to work as much as you can. In the United States, in pursuit of liberty we have a complete free-flowing cycle that grants each individual choices. The unrecognized inefficiency here is that whenever a citizen purchases a means of production, as they are free to do, they have consequentially also played a role in the employment, or work, of someone else. Their decision, then, is not restricted to themselves. Whether the man is compelled to by lack of other options, or by happy choice, is at the heart of the inequality issue in western democratic society.

To be continued.