Wednesday, January 20, 2010

line of shame

"Thousands upon thousands are yearly brought into a state of real poverty by their great anxiety not to be thought poor." --William Cobbett (1763 – 1835)


Lost causes are my secret love. Erasing the dividing line between the rich and the poor is my favorite. But, what am I talking about?

Hardly anything is as difficult to define as the line that separates the poor and the rich. Tell me what it is exactly, where you think this ominous line is located, and I am confident we won't find a second human being who agrees with you.

That is one third of the problem.

The second problematic part is that some individuals insist on the existence of a poverty-wealth chasm, and they are determined to alter its position toward equality. Something we cannot define is supposed to be moved from one mythical location to another.

The possible consequences of such endeavor make me shudder. Nothing useful can come from it. On the contrary, well-intentioned help often helps the helper more than anybody else, and
it fosters "the very culture of dependence [it] so desperately needs to break." (Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, in a recent article "To Help Haiti, End Foreign Aid")

Oh, you mean equality can be defined and it is not a vague concept at all? True, but that's not the kind of equality the noble equalizers have in mind. Remember Orwell's Animal Farm:
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." People love to share other people's money but, when that is gone, they loathe sharing everybody's lack. Taking money from "the rich" and giving it to "the poor" never includes the money of those who ask for such preposterous transactions.

At any rate, here is the worst portion of the tricky rich-poor dilemma: talking about both the rich and the poor is a form of discrimination! All notorious consequences of prejudice are included. "The poor are..." Go ahead and fill in the blanks. "They should..." "The rich are..." "They really ought to..." Whatever you say, it'll be a generalizing label and as false as the numbers on your last lottery ticket.

Seasoning one's speech with rich-poor remarks--to support the poor by taxing the rich, for instance, or to elevate poverty to a status of moral superiority--means one of three things:

a) For the purpose of the greater good, naturally, you expect to gain political mileage from evoking cheap emotions in your audience. You don't hesitate to shamelessly exploit those you claim to defend and, since you recklessly accuse random bystanders of being culprits, you have no real interest to improve the status quo of those in need.

b) You are a faithful of the zero-sum religion and
secretly you believe the earth is flat.

c)
You are channeling your mom.

Incredibly arrogant accusations? Yes. But accusing people of being poor or rich, the notion that governments should decide how poor or rich a person is permitted to be, and the demand that the law must intrude and change those individuals' lives--now THAT is true arrogance!

Hey, I am not interested in becoming a language Nazi. What do I care about your use of four-letter words. Be my guest and keep 'poor' and 'rich' in your preferred vocabulary. The problem I see is the underlying meaning, its inflation, or the utter lack of meaning.

How can the lack of meaning be dangerous? Think of mantras: repeat them a couple of hundred times and their original meaning disappears, giving way to the perfect trance. It's the same with 'rich' and 'poor'. Drop those words and anyone who is listening snaps into a trance and heads begin to nod. It hardly matters what you say after inducing the trance. Nobody will question your motives or the content of your utterances.

It is impossible to use the word 'rich' without triggering a bunch of connotations: awe, jealousy, guilt, disgust, respect, anger,... The list is as endless as it is individual: everything you say about the so-called rich or the so-called poor is your personal projection. Conversations about the poor and the rich are disconnected from facts and reality. They solely revolve around the beliefs of the participants, and the purpose of such discussions is self-righteous masturbation.

Talk about someone's living condition, her illnesses, a person's level of education, achievements, or about an individual's bank balance. It can be done and facts support broad agreement. Is there Malaria? Yep, it's a sad fact. Malaria can be objectively diagnosed. HIV infections and starvation? Unfortunately, yes.

Is there poverty? That is more or less subject to personal judgment, uniquely manufactured in one's mind.

Are there people who generate an annual income in excess of $10 million? Sure there are. Are they rich? If you think so. Do you believe a guy who makes a million bucks a year thinks of himself as rich when he compares himself to an individual who makes $80 million per annum? Doubtful.

From the perspective of 95% of the world's population, the poorest mountain hick in America, driving a 30-year old pickup truck, is a rich guy. A 30-year old Chevy truck is a fact and so is a $30 million dollar mansion. Both can be discussed. Poverty and wealth are elusive: before you can make your point, the fact-supported parts of your subject will have slipped through your fingers.

The infinite power of the invisible:

Homo Sapiens is in awe of everything that can neither be empirically demonstrated nor disproved. God(s), Satan, angels, demons, the soul, love, peace, the hereafter, etc. Wealth and poverty are members of this exalted group of invisible yet infinitely powerful forces, realms, and entities. It's not real power that I am talking about, but imaginary power within a person's mind. Too many brains turn into mush when confronted with that sort of stuff.

Over the millennia we have given power to the meaning of 'poverty'. We even believe we can "see" poor and rich people. I am sorry, but fighting poverty cannot eradicate poverty.
It is more like tilting at windmills: "Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. ... For this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless." Don Quixote fought windmills that he imagined to be giants and we fight poverty and against the evil rich simultaneously.

Starvation and Malaria can be successfully fought, and I am ashamed that we haven't made much progress yet, while poverty cannot be overcome. One thing that invites us to hold on to poverty and to our imaginary solutions for the poor is our--equally misguided--idea of the rich: the rich are the reason for and the antidote to poverty, in our mind. The poor don't have money because the rich have it in their pockets. Simplistic zero-sum thinking, or nincompoop economics.

As generous as we are with the invisible and the vast powers we ascribe to the rich, as stingy are we with visible matter. If it is--"it" being money, goods, food--over there, it can't be here
. Easily we dismiss the fact that we can indeed produce food for 12 billion people, for twice the current population of planet Earth. Distribution of food or money, etc. is not the solution but rather the reason for disastrous circumstances in developing regions.

It is unintelligent to say that the rich have money because the poor do not. Individuals and corporations who enjoy making money can only make more money off of people who have money themselves. Wal-Mart would love to open a thousand stores in Africa. Bill Gates would be delighted to sell a copy of Windows 7 to every child in North Korea. BMW has planned to set up a dozen dealerships in India by the end of 2010 and have them sell 10,000 cars per year. Don't you think they seek to increase those numbers?

Only complete dorks believe that individuals with money have an interest in others being penniless.
Blaming the rich for the poor being poor is no more intelligent than blaming the healthy for the sick being sick.

Here is the problem:

You can't become an activist and expect to eliminate poverty during your lifetime. You could try, but you won't be the first or the last who will fail.


Here is my proposition:

End poverty today! Don't label any human being as poor. Stop referring to any individual as being rich. Make the disgusting line between the poor and the rich disappear. Nothing is easier than that because this shameful line was never existent and only imaginary.

That would be convenient for the rich to get off the hook that easily? No: if you drop your mental and emotional investment in the existence of poverty and in the idea that people can be thought of as poor, you are making room for the freedom of practical creativity and for a rational approach of actual problems.

What do you have to gain from "healing" the world from the poor and from the rich at once? It will purge an unproductive heap of clutter from your mind. The deliberate termination of an outdated idea of wealth and poverty, of poor and rich people, gives way to fresh experimentation. The fear of dying poor ends as well as the fearful hope of striking it rich (and ending up as one of "them").

Discrimination of any kind stifles social and economic development. When people stop being obsessed with each other's differences, they are free to do more of what they want, allowing others to enjoy increased freedom as well.

It takes guts to declare poverty as non-existent, and I don't blame you if you hesitate to do so. But if you don't end poverty today, it will never happen. The rich and the poor may have played important roles in tales of Robin Hood, in Charles Dickens' novels, and in Karl Marx's 'Capital' (Das Kapital), but the whole idea is ripe to be mothballed.

There is nothing to be lost and a world of freedom to be gained: nobody is poor, nobody is rich, and the fateful line between us is gone.

Egbert Sukop




"When I was growing up, our town was so poor our rainbows came in black and white." --Robert D. Cowan

Friday, January 1, 2010

capitalist fool

capitalism:
"an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market"

socialism:
"
any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"

(according to Merriam-Webster)


I am a pig!

A capitalist pig, to be exact. Do you care for freedom? Freedom of speech is one thing but the freedom to conceive, to concoct, to market, and to trade goods and services is as important for adults as a sandlot for children. And yet, a free market will remain a grand illusion. The control freaks of the world won't permit free markets. Too many folks are channeling their mom's forbidding tone of voice: "What if everybody did that?!"

The main reason we don't have free markets is that people don't trust themselves.

Freedom is too frightening for most, and we rather manage our own and other people's small-mindedness than deal with a growing wealth of options. As thrilled as we are watching football and hockey, the average specimen of homo sapiens prefers to be a secondhand adventurer. Safety and stability seem to have a greater value for most than the opportunity to make mistakes and the subsequent discovery of new horizons. Winning looks enticing only when the possibility of losing has been minimized or eliminated in advance. That's as common as it is dangerous:
you can't truly win until you have made peace with the painful reality of losing. A poor wretch who can only be happy when he happens to be successful.

Neglecting ourselves, we demand security before we pursue freedom. From the government, as the largest employer in the country, to the dry cleaner at the corner: we expect parental rules, a full fridge, and the mind numbing boredom of a reasonably dysfunctional family life. We surrender freedom and individuality in exchange for nearly guaranteed mortgage payments and food on the table.

Teenagers can afford to be obnoxious and omniscient as long as they enjoy the safety of their parents' house and care. Translate that into the adult world and you realize that hating your job is a luxury, made possible and financed by those who provide you with a job and pay your rent.

Every one of us was born into a socialist environment.

Literally, and it doesn't matter whether you were born in America or in the late Soviet Union. Economically, you were raised in an environment of "
collective or governmental (parental) ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods." The school system continued your socialist upbringing with a collectively controlled distribution of information. Free speech? You must be kidding!

Sure, there was some rebellion when we were kids, but after each futile episode we realized with a growl how the benefits of "the system" outweighed its oppressive factors. From day one, we learned that socialism keeps us fed, clothed, and relatively safe.

The parental-socialist environment is conservative in its nature (Websters, "conservative:"
tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions; marked by moderation or caution; marked by or relating to traditional norms of taste or manners). It is meant to keep the kids out of too much trouble and to guarantee the survival of the family as a unit.

An ideal child-rearing home may have socialist foundations and be conservative at the same time. Yet conservatism describes the opposite end of the spectrum. A paradox? How come? I am afraid I will upset a lot of people within the next minute, but hell, it's not the first time and it won't be the last. Here goes:

Socialism "feels" right, it describes the perfect children's world, and I wish everybody could grow up in such a sheltered paradise. But once a person matures, conscious thinking and the ability to employ reason must increasingly substitute decision making that's based on 'feelings'. The history from socialism to capitalism--personally and collectively--is roughly the evolution from childhood to adulthood.

Have you had a chance to visit a socialist country, Eastern Germany perhaps, before the wall was torn down in 1989? Run by people who enjoy plucking the wings off of butterflies, real-world socialism is a pubertal environment that prevents individuals from development and maturity. Practically it's synonymous with the condemnation to eternal
preadolescence.

Often I have heard that not everybody is cut out to become an entrepreneur. True. By their very nature, some individuals must live and work freely. They can't handle the existence of a superior and they despise being part of a corporate structure. Most of our fellow citizens may hate corporations, but they will never question their status quo as employees. They are happier as employees, and it doesn't matter whether they love, merely endure, or outright hate their jobs.

Do what you want to do. I don't judge your life choices. I am writing this for those who are on the fence between employment and the option of self-employment. Perhaps you have done both in succession or one after the other. If you have a job and you will never let it go, why not build a business on the side for fun and profit: have you considered the double-life of a parallel entrepreneur?

Whether you see yourself as a capitalist or as a socialist is not a matter of opinion. Neither is your preferred economical system a reflection of your income. The question is where you intend to go in the future.

That means, if you choose employment--a sort of voluntary enslavement--you may not want to call yourself a capitalist in public.
Even if you don't like your work, you are still in support of a governmental or corporate system that buffers you from the cold harsh reality of selling gizmos for food. And, almost by definition, if you are an employee you hate your job and you bite the evil capitalist's hand that feeds you.

If you choose self-employment or entrepreneurship, instead of or parallel to your existing job, you can't afford to be a socialist. It can't be in your interest to denounce capitalism. Well, except when your name is Michael Moore and denouncing capitalism is your business.

Capitalism is hated for the same reasons jobs are being hated: people love to hate the essentials of life, and biting the hands that feed us is a favorite resource of emotional sustenance. Productive employment and its perks depend on capitalists. Therefore we must despise them. It is the fault of evil employers that I have to do this dirty slave work. Right?

We don't even think about the benefits of capitalism without feeling guilty. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and George Soros are the strongest supporters of the Democratic party, the party of the covertly wealthy. No surprise at all: hardly any capitalist feels free to openly call herself a capitalist, for the same reason you don't take your mink to a PETA convention. It's like proudly announcing that you are the black sheep in the family.

Socialist - capitalist: I couldn't care less what you want to call yourself or how you choose to live your life. But you may give capitalism a second thought. I really don't give a hoot about political and economical theories, right now, or whether you consider yourself rich or poor. That stuff is of secondary importance. What does matter--to you--is this:

Do you care about the freedom of speech? If you do, why would you care less about your freedom to act, produce, and trade? And if you want to live as you choose, what would hold you back to say so?

Capitalism is the material equivalent of the freedom of speech. Hatred of capitalism is similar to being suspicious of life itself. If we can't trust capitalism as an evolutionary frame for the development of our economical affairs, we cannot trust evolution.

And we better ask mom and dad for guidance.

Egbert Sukop