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The Power Of The People

Money

Money

MONEY! This is a topic that evokes a wide variety of thoughts and emotions. This site will contain a lot of information and discussion about money as time goes by. There is a lot to know and understand about it. A survey shows that most people are not very informed about money. There are many books available about it ranging from history to the future, and despite the immediacy of and the profound influence of money in the lives of the people, the vast majority of the people have invested little time in its study. We know what it looks like, in its many forms, and we know what we can do with it, but this is not enough. Something that has become the overwhelming driving force of the world warrants more. The people would help themselves greatly by taking the time to study the literature available about money. The information found there is indispensable, but there are some things about money that seem to be missing from the literature, vital things.

A fundamental fact about money that demands understanding seems obvious, but is mostly overlooked is the fact that money is what we use to access the products of society, and regardless of the form, money is a means to limit your access to the products of society. If there were no limits to your access, there would be no reason to have money at all. If you think this sounds like everything would be free in such a case, you are simply making a mistake, an understandable one, but still a profound mistake.

“Free,” like “freedom,“is something that has little or no meaning when analyzed deeply. There is no such thing as “free,” nor, as has already been written about on this site, “freedom.” These are just words that represent no physical object and as mental abstracts have only relative meaning within certain contexts. Nothing is all that is free. No object of human production is truly free since it must be “paid for” with time and energy/effort. The air you breathe in comes at the cost of time and effort inhaling. When the universe is considered, devoid of life, everything in it is a product of time and energy, and, therefore, not free. This train of thought has no end. The products of society that we currently buy with some form of money are certainly never free. They all require time and effort to produce. So, even if there were no limit to your access to the products, nothing would be free. The amount of time and energy required to produce the products and to gain unlimited access would be the cost, but money would have no place. You invest time and effort; in return you get access to all the products of society. You will not be given anything. You will have to purchase what you get by contributing to society. What makes this so desirable is the fact that your pay for your effort is everything you want as long as you live. That is pretty good pay, don’t you think?

Yes, your money will disappear. You will have to give up money entirely. There will be no money and there will be no need for money. There will be no savings, no stock market or stock, no banks, no financial institutions, no artificial value, and there will be virtually no need for lawyers. All these things exist only because we use money to conduct the operations of our society. Of course, such a system serves some, and very well.

In terms of everything that is produced in the USA, including services, the financial industry (a name it does not deserve) comprises nearly half. Things that are being done in the management and manipulation of money have become a huge portion of the total work people do. It also pays very well. In fact, it appears that the financial jobs are among the top paying in the country.

Banking is something that we all see. But do you realize that every penny that goes into the banking system is a needless expense for society. It is like paying someone to follow you around holding your money and taking care of your payments, but much worse. It is simply an unnecessary expense, and it is an expense that has taken the top tier in the pay scale. Can you see that if everyone worked in the financial sector there would be nothing to eat? Can you see that the more we spend dealing with the onerous burden of money the poorer we become? It is imperative that society use its time and effort wisely. Our work must help us as much as it possibly can, and the cost of money is too high and totally unnecessary.

Nothing we need and want requires money. We have just become so inured to it that we don’t understand what is happening. If you want to build a house or a factory, you can’t build it out of money. You build it out of tangible building materials. Money doesn’t fertilize crops. It doesn’t fix your leaky pipes. When you need building materials, go get them. In a society that pays you unlimited access to the products of society as compensation for your work, that is all you have to do; just go get the stuff you need. It seems insane to first have to convince someone that you are worthy of the money required to get the stuff you need. How did this happen? Open minded study easily answers that question, if you can get to that condition. It is not easy, perhaps even unlikely. Try it after reading this article. You may find it more likely.

There is a lot to fathom about money and how it has transformed the very essence of life in society. Consider crime. Money is the motive nearly every time. Show a hungry animal food and them put it out of reach. You will see the animal behave in ways similar to the way people behave after they become aware of what is available in the world that they are unable to obtain. Food is a prime example even amongst humans. Just look at the starvation statistics. The food is out there, but many cannot gain access to it; they don’t have the money. Who can be confused now about the frequency of crime? It is a natural occurrence in a society that limits access to it products.

It has already been suggested that there is not enough for unlimited access for everyone. This is an old response and it has no substance. It comes from the psychology created by the system that has dominated life on Earth as long as history is available. This system cannot abide abundance. This system requires for its very existence shortage, scarcity, and deprivation. We have been subjected to this so long we have unconsciously accepted it as a natural condition of life. Nothing could be further from the truth. The waste that goes on in the world today is essential to this inhumane inane system.

Here is the next fundamental fact about money that beats you down every day all the time and still goes unnoticed. Somehow, at some point in time, it became accepted by the people that their time and effort does not deserve as much as that of another. You get paid more or less than someone else. The people have accepted the judgments that value their contributions to society at different levels. These value judgments and their enforcement have become such that the most essential work of society are the least valued. The people who work to build and maintain everything are granted the least access to the products of the society they build, while those who contribute things that we could easily do without are granted the most access; movie stars, high end athletes, and those who deal in money and laws, though the list is longer still. Only a very few, percentage wise, have unlimited access and, guess what, those few have virtually unlimited access to you as well.

If you and I get stranded on a deserted tropical island and I quickly gather all the coconuts and put them where you cannot get them, I can get you to do things for me that you might not otherwise be willing to do in exchange for coconuts. I would have access to you. The hungrier you become the greater my power over you becomes. My behavior in that case would certainly be subject to criticism, but such things are going on every day all over the world while the people idly accept it. You see it all around you, but you may be unaware of it.

Society is overflowing with products and services. Production is a staggering abundance. Even food has become a commodity that is bought and sold, rather than something personally grown, hunted, or gathered. It is a product of society and to get access to it money must be obtained. Again, the person with the money has power over you. If you want something besides food, the same situation exists. In the world today, your desires for things other than food are being created by some of the greatest human effort ever done, which is another topic, but you will see what I mean by considering advertising, marketing, and invention, the last of which creates desires that previously did not exist, like laptop computers. Then there is medical care.

Medical care has become big business. You can get your heart replaced. Well, you can get it replaced if you have the money; otherwise you are likely to just perish. Medical services are not provided to those who have no money. Sure there are charities and some medical service provided to those who have no money, but people are suffering and dying all over the world, even in the USA, because they don’t have enough money to get available medical help. Now, how does this compare to the coconut story above? You might do many things for someone to relieve your hunger, but when you are in the grips of excruciating pain, or your body is badly broken, you are likely to be even more motivated. What a wonderful way to make money! Just refuse to grant access to a product of society known as “medical care” unless money is provided. In a system that bases price on the strength of demand, how could you ask for a better means to set prices high? “Does it hurt bad? We can fix it for the right price.” It sounds very much like the story of coconuts. All this is going on today, and worse, while the least amount of notice and effort reveals that medical care as we have it today is only because so many have contributed to society so long.

The cost of education is not just books and tuition. What university exists solely as an island in society? They all use the roads and every other system that society provides. Without the vast amounts of time and effort supplied by the people, there would be no hospital or medical equipment, and no university. People would not be able to devote their time to the study necessary to become medical professionals. No doctor acquired the requisite knowledge to be a doctor without vast help from society. What would a person eat while spending the necessary time in study if there were no people making food available? The more one goes to school, the more one owes society. Ah, but that is backwards. The more one goes to school the more one deserves more money. This current attitude is devoid of reason, and absolutely oozing the worst form of discrimination.

Somehow you have accepted that you are not worth as much as someone else. That is the cold hard fact of the matter. You have accepted this lie, this delusion. If this is not your attitude, why then do you accept the limited access you have to the products of society? Even the highest paid doctors are getting less than some. Even they have accepted that they are worth less than someone else, if not consciously then by behavior. We have, nearly every one of us, accepted the delusion that some are worth more than others. The proof is in your pay, your profit, your returns. While you work away, even contentedly, you accept that you are not going to get full access to the products of society when there is no physical organic reason for it. It is discrimination.

You are being judged. Your value is being determined. The quality of your life is being set upon you through the instrument of money. You contribute to society and your contribution is compensated with some amount of money, which is, again, simply your access to the products of society. You are granted some level of access, but limited access, as represented by your money. Your value is being set for you.

You live on a planet that has had humans working incredibly hard on it for centuries. Humans have been very busy. The amount of work that has been done is beyond comprehension. We see remnants from thousands of years ago in the form of pyramids and such of the work that has been going on continuously for all these thousands of years. Everyone alive has inherited the products of the work done by the ancestors. In the USA there are few roads left to build. Lakes have been created. The list goes on and on. Surely you can understand this. A lot has already been done. We have inherited a lot of stuff, and the new born even more. Yet the work must go on. We must be ever productive, more and more all the time. It gets harder and harder to do enough work to satisfy our survival needs. Many perish because they cannot keep up the pace, or they cannot get back into the pace after the system has let them fall out of sync. Where does it all go? When is it enough?

In the USA, and the world at large for the most part, the people are required to work all their lives to provide for themselves. You must have a job and work at it to get money to buy the things you want and need, because you are not going to get access to the products of society unless you have money. There is retirement, sure there is. For most of you it is after you are so old and worn out that you don’t even have long left to live, and your retirement is an austerity demonstration. The exceptions to this are too few to make the situation acceptable. The exceptions, of course, are the wealthy, and in truth they only have it a little better than the rest of the people. In fact, there are ample reasons to claim that they do not have it any better, but worse. They only have access to the products of society and to the people. They don’t have greater access to peace, happiness, fulfillment, or any of the products that humans can create in a better world. The wealthy also have the burden of responsibility for the prevention of the fulfillment of Life on Earth.

When I get all the coconuts and prevent you from gaining access to them on the desert island, I am holding you down, back, and out. Money is no different. If I get all the money and prevent you from accessing it, I hold you down in much the same way. One source stated that corporations in the USA are sitting on nearly two trillion dollars, the exact number being unnecessary, and the the exact form being equally unnecessary. This number is above and beyond what they call “illiquid assets,” like buildings, real estate, machinery, and such. It also does not include the inherited work already done by humans. Those corporations use the roads, the utilities, and everything else. They hold enough money to eliminate hunger here, to provide medical care to those without access, and so much more. But they have no intention of any such actions. They hold their money while they claim they need more confidence that any use they apply the money to will result in even more money coming back to them, a return. They are held in high esteem. They are successful. They are seen as paradigms of the hope we all have. There is no hint, other than from this writer that they are hording the coconuts.

There is only so much money. If money is a “store of value,” as they put it, it must represent tangible products or services. People who have wealth are keeping you from getting better access to the products of society and they are using you to do their bidding, which is all the essential work and the work of increasing and protecting their wealth. They know that people desire better access to the products of society, so they must be ever vigilant against the people. You may have noticed the law enforcement and military expense in today’s world. If you think they are there to protect you, consider the nuclear bomb. The wealthy have plenty of protection against the nuclear threat. Do you? Do you think the military of another country would invade to get more people? In this densely populated world more people means more mouths to feed. Invaders are after land and wealth, usually. Furthermore, would you require a military if everyone had unlimited access to the products of society? A society that successful would be the inspiration of rapid duplication around the globe. The kicker is; such a society is not only possible, but great effort is being applied to prevent its inevitable manifestation by completely natural organic means.

There was a man named Thomas Robert Malthus who wrote some books in the late seventeen hundreds that spun a bit of sophistry about over-population and scarcity that have been invaluable tools in the suppression of the human spirit ever since. Today the world is in apoplexy over the growing population and the depleting resources. Malthus was a reverend in the Christian faith and a philosopher economist. He studied societies both present and past, and then postulated their extensions. He went against many well know persons who postulated quite the opposite of his views believing that humans could and would perfect society even unto utopia. The fact that Malthus worked solely within the parameters of society that operates in the usual manner was a great flaw in his thinking. His views assumed that there would always be money regulating access to the products of society. He saw how prosperity caused more births until there was less prosperity that slowed the birth rate. It was a fine bit of sophistry, ingenious. It was totally devoid of any true vision and comprehensive comprehension of society. It appears to be just a way to protect the wealth of the wealthy and to continue the perpetration of a terrible social system, the one that has a king at the top and peasants below.

People began to dislike the idea of Kings and Queens and the social system was modified so that those royals could have their positions without causing the people to revolt again. It was a clever move, and it has everything to do with your money. They merely stepped out of the spot light and temporarily increased the people’s access to the products of society while they devised ways to control the people. For the people was their only threat.

A person was no threat to the wealthy. Killing a person was easy. Killing or imprisoning a lot of people, though more difficult, was easy enough. The real threat has always been The People. Large numbers of people united in a cause stormed the palaces and executed the royals many times in history. This fact was not lost on the wealthy or the royals and they have been at great endeavors to use their wealth to get people to devise ways to prevent such things. Yes, they got the people they wanted to control to devise the means to do so.

Today the people are so outgunned it is ridiculous. The wealthy can bring to bear the unimaginable force of the world’s military might in defense of their wealth. Or maybe you think the military is not at the disposal of the wealthy, like they want you to think. Are those in power wealthy? I rest my case. If you are unable to see that the wealthy can bring to bear the might of the armed, just try to do anything against their wishes. You can end up in prison even if you have lots of money if you go against the greater wealth, or you can end up dead. It has happened many times, whether you are aware of it or not.

It stands as fact that money can get people to do things that a sentient being would find unimaginably horrible. We all know this. There is only one reason this condition exists; access to the products of society is limited. Discrimination is being done that shows the people that there are some who get more and this keeps a false hope alive in the hearts of the people, the hope to rise up to a similar level. The wealthy realized early that hope was essential to the maintenance of a strong and peaceful population of servants, though now they feel crowded by too many servants; yet another topic for later.

People who can get everything they want and need are difficult to manage into doing horrible things. Theft is a rare occurrence in a society that provides unlimited access to the products of society in return for a short term of service. The very character of the people in such a society is something altogether different than that of people in society as it is today, worldwide. When basic needs are met and access to the means of attaining personal fulfillment are readily available, beautiful people occur. In such a society the products of society become beautiful things, works of art, utility, and durability. People become productive in pursuit of their own personal dreams, health, well-being, and community/family desires. A society that is that successful generates generations of ever greater quality and beauty. Vistas become visible that have been shrouded in darkness, invisible to the minds that struggle for survival. The vastness of outer space becomes a beckoning frontier, and that frontier is likely limitless, as are its resources.

On Earth today, resources are being used to operate society. The world over societies, together comprising the super family of our species, operate in such a state of inefficiency that people like Reverend Malthus seem lucid. But the availability of resources and space are only a concern within the systems that operate society as it is today, and there is no reason to continue to operate society as it is today. There is, in fact, overwhelming evidence that the super family of man is headed to its own destruction if the current systems are allowed to continue. Now, do you think you might like to break your mind free of its limits and at least try to envision a better way? Perhaps you could just consider the one you are reading about right now with a mind free of brainwashing that life has done to you since you came into this life.

Note:

This article is testing the waters, so to speak. I have quite a bit of fear around presenting it to the world. Change frightens some. Some would like to see thing continue as they are. So, if I suddenly commit suicide, I really didn’t. Some things are worth dying for, as some things are worth living for. I fear those who oppose egalitarian altruism. I fear those who argue against utopia. The psychology of those people is hard to fathom. The “it can’t be done” crowd, don’t remember Edison and many others. That something doesn’t seem possible to you is not proof of your opinion. Opinions are limited to the scope of the consciousness of the opinion holder. They see reasons why something can’t be done instead of the obstacles that must be surmounted to reach the goal, or they have darker more sinister psychology. I fear there are those who have very sinister desires and who do such things. That is a subject for another time. I do fear that though. I do not fear to fear. Fear is a good thing. It helps me survive.

Anyway, I debated this article for some time. I wrote it quite a while back. The fact that you are reading it tells you what I finally decided. I want world peace, but I want even more. I want everyone to be fulfilled, provided their fulfillment doesn’t require sinister stuff. I want to live in a world of people who love everyone and everything, of happy people who are enjoying the adventure. I want to live in a world of people united in Truth. I am sick of the multitude of arguments on every subject of any importance. I want to live in a world of infinite diversity and possibilities. I do, actually. It just needs to be unfettered.

The Power Of The People

The Power Of The People

Saving the world and making it utopia at last

Twenty Twenty-Five

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Trapped by Society

Trapped By Society

What do you do in your life? Do you get born, grow up, discover how things are, and then fall in line? You were born into a complicated human arrangement of power, structure, and construction. How easy it is to play along! The tremendous pressures you are subjected to by living in the natural habitat of Earth are increased by the pressures of social structures and powers until the human species is evolving toward ignorance, ineptness, and servitude.

Experience has done things to you. This fact has not escaped the people who derive fantastic benefits from society. The lives of the privileged are something that they intend to preserve and augment. To do this they must make sure you never become a problem to them and they have developed ingenious techniques to insure that you do not. The events of human history are well known to them while the general public remains ignorant. They have learned lessons that help them maintain the systems. Then, knowledge of the past is tailored to further insure that the people never come to realize the power of numbers. The greatest threat to the society of human kind is the uniting of the people.

The privileged few do not think highly of the masses. There are exceptions to just about everything, but exceptions are like a lone voice in the wilderness. Predominant disdain for the people is ever present and can be discovered in the artifacts that have survived time. Pharaohs, kings, and emperors have considered themselves gods granted the human species, all life forms, and the Earth for their use and pleasure. They have seen themselves as far above the general people, and have treated the people with less regard than they gave the soles of their shoes. This is not just an aberration of the past. It is the reason you have to struggle to survive in a world of plenty. It is the reason for the wars, the social conflicts, the pain, and the suffering.

When the Pharaohs conscripted slaves, institutions were created to manage them. When slavery was legal in the US, techniques were devised to control them. We are the heirs of such institutions and techniques. By now they have evolved into invisible hands manipulating the strings of puppet that call themselves the “people.” It is you!

Like it or not, believe it or not, the reality of your life is in the hands of the puppet masters. You were born into it and escape is unlikely but possible. You did not build the cities. You did not create the government. You have done very little in a world exploding with the products of those who came before you. The entire planet is blanketed with things and systems that you are subjected to as surely as a slave is subjected to the will of the master. It took a long time to create this situation. Since the first leader commandeered the assistance of his peers, the human race has experienced the effects of Pharaohs, kings, queens, tyrants, and leaders. It is the stuff of legend. It is the past and the present.
As we plunge ahead into the future, we might want to look into the past and see how our world got like it is. In so doing, something wonderful for everyone might come to light.

In our quest to discover our past we have found that humans have had to struggle for the things they needed to survive as far back as we can detect. It was hard and dangerous work. There was seldom plenty. Only the strong and capable could manage to live and the conditions imposed by nature were compounded by the conditions humans imposed upon each other. Complex social arrangements evolved as if by accident, for vast vision is still severely undeveloped and evidence of social design suggests a relatively recent development. Slowly the concepts of specialization and organization gave rise to social structures and mechanical means that have changed the requirements of survival. One must take a position in some specialized position operating one of the multitude of society’s cogs to survive now. Exception are rare.

Behind us in time is history studded with conquest, wars, atrocities, and horrors more frightening than the fiction of the most talented imaginations. Power shifted constantly, but it was always regional. Global dominance, though dreamed of and aspired for, has remained unattained, though it is becoming more likely every day. As you must surely know, the shifts of power were most often, if not entirely, a result of conquest. If not conquest, then some other form of violence. On more local levels, power came into the hands of those who were not restrained by moral or ethical virtues. Many families that have power today acquired it initially by illegal means and have managed to expand into legitimate areas of society. The sad reality of this is that power has been taken by the sort of person that virtue would disdain.

Throughout all the wars and unscrupulous power plays the substance of societies developed. All too often the structure of society was adjusted to meet the needs of those who had power and the general population was kept in subservience. When someone rose in notoriety who had the general welfare at heart, the mighty hammer of the power players pounded them into oblivion so as to protect and perpetuate the systems that afforded them their power. The influence of great humanitarians and visionaries could not be eradicated every time and society inched ahead despite effort to thwart it. We arrived at today with many systems in place the people have little or no awareness of that are preventing the attainment of a virtual utopia that has become more attainable now than ever before.
Institutions and social structures have been created that developed their own means of survival; like some robot that has escaped the control of its builder and found the means to defend and sustain its existence. There are so many such things that it is doesn’t make sense to attempt a literary presentation of them all; especially in this article. They are holding us back. I find it very difficult to conceive the reality of systems that have become living non-entities, but it must be brought to light and examined. They exist only by our effort, yet their acquisition of that effort is mostly unseen even though we go to great extremes of labor, danger, and seeming devotion to give them life. If these things can be brought to light, something wonderful can be gained.

The Pyramid System:

One of the social structures that has lingered is the often repeated “pyramid” type of social structure; one or few at the top with the rest of humanity below in service to the top. Aspiring world conquerors have littered the pages of our history as far back as we can see, and they all were destroying and killing so that they could have the top position in a pyramid style distribution of wealth, power, and prestige. If you think such humans are no more, you are wrong. This pyramid has been around a long, long time. Naturally, it tends to take over the world.

With our high-tech communications, conveyances, armaments, and militaries, a global pyramid is not a farfetched notion; it’s a looming threat. Do you want to be a part of the global pyramid? Maybe you would rather have a more equitable system, an egalitarian one. Why should there be a pyramid at all? Do you think that some deserve more than you deserve? Maybe you think you are more deserving than others.

We were all born into the systems that dominate the people. They have us from birth to death. Within them, we occupy a place in the pyramid and have little or no opportunity to move to the top. There have been rare exceptions that are publicized and glorified to make it appear as if anyone could lift themselves from the bottom to the top. I think they know better and are simply trying to keep the system in place so they can protect the abundance and freedom they enjoy by keeping the people so enticed and hopeful of rising up in the pyramid that they do not rise up in revolt. If you think you are free or that you live in a free country, you are terribly deluded.

In the USA, the powerful social system known as the Federal Government was established by men who believed in freedom, and was put into place by consent of the people. Since those people passed away, the consent of the people has never been sought again. Everyone living here have been subjects of the government whether they like it or not.

When a large number of states (11 of 34) tried to escape subjugation to the government in the mid-1800s, a terrible war was fought and the attempted escape was prevented. In the ploy to mitigate the reactions of the people to the truth that war was said to have been fought to “preserve the union.” Sounds a little better than “preventing the escape of 11 states.”

If you are an American, you were born into servitude without even the opportunity to consent and escape is resisted with violence. Even an individual can leave the USA only with permission, and still does not escape the systems. You can measure your loss of freedom by the amount of your earnings you are compelled to give up to the government, if you want. That would be very helpful in keeping you pacified in you bondage. Or, you can measure your freedom by determining how much of your life is bound by old social systems that you take for granted.

Even the powerful and wealthy are stuck in the systems. The social systems have you and your family. The power to affect those systems is limited, but it is not entirely absent. Those at the top in the pyramid of wealth have some power to affect the systems, but even there change is not easy. We are in the pyramid, and pyramids are strong. Most of us know that only a very small percentage of us are ever going to even improve our standing within the pyramid. The top is already occupied.
There is no room at the top for everyone, nor even a large percentage of everyone. At the top people have vast amounts of funds. If too many people acquired vast amounts of funds and reached the top, the economic systems would collapse in hyper-inflation. The top of the pyramid cannot handle many. There is no possibility for everyone to be wealthy, and there must be many poor. It is an inherent flaw in the system, and there are many such flaws. Some see it as an inherent blessings.

Those at the top look down at the rest of us with haughty disdain. They really do think they deserve more than everyone else and we deserve none to little. It is not even hidden. The “divine right of kings” is an old attitude. The attitude of the wealthy is similar and has changed little over the course of history, and rather than oppose the attitude, the people seem to accept it and cling to a fragment of hope of becoming one of them, complete with the disdain and feelings of entitlement.

Interviews with some of the people who have lots of money have revealed the completely guiltless feelings of belonging to a special group that treats the rest of the people as if they are not even there. They live lives completely separate from the other 99% of the people in many ways even though their lives depend on the work of the people. The acquisition of lots of money has not brought enough happiness with it, for happiness is not found without, and the suicides and tragedies of loneliness testify to this succinctly.

There has been quite a bit of publicity lately about some who have suddenly gained vast fortunes expressing their disdain for the general public. We have heard the words “mindless feeders,” and other more vulgar words used by some of the wealthy to refer to the general public. This type of attitude often comes from those who were able to get a lot of money, as if doing so made them better than the masses. By now, we can find many at the bottom who agree. That is how effective the systems we inherited are.

There are a lot of people who live very well. They can have almost anything they want, do anything they want, and go nearly anywhere they want to go any time they want to go staying as long as they want; it is “freedom” of a type. They like it. I think they realize that the only means whereby they are so able is through the social structure of our society; the pyramid and many others.

It stands to reason that the people at the top of the pyramid would be resistant to change. After all, they have a lot to lose. The people in the lower parts of the pyramid, inversely, have less to lose. We could use a system that improves the lives of everyone, including those at the top. I wonder if they realize what they are missing.

The Monetary System:

We live in a “monetary” system. There are places you can learn more about such things, but it is sufficient to say that a monetary system is a “money system.” It usually has a central bank, as we in the USA do. The founders of this nation disagreed amongst themselves about the institution of a central bank, especially one with control of issuing currency, and despite efforts to prevent it, the central bank keeps coming back into our lives. Great power comes to the central bank via the monetary system.

I was not granted the opportunity to consent to having a monetary system. No one alive was. It’s like being born into a kingdom. And as if that injustice is not enough, I have found that few have even a rudimentary understanding of the monetary system even though they spend their lives in pursuit of money and in many ways their lives are dominated by it. It was not taught in the first twelve years of my education. (I have removed from this draft an explanation of some of the fundamental aspects of money. You can get such information easily enough. I have written about it already.)

Money is king. Money if “freedom.” Despite its relevance, its vital importance to their lives, and even the status of the planet, the people don’t know much about it. Those at the top are grateful for such ignorance. Be aware that they do not share it with them, the ignorance nor the benefits. It is my opinion that the ignorance of the people regarding the monetary system and many of the life’s other systems is a carefully cultivated condition.

The monetary system has many complicated aspects. Banking is just one of them. Inflation is another. You can take it from me, if everyone were able to get pay raises to a million dollars a week for their work, they would be getting no more than they are getting today. If, by some miracle, the entire society didn’t break down, the monetary system would automatically adjust by means of inflation to keep you in the same place you were before you got the raise. Pretty clever! Wouldn’t you say?

Prices are determined by “what the market will bear.” In other words, as-much-as-possible is the price of an item. That means that if everyone had millions of dollars to spend prices would adjust so that your raise would be meaningless, other than the fact that you would need help hauling the money around, and that job has actually been created. The pay for it is at the top of the scale; you may know some of it as “banking.” Perhaps you have noticed the well-built fancy little bank branches that keep being built on virtually every expensive corner. They are just branches of a gigantic tree with roots deeply embedded in the soil of our lives.

The Class System:

We are the heirs of many systems; or the “prisoners,” is a better term. The “class” system is one that works quite well with the monetary system. The system is closed and even the acquisition of great wealth will not get you into the “exclusive club.”

You can encounter plenty of denial, but it cannot be successfully refuted that the class system grades people. Some are better than others in a class system. Therefore, some think they deserve to live better than others and the monetary system serves that concept quite well. You can be sure, however, that there is no way for the monetary system and the class system to provide lifestyles similar to that of the people at the top for everyone. Indeed, like the monetary system, there is little or no likelihood of improving ones position. In the class system, the top is already occupied.

Now, consider the fact that the monetary and the class systems are social constructs. They were created by man; perhaps predominately by that gender. They are not like the solar system, the endocrine system, or any other natural system. They only exist because we make them. Well, we don’t have to make them. We shouldn’t make them any longer. Change is required.

The Power of the People:

The people have the true power in the world. They always have. There is nothing without the people. Kings would have no kingdom, Pharaohs would have no workers without the people who have not been fortunate enough to be Pharaohs themselves. Both are titles of a mere person; a person just like all of us, despite their opinion to the contrary. Only the people provide. Only the people have true power. They rise up now and then, but they seem to prefer not to. Of course, those at the top never stop working against such an uprising. The people so outnumber those at the top that there would be little chance of the people failing in an earnest attempt. What would the people do? Well, that has been the problem. They don’t know what to do.

Leaders:

They have relied on those at the top to lead them and to take care of them so long it has become generally accepted as one of the “laws of life,” and apply little effort to the examination and evaluation of the arrangement. Only the most dire conditions have compelled the people to use their power to change the system. They want to spend their time dealing with their own affairs and to just trust the leaders. Do you think the leaders are trustworthy?

Some people are born with the ability to work with their hands, some the ability to run very fast, some with a fabulous sense of music, some with the ability to perform great mental feats, and the variety is incredible. Now and then through history some have been born who have many abilities and they have often been leaders of others. Though there have been great leaders who have done good things as leaders, there appear to have been far more who have led the people into horrors such as piracy, looting and pillaging, slavery, wars of conquest, and even eradication of other peoples.
Buckminster Fuller wrote about some such men and referred to them as “great pirates.” The term fit since they were usually leading the people out to sea to attack other ships, but they did not limit themselves to ships. Towns were often subjected to their attention. They robbed and destroyed without remorse. They killed people with pleasure in unfathomable numbers. It was heartlessness unbound, and it went on over the millennia. It still goes on! One of the effects of the bloody history is the acceptance as a natural law the social arrangement of leadership. Leaders have made followers rich. They have not made the followers as rich as they have made themselves, though.

This type of exploit was played out by many such leaders and followers. Battles were conducted between them and power shifted around constantly. Nations evolved from this history of leaders and followers consolidating holdings and winning new territories. It certainly shaped the face of the world we know until the leadership role has become one that does not require persons of many qualities. The people at the top have become the type that cannot survive without the provisions of the rest of the people. They cannot perform the tasks required to produce the things they have. Without the systems that provide for them, they would perish. Intellect is not enough. They have the intellect, for sure, though it seems to me to be trending toward insanity. No other explanation fits all the horrors. Nation against nation forever! Wars over and over. This is the legacy we have received. There is more to it though, thankfully.

Morals:

While the fighting was going on, others were working to make peace, to improve the character of the people, and to establish morals, ethics, and virtues; to bring heart to the world. Religions came to be. Great prophets came forth with teachings and messages that helped alleviate the violence and improve the general character of the people. It is my belief that each was needed and occurred as it should have when and where it should have.

Beauty and horror mixed and created great currents that have yet to settle, and from these currents came the social structures to which we are currently subjected and which we accept as though there is no other way. It’s as if it all came about by accident, as if no one actually thought about it and decided to create what we have, and we don’t have it. It has us.

Social System Influence:

We can change the systems that control us. We must! It is going to happen one way or another. We can let things unfold while we “mind our own business” and hope for the best. We can allow those who have a will to change things to do so and hope they have our best interests at heart and in mind. We can rely on the deity and try to ignore the fact that we have been waiting for that for many thousands of years. Or! We can put ourselves into it and develop a vision of how we want to make things for ourselves and then make it that way.

It will be necessary to evaluate ourselves. We must find the areas of ourselves that are not the products of our conscious creation, at least our conscious approval. The centuries of established systems have shaped the very nature of our beings; even our genetics.

The pyramid, monetary, and class systems virtually dictate the quality of our lives and the substance of our beings. We have some control, to be sure, but only within those systems and the others that are not part of this discussion—not yet anyway. The systems have been in place so long they have affected the very foundations of reason in the minds of the people and caused us to feel what we feel; those of us who do feel, that is. It is not safe nor wise to trust your own judgment these days, and what you feel is treated like a phantom that disturbs your thoughts.

We all know that the greatest human power is the power of a united people. As old Ben Franklin said, “We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.” Find that cause that we can join as a people. Put aside the difference long enough to prevent the end of the world and to create a utopic society.