These are probably not perfect metaphors or uses of historic knowledge as I have not particularly studied history in depth. Like most people, I remember the parts of history that have meaning to me, and even if it turns out that I was mistaken, the meaning isn't always lost.
As I understand it, in every society historically speaking, with few exceptions, there is a noble class and a peasant class. A class of those who have more than their basic needs met, and a class of those who are always struggling or lacking in their ability to fulfill their basic needs. One of the best quotes to describe my own disgust with this aspect of human nature I heard in the documentary "You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train" quoted from Howard Zinn:
"I've always resented the smug statements of politicians, media commentators, corporate executives who talked about how, in America, if you worked hard, you would become rich. The meaning of that was: if you were poor, it was because you hadn't worked hard enough. I knew this was a lie about my father and millions of others, men and women who worked harder than anyone."
No other passage has ever reminded me so much of how I've felt about my mother's status in life. She has always been a hard working woman. It's been in her nature to work and never stop working to support her children. We have always been her motivation in life, despite her hardship and struggle to avoid poverty. Despite the outward appearance that no one appreciated her for her strength and will, though secretly, I always have.
She fought hard to support her children despite never being rightly paid her fair share. Despite facing violence and severe family dysfunction. Despite depression and many occasions where it was self evident that there was little hope left for us to have a happy future. In the end however, there is one last struggle left that she has to overcome, which I am sure she cannot achieve on her own at this point. At this rate she will not be able to financially support herself when she is too old to work.
Why is it that there must always be severe economic disproportion in almost every society? I honestly can't say for sure. In my lifetime, I've witnessed people of power and wealth, with sheer audacity, choke every last penny out of their consumers, employees, voting supporters, donators, and religious followers. They do this using sad business strategies which demand their privilege to look at numbers and feel like they are bigger than the average person, only to see them throw the excess of their money away to worthless things like collectibles, expensive meals, jewelry, sport, and drugs.
In today's economy, I see money "trickle up", as described by the dystopian future in the novel "Neuromancer" by Willian Gibson, causing the hard working middle and lower classes to become less cooperative in their efforts toward mutual success. They turn to backstabbing business tactics or crime and turn a blind eye to one another with the underlying thought "it's either them or me, and my need is greater than theirs." Any and all easier or cheaper means of becoming successful are turned a blind eye by this class of desperate people whose skepticism has developed from being knocked down from their hopes and dreams too many times over by the system they were taught to live by.
Most people are wasting their time in high school, because they are not being taught the one thing that we all pretend to be learning by going to school. They aren't learning how to thrive. I remember when I learned about economics in high school, thinking "Ok, this is it. This is what I need to know more about, so that I can reach my dreams despite the system, and to use the system to my advantage." Then I found that all the course really wanted to teach me was that supply and demand were the reasons that I'm on the bottom and struggling.
I took issue with such a simplistic view of economics. Where was the morality or ethic? Where was the protection from monopoly and being cheated out of a fair living? Where was that valuable asset of collective social strength that gave the human race it's greatest advantage above all other forms of life on Earth?
In my eyes, we are a tribal species. Being an adult with our established social structure was no different to me than facing a group of kids on the playground as a child and hearing some of them announce that they were in charge and that they get to have a share of everyone else's lunch money. Why was I the only kid I knew who was asking why they deserved our lunch money? When I asked, all anyone would answer was that this is just the way it is, or that God somehow willed it so, or that the higher class somehow earned it and deserved it because they were smart.
Ask yourself this. If you were stuck on an island with 20 people, could you imagine any one thing that would earn one such individual the right to own the entire island itself? Even if they singlehandedly saved everyone from a hurricane, what more privilege could they rightfully earn than to be in charge of matters that involve safety on the island?
The more true to real life scenario that we have encountered in today's society is that the first 20 people on the island decided to split it evenly amongst themselves. Over time and a few generations the population grew to be 200 members on the Island and about 4 of the individuals have acquired the official ownership of the Island as a whole, through generations of cheating, dealing, stealing, and blackmailing people out of such a valuable asset as land.
Were those acts somehow more deserving of total rights to own the land that others must walk on? The point I am making here is this: at some point in a persons rising success, their right to live with much earned power and wealth transforms into being a status that should be seen as a status of privilege and responsibility. At some point when an individual owns millions of dollars in assets it is their social privilege and not a right to make huge decisions of what to do with that money. It is also a responsibility for them to make that money work towards generating a greater quality of life for all.
Wealthy people already have the best quality that they could reasonably expect for their work. They don't just get food, water, education, and shelter for their work, but rather, they don't have to work as hard as most people and will still get the best food, the best water (or at least proclaimed to be the best), the best education, and the best shelter, and as a bonus they can afford to hire others to do most if not all of their work for them. They don't have to work if they do not wish to.
While a wealthy individual may have strategically gained large sums of money, the source of that money in majority is often due to the hard work performance of other individuals, be they donors, employees, or consumers. That money represents mutual collaboration which the inheritor of the largest sum of money often worked to organize. That proves that they are great organizers and thus in my eyes has earned them the right to guide that excess money into more collaborative business which improves everyone's standard of living.
What the wealthy and powerful individuals in this country do not rightly deserve in my opinion is the ability to make their assets and status rise or be maintained at the expense of the working class. They do not deserve the right to leave their employees with an income that is too low to thrive on independently. I don't care if the lowest paid custodian can only afford to live in a coffin hotel, eats only cheap but nutritious breakfast food for every meal, and has to struggle with their hot water if they have any. If an individual is willing to work 40 hours per week, then every and any society, politician, leader, and business owner owes it to them to provide a healthy living of independence, education, food, water, shelter. And with today's technology, that should also include basic medical coverage. No exceptions.
Not providing such things is no different than expecting a machine to continue working when it has a leak. As an employer, you are wasting your own resources by underpaying your employees. All of the training that went into them will only become a dwindling slow decrease in their performance, just because you didn't care about their problems. Make them get an extra job to get by? That's less energy and motivation that they will have to work hard for you.
Most importantly, as it applies to our society, no working individual should be forced to seek out the help of complete strangers just to share a roof over their heads. That's my honest opinion. It doesn't just work as an ethical opinion of things either. When people of power choke the lower class, it always eventually comes around to bite them in the end. Increased poverty leads to increased crime rates, thus causing business owners to have to pay more to tighten their security, if they even pay their security well enough.
Then banking CEOs still feel surprised when they find that it's a bank teller or manager who successfully robs a bank? Or that it was an angry customer who set off a bomb as revenge for too many harsh NSF fees or being trapped in a lifetime of credit card debt? Or what about when it turns out to be a bum in rags that manages to sneak past security with a gun and invades their meeting to hold the CEOs hostage? If you are or ever will be a person of power and wealth, ask yourself this: would you ever really have something to gain personally by making the value of your assets rise at the expense of others? Do you not see that you would sooner cause the value of your money and everyone else's to inflate and to simultaneously gain a lot of new enemies in doing so?
When you let lead get into kitchenware that you are selling, don't you see how you are merely increasing the odds of such poison being found on your plate as well when other companies follow suit? What new privilege or right did you actually gain by using bad business practices? I submit to you, that you have two choices when you are in charge of money and power. You can make things better for yourself and everyone else, or you can make things worse for yourself and everyone else. If you really deserve to be where you are and intend to keep that power, then you would be wise to work on the former when doing business.
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