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All societies, in their efforts to distribute goods and services, assign values that represent the relative desires of the populace. When these values become unclear so does the integrity of the society. Values represent the relative directions in which people are moving with their work, their labor, and their effort. When labor is moving in two different directions, opposing directions, you might say that a society is experiencing inner turmoil or conflict. This internal tumultuousness is not always conscious. Often it is the nature of degraded communities that the majority are lost as to the root of their woes. The values I am addressing are not of the moral kind. I am addressing the cost of things, money and effort and their exchange rate in society. On top of a clear expression of value for these things morality has a place but when these values fracture the spirituality of a people falls through the cracks. What is the value of labor then? To what end is that labor employed?
Looking at it in relative terms there are some working for a reimbursement that is 400 times as much as others. Closer to my economic climate I can safely say that some receive at least 40 times as much as another for a day’s labor. What can be responsible for such a disproportionate assignment of value for a man or woman’s time? There is an implication in this pay scale that some are more valuable to society while others are worth less. A very slight discrepancy in pay might be understandable given different climates and needs, etc. but 40 times as much and one must ask if cleaning toilets is so useless to the running of our community that it affords so little. Cooking hamburgers and selling gas and growing corn, these things apparently have little value when compared to the rewards of ownership. There are some who own so much that they can afford to pay others for labor to meet their own ends. These people can often hire 40 human beings for a day’s labor, sometimes 400 people. The rewards for these peoples’ labor, where does it go? Back to the owner perhaps? I have trouble understanding how that structure can benefit society.
From where do the owners of industry and production derive their ownership?
The answer to this question is as much a mystery to the owners as it is to the owned. The truth is that they derive it from nowhere except compliance. Over time rewards accumulate for the hardworking members of society and families carry that wealth over generations through inheritance. The inheritors of this wealth hire other human beings to perform labor thus making them exponentially more productive. This exchange could be seen as mutually beneficial but when looking deeper at the societal implications of this relationship we can see an innate imbalance of benefit. If someone has inherited wealth it can be seen as extracted labor, stored potential energy if we look at it in physical terms. In other words, like all machines, society occasionally gets out of balance due to the necessity of organization. This is a cyclical reality of life. Ownership is that part of the mechanism of society that is most vulnerable to springing leaks thus threatening the efficiency of our cooperative spirit. Society, because of a type of conservation of energy to be explained later, is dependent upon the kind of ownership that is temporary and reflects the integrity of the person performing the service.
Good leadership would make it more difficult for me to support my argument for equal distribution of goods. Many argue that some of society’s members require more power in order to accomplish great works but this position is losing its integrity and basis in reality due to the decline in great works. More troubling than those who believe in the practicality of wealth are those who have given themselves whole-heartedly to the process of natural selection, whereby they affirm the rise of the strong in society as though it expresses some justice. They act as though their acceptance of such a thing is evidence of sophistication. This attitude allows them to accumulate wealth with the feeling that they are lifting up others by power of example. What they lack however is historical perspective and any understanding whatsoever of the universal principles governing nature and humanity. In order to maintain their position that harsh competition within a species betters the animal, which is what some wealthy must believe if they are to live with clear consciences, they would have to affirm the following things – that some human beings are worth some fraction that of others, some 1&Mac218;2 as much, some 1/40 as much and further that some human beings on this planet are only worth 1/400 as much of the daily value that others are assigned and that their survival should be given only that much of the material risk of investment. For that is what is given to human beings as a reward for their labor, material investment in their futures. If some earn a relative 1% return for their labor while others receive 400% how can one deny that this would have some emotional or spiritual consequences? If I receive $50 for cleaning the toilet that the CEO uses during the day he earns $4000 how can I comfort myself that there is justice in the world. One way would be to subscribe to complicated beliefs about the nature of civilization. I could comfort myself with the idea that the power of leadership serves some greater purpose beyond my understanding and that cultural movements and sociological variables all work in a somewhat mysterious way to protect those few individuals that long for ownership from those who do not deserve it.
If all of the complexity of modern civilization exhibited noticeable and undeniable results in the form of equality and justice then we might be inspired to maintain such a degraded state. However, there are many of us who cannot help but ask the question; are we actually experiencing an epoch age of enslavement? Are we to look at our positions and assume that somehow we are to blame for our fractionalized portion of nature’s bounty?
The answers to these questions are obvious. They have always been obvious but the implications of this perspective are what drive people to deny the truth. The implication is this: If some have too much and are unwilling to share it equally, then those of us with need must find ways to secure our survival and the survival of the principles that we believe are responsible for our ability to thrive in threatening situations. Nobody said the truth would be pleasant.
However, after swallowing this very difficult challenge we can rest assured in the simplicity of it, what a great reward for the courage to seek the source of our woes. Scientists learned how to split atoms and businessmen learned how to distribute Coca-Cola all over the world. Certainly it would not be difficult to distribute real nutritional and quality of life resources. I think we would all be surprised by what we would take home at the end of each workday in an equal work environment.
Certainly a man or woman should be entitled to invest in the quality of their life with hard work and to enjoy some of the benefits of that work. For instance, spending a weekend building an addition on one’s house or working with the family to build a pool. But when did we accept that somebody’s wealth ought to grow merely as a result of the labor of others and where does that belief come from? Are we rewarding leadership or enabling manipulation?
Society is a machine that has as its purpose the distribution of security concurrently with a means for producing said security. As it is a machine it must be rebalanced from time to time. The redistribution of resources is a cyclical reality, the law of conservation of energy for social creatures. Just as we cannot destroy energy in a closed system we cannot rid our planet of the finite quantity of justice and goodness that exists here in the hearts of men and women. We can, however, decrease the number of recipients of justice and goodness thus causing a buildup of potential energy that results in an eventual power surge. This power surge often triggers the overdue collapse of society. The anarchy that follows is a brief period of time where humanity is once again at the mercy of nature. Without a unity of purpose we could very easily regress back to our animal state. Evidence that this rebalancing is long overdue is found in the unwillingness of the wealthy to accept the challenge of equality.
Redistribution is a scary topic but it is a part of life. We all have memories of conflict, be they personal or historical, that rise out of a need for sharing. It is not comfortable to ask somebody to give up something they hold onto out of fear. However, I am tired of being asked to give up my free time to support the production of war and profit. If we are to share it shall be for the good of the group. I do not believe that violence will lend in any way to the science of progress but one must learn to have a detachment from the fear of violence if one is to move forward in the acceptance of the simplicity of the problem. There is, because of the inertia of such things, an inevitable collision of ideals. This collision will certainly involve human beings on both sides who are unafraid to use violence to achieve their ends. Detachment allows a truthful person to concentrate on the principles in the midst of chaos. And this detachment is much aided in the meditation on the simplicity of the problem, and the solution of sharing equally all that nature gives us.
And so, for meditation’s sake, here is the idea again; some people have been assigned too low a position in the architecture of society while others live too high up. This inequity degrades the spiritual engine that drives the inspired living of individuals. It is humiliating to watch human beings order their fellows around like dogs, to watch these dogs begging for crumbs. This code of classes, both high and low, is debilitating to the spirit.
The science of living is a set of principles that will guide the erection of new types of relationship constructs. Communal ideals will lead to circular forms of leadership. The skyscrapers of my world are more than symbols. They are castles of oppression where the kings live on top while the beggars live below under threat of the guards. To see the world one time from above the clouds is to realize, in one moment, one’s former blindness; it is to see for the first time the true structure of society. After that experience a truthful man will go back down below and begin chopping at the base for he will see the brilliant sun and beautiful sky are being obscured by the rise of the unfriendly.
I am digressing but the solution to all of this inequity is an attitude toward wealth that has its roots in morality. Egalitarianism must, if we have any hope, become law, the self-governing internal law that leads to evolution of the spirit. The urge to accumulate must be replaced with a passionate humble relationship with resources. We must come to see them merely as a way to satisfy our 3 basic needs, food, clothing and shelter. If we find ourselves, in such an environment, with more than our share we would be charged by our conscience to rid ourselves of it for fear of threatening the health, vitality or morale of the group.
There are reasons that men and women accumulate wealth and there are reasons that men and women allow this to happen. In the next few sections we will address the fears of the oppressed and why it is that some of us are unwilling to face the challenge of equality. Remember that while some will be addressing fears of having less within an egalitarian society there are those, many, who will be facing the burden and responsibility of having more.
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