It has become an almost main stream view that it is us, the ninety-nine percent, vs. them, the one percent, and while on the surface that would very much appear to be the case if we should be bothered to take a closer look at the situation it becomes evident that that is in fact not the case.
Now clearly we have an international banking cartel bent on controlling our political system, large global corporations that buy their way into the political arena pulling the strings of our so called elected representatives, treating us like little more than cattle with low paying unsatisfying jobs, selling us made to break garbage with little to no concern for us or our environment. To the so called one percent it is all about profit, power and control, you will get no argument from me on that front.
However I would suggest that those labelled the one percent are actually part of the one hundred percent and only exhibiting behaviours that our social model has very effectively reinforced and rewarded them for their entire lives.
If you beat a dog then that environment of abuse teaches the dog to be abusive, and humans are no different, think about it. We are raised and educated to compete with each other, to get the best marks at school, rewarded with scholarships and better paying jobs. The one who can best regurgitate the mind numbing crap we are taught through our adolescence gets the highest marks, is showered with awards, gets the scholarships to prestigious schools and ends up in the high paying job. Not that there are all that many jobs, never mind high paying jobs, floating around these days.
How many times during our educational process are we encouraged to question society, when is it that our educators question us about the relevance of our very social design? While we can identify criminal behaviour the ability to understand what it is that causes people to act in a particular way can for the most part be lost to us. Why are so many people self medicating with drugs like alcohol, cannabis, or heroin, is it recreational escapism and if so, what is it that people are trying to escape from? Why is it that those that are the most violent have a past history of abuse in their childhoods, yet in general this is seen as nothing more than a handy excuse? Why is it that we do not want to try and understand the science and try to begin to figure out how to go about braking the cycle and what doing so may require?
We would appear to be so preoccupied with placing blame that we do not have the time or desire to look beneath the surface to figure out where all this aberrant behaviour stems from. It is just lock them up, it is such an easy solution, no need to investigate the impacts of our social environment on our intellectual, emotional and physical development, we can just put these bad people in jail and get on with our shopping.
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
Mark Twain
It is not the one percent we should be harping on about but in fact the system that generates a one percent in the first place. It has become socially acceptable to hate on these people as if they are in fact less than people, like they are somehow all that is wrong with our society and if we could just lock these people up and throw away the key then everything would be all better. Yet what we would appear to completely fail to understand is that even if we locked up all the corrupt people in the world there would be new people ready to step into their place immediately, being just as indoctrinated into this system as their predecessors.
No matter how enticing it may be to point our fingers and blame someone if we fail to address the social root cause, that is the social structure that reinforces and rewards this type of behaviour with giant houses, fast cars, private jets and extravagant salaries, then we will be doomed to relive the entire situation.
It is not the people that are the problem, it is the system and we are all victims of that system, even the one percent. Growing up many have dreams of becoming movie or rock stars, driving expensive cars or just generally having loads of money, then as time goes by and we find we are not stars, are driving used cars and are scrapping buy trying to repay massive debts we start to question the fairness of the system. Even still we do not question the validity of the system itself, rather we pontiff about how fair it is and think that it could be fixed with this reform or that. While the few that do experience a degree of “success”, if that is what we want to call it, are then subject to media scrutiny, are consumed by a desire to have more property, more power, more money, as this is what this system generates. The false needs and desires for more.
Then of course we get the statement that this evil one percent is not going to just lay down and let us change society without a fight, like we have somehow not realized that of the seven plus billion people on this planet, the one percent represents something like seventy million people. When was it concluded that over 6,930,000,000 people had to ask permission of 70,000,000 people to do a damn thing. Our biggest problem is not this nefarious one percent; it is ourselves, our failure to be able to identify what the root cause problems that are manifesting all these symptoms are. Not understanding how it is that our social environment reinforces and rewards the aberrant behaviour of the few and leaves us feeling powerless to change anything.
We have all the power, if we can stop bickering over pointless superficial crap and unite under the common understanding that our real problem is an outdated system and not each other. Do the so called one percent have to be on board, no of course not, but nor do they need to be banished or ostracised. They are only doing what has been taught to them and reinforced by society at large after all.
We are not the ninety-nine percent; we are the one hundred percent, united we stand, divided, well look around that is what divided has gotten us so far.
We are all products of our environment and until we understand that and make the fundamental changes that are required to our very social design, then nothing of substance is going to change and we will continue to find ourselves in this self perpetuating feedback loop that manifests all the symptoms we tend to misdiagnose as problems.
“It’s not that they are “bad” people, or anything like that. This is what this system has created. Simultaneously, let’s remember that the market system requires constant problems. In order for the public interest and consumption to be maintained, problems in cultural influence is required. The more problems there are, the better the economy, generally speaking. In this system it is inherently “good” for cars to break down. It is “good” for people to get cancer. It is “good” for computers to become quickly obsolete. Why? More money. To put it into a sentence: Change, abundance, sustainability and efficiency are the enemies of the profit structure. Progressive advancements in science and technology, which can resolve problems of inefficiency and scarcity once and for all, are in effect making the prior establishment’s servicing of those problems obsolete. Therefore, in a monetary system, corporations are not just in competition with other corporations; they are actually in competition with progress itself.”
Peter Joseph
