Wouldn’t you tend to agree that there’s a general sense “out there” that something’s wrong?
People are angry…fed up…but can’t seem to reach a cogent consensus about what…
Some are mad at too much government…
Others at too little.
We’ve been through times like these, you know. During the 1920’s happiness was equated with the pursuit of property. Some people pursued wealth and became quite good at acquiring massive amounts of it…
The specter of massive inequality is not a phenomenon confined to this day and age. Back then it was just as unequal as today, perhaps even more-so.
Then came the great crash and the great depression. The pursuit of wealth was converted into the pursuit of just a meal and a roof.
And this worked fairly well for the masses over the ensuing 4 decades, albeit with the usual cyclical ups and downs. But no crashes. And, guess what else? The U.S. was not such a society of inequality, as it was before and as it is again now!
Nevertheless, the hard-core property pursuers were discontent. For them the inalienable right of happiness is, in fact, property. Only if allowed to pursuit it and then given the unfettered right to retain it, protected against the will of the masses, could the true virtue of our great constitution be realized.
They found their champion, their knight in shining armour, their western sheriff who would ride into town and blow away the bureaucrats…
His name was Ronald…Ronald Reagan.
Reagan was given a mandate to reverse the new deal and he did it with patriotic fervor. And the propertied loved him for it. They lauded him as their saviour and king…the messiah who had come down from the Hollywood Hills to save them…
and restore their precious and coveted right to the pursuit of property in its fullest and grandest extent.
And that’s the way it’s pretty much been ever since. It shouldn’t really come as a great surprise that inequality has reared its head once again. And it shouldn’t have come at a great surprise that our economy crashed in 2008, again.
So, back to the issue at hand…the anger of the masses…
What really should be the focal point of all this anger?
Is government really the problem?
Why yes…yes it is. But, it’s also the solution, well one of them…
What’s ironic is, that mistrust has been of great benefit to the propertied. They’ve used it, exploited it, fomented more anger with it…and have drilled the mantra for less government into the consciousness of a large portion of the un-propertied class.
On the other hand, perhaps two things really need to change here…
First, the idea that government can do no good. It can and it has. Just take an objective view of history. No, don’t take my word for it…do your own research.
Government can make things better for the un-propertied. Those efforts may come at some expense to the propertied. But, I can assure you, it won’t put that big a dent in their glamorous lifestyles.
Second, the idea that happiness should be equated to the pursuit of property, or even its successful attainment.
Granted, it is a necessary “evil” in the world we live in. And it can be fun. Property imparts power and power is sexy.
We want more power over our own lives, as well as over the lives of others. The unfettered right to private property ownership can grant us that power.
But do the power enhancing “properties” of wealth make unfettered private property ownership a god-given and inalienable “right?”
Is it a “right” for one family in the U.S. to own as much property (wealth) as the bottom 40% of all americans? And to control the largest corporation, that pays wages to its employees so low so as to keep them in an impoverished state?
The idea of the unfettered right to private property as being ingrained in our constitution leads us exactly there. And the idea of property being at the root of happiness motivates many to go there…
It motivates greed.
The point I’m making is perhaps we should change our ideas about what government’s role is in protecting and preserving the right to private property…
and also change our ideas about the efficacy of basing the entirety of our conscious lives on the pursuit of property…
perhaps…
What do you think?
[…] that have gone awfully wrong in the last few decades. I have written in the past on how I feel that greed is at the root of many of our problems. What I mean by greed is the tendency for humans to […]