“All these saddening faults can be cured simply by giving up the
freedom, the very very slim chance, of being wealthy, which is no picnic anyway.
Which is wrong, is a theft (a socially encouraged theft), is in reality
utterly unprestigious, being merely a more successful begging technique, quite
without honour or dignity of merit!
“Money is very important. It
is virtually everything: food,
shelter, comfort, sex, love, safety, health.
So our fear (of not having it) is very great.
We identify very strongly with those who have a lot of money.
So talk of outlawing wealth makes us frightened, and ready to attack and,
in any and every way weaken the “attacker”, and hate every word he utters.
If he says justice, we hate justice, if he says peace, we hate peace, if
he proposes anything, we are against it.
If he speaks, we hate his voice.
We find him aggressive, dangerous, boring, rude.
We warn others against him. If
he brought our unpaid earnings in a basket, we would not accept it.
The psychology of money is
real psychology, and is so highly charged, it has not yet been begun. One should be prepared to forgive people almost anything who
have been through a hyperinflation. And
yet what are savings?: what we
haven’t needed to spend thus far. (What
is the best investment in time of crisis? Gold?
Silver? Bonds?
Food? People.)
“People resent people on an unemployment benefit, yet do not
resent a rich person on a million unemployment benefits. Surely this is illogical?
Does it not demand explanation? (The
unemployment benefit is a fraction of the average pay, so the most overpaid
receives perhaps 5 million unemployment benefits, on top of his earned pay.
The unemployment benefit was set up by the overpaid, for their purposes,
so no little capitalist need resent it. It
makes unemployment less shocking to the markets, it keeps the labour pool ready
for re-employment; if unemployment
is 10%, and the benefit is 20% of average pay, it costs only 2% of gross average
pay.)
Our resentment against a person receiving 5million benefits for no
reason, evaporates, presumably, because we hope to be “up” there with him.
One unemployment benefit we despise, not because it is unearned, or
unfair, but because it is too little. It
isn’t unfair enough.
“Millions starve. Billions
with trillions give millions and take billions. (50 million starve per annum.
5 billion with US$50 trillion p.a. give millions and take US$50 billion
p.a.)
“People say: it
sounds good, but not today. Reply:
today is every day. What you
decide today is what you decide for every day.
Is that what you want to decide for every day?
Plant the status quo today, reap the status quo tomorrow.
The status quo is a whirwind - in your back yard.
“The choice is between wealth-poverty and no-wealth-poverty.
Wealth is unhappiness, poverty is unhappiness, wealth-poverty is
war-violence-disturbance is unhappiness. No-wealth-poverty
is happiness, no-war-violence-disturbance is happiness.
“There was a time when there was no law against murder.
The upside was the freedom to kill whoever I thought would be better
dead. The downside was the greater
chance of being dead. The human
race chose to make murder illegal, and considers it got a bargain.
We have a choice every day to make overpay illegal if we like the upside.
“We pump blood from the legs into the head.
The head gets larger and explodes. And
we are brought to our knees, to our buttocks, to walking on our nipples.
We made Germany poor after WWI and we reaped the depression, WWII and the
holocaust. We make the third world
poor. Poverty - underpay,
robbedness - makes all the bombs.
“Aristotle said it: teach
the better sort not to want more, and prevent the worse sort from getting more.
“What can we do? Teach
ourselves that this is true, that making overpay illegal will make us happier,
and spread the word. Never adopt
this belief with blind faith. Be
ready to drop it the minute it seems to be untrue.
That morality is about happiness and a large part of happiness is in
avoidance of overpay. (For the
religious: that god wants us to be
happy, that since god is sane, then what our best reasoning and thinking point
to as happiness is the closest we can get to god’s will.)
Be detached: treat humanity continuing to put itself through the mincer
forever as a good joke: this is
truest compassion. Do not pity the
children and the babies more: they
will grow up to be as pitiless as the adults.
“The truth is simple; but
red herrings are very many.
“We would not lock up someone and starve them to death.
But we do, internationally. Why?
It is because we give up our conscience in trust to our societies when we
become obedient, and our societies do not tell us it is wrong.
The people at the peak of our societies do not feel uncomfortable locking
billions up in the boundaries of third world states and starving them to death.
And we project our own kindness on to them, and cannot imagine they are
cruel. (Cruelty is only an absence,
anyway. An absence of thought and
feeling. Cruelty would be evil if
it was deliberate.) It is not
distance that makes the difference, because if we were alone on the planet and
we knew of someone alone a trillion lightyears away we could succour with a
cheque, we would. It is not the
cost to us which stops us, because if we were alone with as much food as we
have, we would share it with someone starving.
It is somehow the presence of other people which stops us.
Society says: all of
morality and goodness is in obedience to us, be obedient and you need never
concern yourself more about being good. And
we believe, and obey, and never question or think more.
“Incentive. People
must have incentive, they say. The
chance of wealth. Take that away,
and no-one will want to work. Reply:
the incentive of being paid for work, not being paid for not working, is
enough. The incentive of going
hungry if you don’t work, is enough. It
is enough in a state of nature, it is strong enough in society.
If people are overpaid, they have an over-incentive, an incentive to
extreme things, bad things. If
people are overpaid (under-earning), others are underpaid (overworked). What is an overincentive to the overpaid is an overincentive
to the underpaid also. Extremes are
evil. And extremes have offspring,
also extreme. (Hitler’s father.)
“People say: I worked
hard for my money, I earned it! Reply:
You have earned the world average hourly pay rate, times the number of
hours you worked, times the ratio of your average hardness of working in each
hour to the world average hardness of working in an hour.
You are saying that because you worked hard, you couldn’t have been
overpaid. Insulting your own
intelligence.
“People say: you have
to have rich people to create jobs. Reply:
It is poignant to witness underpaid people bring out the arguments
invented to buttress the genocidal system.
The atavistic, the greedy, the monomaniac will produce all arguments to
defend his position. Such a person
does not hesitate to use the poorest arguments, since weak arguments will defeat
the weak-minded, and strong arguments tend to clear the head, always a danger. Because a rich person puts up the capital (earned by others)
to build a factory doesn’t mean he creates jobs.
Desires create jobs. There
is plenty of work in the world without creating it. (Although the Kalahari bush people get by on two hours’
work a day.)
(Once the weaker are defeated by weak arguments, the strong-minded
are defeated by being a minority and social outcasts.)
The wealthy have destroyed jobs by misappropriating land, etc.
“If the number of people understanding this teaching doubles in
one lifetime, 10 billion will understand it in 1000 years.
Imagine how fast it will be taught if each person teaches ten in a
lifetime. Therefore public
dissemination is not necessary (books, television, etc).
Public dissemination is not desirable, because then it would get into the
hands of the zombies of society, who attack it with mere prestige, and the
people give up hope.
“I want to be wealthy and to hell with everyone else!
Reply: how good is your
fire-insulation?
“The business person must be paid for risk.
Reply: This argument has
been around for centuries. Even David Hume made it.
It is like a Russian doll, you can never knock it over because it has no
legs to stand on. It sounds
plausible: risk is a negative,
heroes are paid for danger. But why
is it swallowed so suspicionlessly? Why
is this charity so effortless? No-one
rushes to compensate the gold prospector, no-one rushes to reward the street
peanut seller. One can ask:
why? And see what they say.
Must be paid for risk or they won’t risk?
There won’t be any goods in the shops?
There seems to be an alpha-male response in society.
Logically, no-one can be paid for risk:
paid for a chance of not being paid?
Business people are not paid for risk:
sometimes they lose. How
much should they be compensated? Does
the argument justify all-size profits for any-size risk? Many businesses are low risk:
selling toilet paper and beer. No
risk-size calculations are made. If
business people are paid for risk, why do they reduce risk?
They take risk, and sometimes make profits, but not profits for risk.
People will venture a little capital in high-risk ventures for possible
high returns. They will eagerly
venture low-risk, high returns; will
accept low-risk, low returns, and not high-risk, low returns.
But this is someway short of “must be rewarded for risk”.
The worker is risking, sometimes, life, limb and health.
The worker is also risking a sprat to catch a mackerel.
There is no compassion, no passion to compensate, to protect this weaker
member of society. Who will pay the
business person for risk? You?
Or someone else? The little guy, the foolable.
When overpaid people are willing to pay well for luxuries, merchants take
risks with workers’ lives to supply the luxuries.
How many sailors died to bring cinnamon and persian carpets to stately
homes?
Voluntary taxation. The
only way to get representation. No-one
forces me to buy milk. Why should
anyone force me to buy hospitals, roads? If
I don’t pay the tax, I don’t want the thing.
Compulsory taxation: I with
my freedom arrange for people to force me to buy things I do and don’t want.
If I want them, no force is necessary.
If I don’t, no force is legitimate.
Compulsory tax: I am a
slave, therefore I am apathetic. Voluntary
taxation: I decide what community
property I want to buy, I decide quantity:
then I am free, democracy exists and my representative is disciplined.
Like a worker who is not paid for slacking.
“But people will not pay”. Then
they don’t want the thing. “But
some will use, and not have paid”. If
few try it, it won’t matter. If
many try it, they won’t get the thing, and either they don’t want it, or
they will learn to pay.
Meanness is a product of the overpay-underpay “system”.
Where there is no slippery slope of overpay-underpay, but instead a
plateau of fair pay, people are not driven to cheat by fear of falling (are far
less driven to cheat). Who can say
someone is cheating where only the person (not even the person always) knows
what she wants? No democracy
without voluntary taxation. If I
ought to be free, why am I compelled? For health, people could choose the level of health service
they want, like a national health insurance, with many levels to choose from.
The level to be tied to a percentage of income, not an absolute sum,
where there is significant overpay-underpay.
People could vote a percentage level of service and have to pay the
national average of the percentage levels for each service.
But where there is no chance of overpay, or only a chance of a little
overpay, there will be little reason, few reasons for the government to fail to
represent. How much war do
people want to buy and how much are they forced to buy?
Projects: turn the
words of this book into thought; discuss
it with others; keep a diary of
their responses; develop a
documentary of amount of work, of richest and poorest pay per “bokim” (unit
of work); stand as a political
figure on overpay control, as a beacon, to help you learn;
bring overpay and underpay to people by art, writing, video, exhibitions,
theatre.
“People say: if I am
overpaid, I am not going to give it up. Reply:
imagine you are working in a factory of office, doing the same work as
others, and the management decided to pay everyone else a little less and you a
little more for the same amount of work. Think
of the things you lose. Even if the
management keep the overpay secret. What
can you buy with the extra money that will compensate you for what you have
lost? Imagine if everyone is paid
US$10 an hour for their work, so that you can buy an hour’s worth of the
labour of the butcher, the baker, the vegetable grower, the medical specialist,
for an hour’s worth of your labour. Now
imagine yourself paid US$20 an hour, everyone else $5 an hour.
How will you survive the subtle terror of the difference, your isolation,
your “thirty-centimetre stilettos”? (But
the mind comes to your rescue with a trick:
the contempt they have a right to feel for you, you feel for them;
your theft manifests as your feeling they are thieves.)
(Does your ego fear to drown in the indiscrimination of the equitous sea
of people? Is war the price we pay for distinction?
But there are plenty of other differences.)
But when you let loose inequity you cannot avoid being a victim.
The chances of there being no-one better paid than yourself are billions
to one. The better paid you are
(and virtually all are better paid) the more under attack you are, from rich and
poor (more from “peers” than from the less-well paid, who are generally
weaker and further away). If you
are not best paid, you are under subjection and inferiority. You are high up with no safety net. The whole tack of inequity is highly unstable, full of
internal movement, rapid and sudden, ceaseless.
Communism failed because it was hijacked by a power-and-wealth
group. When the established order
are knocked off the peak of society, the ones that replace them are the next
“strongest”, not the people, at the bottom of the social pyramid or tack.
They rule in the name of the people, but the people are not allowed to
watch what they do. The people, who
ought to be “wise as serpents”, are credulous, unsuspicious, trusting and
loyal as a point of honour. Capitalism
and communism, blue and red, “democracy” and “proletarianism” are the
same: inequity, tyranny, evil,
ignorant of the misery of wealth and the powerlessness of power.
"Private property was the original source of freedom.
It is still its main bulwark", (Walter Lippmann).
How can it be a bulwark when it is all stolen?
When it is to a very slight degree in the hands of the true owners?
The degree of misappropriation is in capitalism not less than in
communism, and the compensations have perhaps been greater with communism.
But the history of political dialogue has been scapegoating,
misidentifying the real enemy. Statements like this of Lippmann reassure the overpaid they
will be allowed to retain their illgotten land, reassure the robbed in
democracies that they are happily in the good system (softening them up to fight
the battles of the overpaid against the robbed of the overpaid’s enemies).
“Humans are so in thrall to the carrot that they exceedingly
rarely get to enjoy being the donkey. Only
failures rediscover life’s joyful liberty (and the successful, in chains, hate
them for it). People see nothing
but the pyramidal golden chimera, not even the acres of blood that continuously
flow from its base. And not the
all-colour grand party of life laid on every day. The eye that is fixed on one thing is totally blind.
“We think we are in a land of free speech where we are muzzled
every day by teachers and employers. How
unobservant!
“Since wealth is unjust, since wealth causes poverty which is
misery, since wealth-poverty causes endless conflict, wealth is evil, and who
allows himself or herself to continue wealthy commits a serious crime, and who
does not oppose wealth aids and abets evil and does evil and is evil.
All sin is ignorance but some ignorance is irresponsible and culpable.
Trying hard to see the truth is necessary for happiness.
Being serious is not popular; being
lightly serious is rare.
“Virtue is so popular that even the vicious prefer to think
themselves virtuous. Before the
20th century, economics was often flattery, and rarely hardheaded, objective and
sober. Popular for many centuries
was the highly specious notion that the merchant even in his self-interest was
beneficent, a social paragon, a selfless giver to his fellow men.
The merchant (capitalist) captain of industry, giving, and taking much
more than he gave, was a prince among men, and the worker, giving, and taking
less, was an inferior, a parasite, a cripple propped up by the generosity of the
grossly overpaid. Economics has become a little more scientific but the
flattery and sycophancy goes on. Why,
is something of a mystery to those unthrilled by alpha-male display.
“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer".
No-one asks how. Difference of costs and price, of outgoings and incomes.
“What will you choose? A
slight chance of being rich (and a target), a very good chance of being very
poor, with all that implies (overwork, deprivation, slave conditions) and
extreme ceaseless disturbance; or:
no chance of being rich and a target, no chance of being poor, and
general freedom from disturbance? On
a very stormy sea, either on a crest, full of arrows, or in a trough lacking
everything; or on a peaceful sea without attack or deprivation?
One must have a very embarrassed opinion of a race that chooses the
former. (And those who allow
themselves to be underpaid choose it as much as those who allow themselves to be
overpaid.)
“Humanity’s tolerance - even defence - of extreme overpay when
it is so obviously wrong and so extremely harm-making is the most amazing thing,
and all thinkers who are not very intrigued by it cannot claim to be awake.
Is it alpha-male deference? Is
it horror of wealth? Horror of
being oneself unjust, and excessive indifference to others being unjust, and to
disturbance? Is it simply
blindness, inability to keep to the scent through the red herrings?
“Money is good. It
buys many, many good things. It is
a joker-good, good for many things. It
is entirely proper, sane, right and natural to like it. It is also therefore natural to believe a lot of money is
better, is also good. But it is
improper, insane and wrong to like a lot of money, where it is unearned, that
is, earned by others. That is to
say, self-earned money is happiness, other-earned money is misery (violence,
war, crime, danger, insecurity, volatility, poverty, mafias, slavery, defeat,
subjection, underpay, holocaust, crisis, deception, fraud, falsehood,
uncontrollability, big changes, sudden changes, social ugliness, nastiness,
unpleasantness, etc).
“Don’t embrace the prohibition of overpay because it is moral
(good for the “soul” but bad for the pocket).
Embrace prohibition of overpay because it is good, very, very good (good
for the soul, good for the pocket, good for the body, good for the mind, good
for the family, good for the nations). Spirituality
is being rich, rich in happiness, peace, security, beauty, leisure, truth,
pleasure, pleasantness, controllability, freedom, gentleness, lightness, humour,
sanity, friendship, trust, etc.
“Every fortune belongs to the underpaid.
“The struggle is not between the rich and poor, but between
tunnel-vision thinking and wide-screen consciousness. Seeing the part of the picture near us and seeing the whole
picture. Seeing wealth (a
non-reality) and seeing wealth-poverty-disturbance (a truth). Tunnel vision is blindness.
See! Just see!
Not just seeing 5000 having a lot of money;
but seeing 5000 having a lot of money and consequently others having too
little and consequently endless struggle and disturbance being the lot of all.
“Fiscal equity is the price of global happiness.
It may well be the price of survival.
Is it such a terrible price?
“The only good reason to share the cake fairly is that you get
more cake, keep it longer, with less effort, less mess, less waste, less costs.
With grabbing, the underpaid lose everything, the overpaid lose
everything except money. (Which is
nothing without the other things, happiness, safety, security, peace, trust,
friendship, etc.)
“The truth doesn’t need an army, a secret police to defend it.
If fiscal equity is the root of good government, it will flourish
undefended, it will shine more brightly with attacks.
Perhaps many have already eschewed overpay.
But this increases inequity, injustice and violence.
Underpay is equally vicious. We
must struggle against underpay to protect ourselves from overpay, which is
“targetiness”, and from
overpay-underpay, which is disturbance.
Thinking overpay is a
good is the nursery of stress, anxiety, fear, horrors, terrors, holocausts,
genocides, wars, violence, crime, corruption, unemployment, unjoy in work,
distress, danger, disturbance, etc.
(If I seem repetitious, so are hammer-blows.
No sculpture in one chiselchip. Different
words for different sections of the brain, for different styles of
understanding, different densities of brainbone!
If I seem repetitious; you
might be getting what humanity, despite extreme suffering, has not got in 1000s
of years: humanity’s self-crucifixion by overpay. If I seem repetitious, it might only be you are noticing
repetition of words; it might not
be that you are getting repetition of understanding.)
“From “International distribution of income 1960-1987”, Sprout
and Weaver, Kyklos, v.45 1992, pp 237-258:
World income was around US$25 trillion in 1987, using PPP (purchasing
power parity) figures, not OER (official exchange rate) figures, which
underestimate poor-country income. The
annual increase is 6%, or roughly doubling every decade.
Hence world income 2000AD around US$50 trillion.
Number of workers, around 2 billion.
Hence average annual worker income around $25,000.
Average annual family income around US$50,000.
The hourly rate, taking 50 hours per week as the average (workers should
be paid for travelling-to-work time and for work at home, which the rich may not
do) is US$10. This is obviously a
ballpark figure, but it is accurate enough to indicate who is underpaid.
People tend to think of themselves and the third world, and assume equity
would lower their income. Our grasp
of the degree of inequity is so weak, we do not guess that 99.9%, the third and
first world workers, are contributing generously to the superoverpay of a few
thousand. The income of Bill Gates
has been of the order of US$10 million per hour, or one million times his
earnings. Therefore it only takes
2000 Bill Gates to impoverish 2 billion workers, or 4 billion people (workers
plus children and aged). There are
not 2000 Bill Gates, but 4000 people on incomes on a linear sliding graph of
incomes, from one million times down to 10 times will do the same (rob the 4
billion) and there is something close to that in the world.
To take it one step closer to reality, the graph of the overpaid from
most to least overpaid will droop below the straight line (there are not so many
so overpaid as the straight line would state) but this is balanced by the fact
that the 4 billion are not completely robbed. So the reality is that one in a million workers egregiously
overpaid are creating third world poverty.
It is like an earthquake slamming the water in a pool against an end wall and emptying the pool virtually,
sending the water shooting up in a thin streak towards the moon.
Our quality of life (our ability to swim in the pool) is obviously
gravely impaired. Of course,
everyone paid more than the average is contributing to world underpay, but most
of it is caused by a few thousand or one or two millionths of workers.
We should forbid them to work! Pay
them a (modest) pension. Their
overpay is killing 100 million (one in 50 people) every year.
Forbidding them to work would save the enormous war bill.
“How can wealth (alias misery) be castrated?
Very simply, once there is a general will.
Limit inheritance to around one world-average annual pay.
Limit annual income to double world-average annual pay.
These alone would have all the desired effect in terms of equity and
peace, and would be relatively painless. Even
the first alone would have much of the desired effect.
An even less painful method would be for the world bank to issue
everyone, rich and poor, free money; the
inflationary effect would make the rich less rich, the money would make the poor
less poor. (As a pre-warned inflation, it would be quite different from
an unprepared inflation.) The
amount issued could be adjusted to fairly precisely compensate underpay.
But before you did it, it would be necessary for everyone to understand
and believe the justice and the benefits to everyone.
It must be the first subject to teach.
It must be the first subject of each nation.
Taught at all levels. Not as
an article of faith but of reason. (It
will teach reason at the same time. It
will make rationality a national feature.)
Any argument against must be answered to the full satisfaction of all
parties without any pressure to “go along”, join the rest.
If the teaching is true, it can convince.
If it is false, everyone should want to abandon it.
“We say wealth is power. But
is it? The only important power is
the power to be happy. The rich
person sitting on his or her yacht (always a yacht!) might seem to be happy.
But a slave to self-defense; deeply
bitten with the psychology of constant defense, against all, against rich and
poor. And bound, in the likelihood,
to fall, and anyway, always to have fear of falling for companion, always
prattling! A life quite worm-eaten
with protecting oneself. But there
are some with no other talent, no other capacity, no other interest. But better to have no use for that talent, and feel the need
to discover or create another. So-called
power is always being defeated by so-called powerlessness.
The mouse saves the lion’s life, the mosquito kills!
Ah, but it’s a game, anyway. But
a poor game. For a human being.
“What I propose may be stupid.
(I don’t say it is.) May
be wrong-headed, ignorant, ill-informed, dangerous, fatal, wild, shortsighted,
naïve, childish, unrealistic, simplistic, - whatever you say.
(I don’t say it is.) But
it is sincere, impartial, well-meant, as well-thought as I can make it, sifted,
of good intent. And if it is wrong,
it can be shown to be wrong. What
is there to fear in it? Change? Your position, whether you are rich or poor, could hardly be
worse for a change! Sift my
doctrine with your mind, in case there is good in it for you. Your greater happiness, a better world, would be my
satisfaction. I would be sad to be
attacked, I would not be gladdened by your regard.
“Do people know they have been robbed? Not as well as they could;
and should, for happiness. The
inequity of transaction should be understood.
With the best intentions to be fair, value and price will differ.
And of course sellers often have the strongest intention to make price as
high as possible. (Do such people
know they are stealing? Not as well
as they ought, for happiness.) Usually,
these inequities will cancel. Rarely,
but inevitably, some will gain, some will lose.
Then, capital gains are inequitous, transferring wealth from the
community, which adds the value to property, to the landowners.
Scarcity value is a component of price sometimes, which is inequitous,
because it is not a reward for work; paying
for scarcity increases the supply of scarcity, even when it kills and starves.
A lot of history past, present and future revolves around that.
Monopolies of course raise prices. Rent
is a monopoly or oligopoly of land and houses.
Wealth is a monopoly or scarcity of money, raising the price of money.
Taxation without perfect representation is another theft: the people’s wishes are not even canvassed; government
spending is not scrupulously reported; the
match between spending and wishes is hardly weighed or monitored.
Inflation created by government printing money and giving it to banks and
not the people is a theft. “Money
makes money” implies a theft: money
give people the leisure and power to hunt the more profitable transactions, to
seek better information, control or own better money-hunters.
Duties on merchandise are simply taxes hiding behind merchants.
If a government bank pays interest below the conservative market rate
because of the extra safety of the government bank, that again is a taxation,
for the safety of the government bank belongs to the people.
Clinging to society (profit-taking) at all costs and not daring or having
the intellectual courage to look it in its fiery face (like animals a fire)
means economists and politicians constantly generate false arguments:
for instance, they argue that because both parties to a transaction go
off happy, that they both profit. Obviously
an exchange cannot generate money. They
are both happy because they get what they want, but the customer does not make a
precise fiscal assessment. Poverty
program funds are snapped up by the better educated.
Corporate profits tax, like merchandise duties, are taxes collected from
the people by corporations. People
applaud the taxation of the corporations (and vote for the politicians
responsible) and their pockets are picked again! Again, people applaud progressive taxation, while it
overtaxes them and undertaxes the wealthy.
The wealthy person receiving 100 times his or her deserts, is taxed say,
75%, thus getting away with 25 times his or her deserts, while the underpaid,
whose taxation should be negative (income topped up to a just level of what has
been earned) are taxed 25% or whatever. It
is cheaper to make things in the places where it is cheaper to make them.
But companies will interfere with this, seeking protection from
government so they can make them (in places where it is dearer to make them).
Clearly, no company should be allowed near the government, no rich person
should be given ear to beg any favours, no person in government should be
allowed to talk to any wealthy person without people’s scrutineers present.
But we cannot police the world. It
is simpler to understand what is the maximum anyone can earn (can give to the
community) and limit their reward to that.
“Imagine that a pay-fairy hovers over each worker.
A farmer in Bangladesh: 14
hours a day at 1.1 times average hardness of work, $154.
A rich man, enters his helicopter at 10am, chairs a meeting till 1pm, a
3-hour business lunch during which the pay-fairy times the seconds spent on
leisure, home at 4.56pm to kiss the children: $63.
“By a circular argument, people’s sense of justice maintains the
status quo: a rich person is one
who gets paid a lot, therefore if a rich person gets paid a lot, that is just.
A rich person being paid $63 a day?
Rubbish! What nonsense!
That’s not justice! People
do not have enough imagination to imagine the just situation to lift them out of
the familiar custom.
“War has failed. It
is not enough to stiffen our muscles, excite our ever- preparedness, pour larger
fractions of our GNPs into defence, and continue to fill people inside and
outside the country with injustice, misery, pain, deprivation, degradation,
disease, ignorance and death. We
have never protected ourselves that way. We
must try kindness for selfish reasons, because we have robbed ourselves of every
apple of quality of life.
“The enemy is not communism, fascism, totalitarianism, big
business, secret government. We
have never killed the enemy because we have never pointed the gun in the right
direction. The enemy is closer to
the human heart. The enemy is
overpay.
“Self-interest and community interest are conceptually different
and opposed; in reality, they
overlap considerably, simply because self and community are highly connected.
“Even if we only limited fortunes to $1 billion (and redirected
the takings to the most underpaid) we might reduce the tension sufficiently to
prevent the destruction of the world. If
we don’t limit fortunes at all, perhaps there will be too much tension to
prevent the destruction of the world. But in the important sense, the world is destroyed as long as
our happiness continues destroyed. The
world (our happiness) is destroyed. Will
we create the world?
“To put it the other way round:
the most overpaid are paid US$10 for one thousandth of a second’s work;
the most underpaid are paid $10 for 1000 hours’ work.
To put it another way. In
nature, a person gets paid by their own work.
The most underpaid get one hundredth as much goods and services in return
for their work in society as they would in nature.
The most overpaid: a million
times as much goods and services as their labour would give them in nature.
“Imagine ten villagers with $1000 each in their treasure chests. Imagine some inexplicable agency starts shifting money from chest to chest to an incredible extent, so that one villager has over $9000. Wouldn’t you do something about it? Why don’t we? Surely this is a question to ask and ask.
copyright Nigel Best 2000