Living in the western world, we have been culturally bred to accept the paradigm that we are living in. Most of us have stakes in it, and most are admittedly satisfied by the system. I would contend that the reason people are so satisfied is because they don't know what they're missing, but that's another argument.... The notion I'm going to challenge is the one claiming the present state of world affairs in it's entirety is fair. I will evaluate it's prevalence of fairness based on the generalized definition of fairness (as stated on dictionary.com):
Fairness: the state, condition, or quality of being fair, or free from bias or injustice; evenhandedness.
To start, I'll address economic inequality. I've harped about this topic many times, but it is only appropriate to do so as the topic and economic inequality are very much connected. It is important to understand that with an inequality of money, coupled with the fact that it takes money to buy virtually all of the fundamental human needs, social inequality is imminent:
- There are 137,000 children in British Columbia alone who are living below the poverty line. That's 16% of BC's children, and the rate is rising. Not surprisingly, the inequality of income in British Columbia has also been growing.
- 49 million people in the United States have been deemed poor. Now check out this chart demonstrating the increasing income inequality in the United States:
Yes, we can admit that a good number of us still live decent lives, with the ability to at least provide for our human needs. And although we must realize that the number of social disparities and potential economic downward risks in developed nations is growing, understanding the atrocious state of socio-economic fairness in developing countries is useful for understanding fairness at a global level:
- In Africa, 1 in 2 people live on less than a dollar a day. Additionally, 33% suffer from malnutrition, with less than 50% having access to adequate medical care. This is compounded by a host of other disparities.
- With a population of 1.3 billion, 85% of people live on less than $2 per day in South East Asia.
- In Latin America, the richest tenth of inhabitants own 48% of the wealth. The bottom tenth own just 1.6% of the wealth.
If we want a fair world, doesn't it make sense to have a discussion about income and general wealth inequality? As discussed in previous articles, the environments in which we are raised have a huge impact on the shaping of psychological function and personality. If people are born into adverse social environments, can you expect anything else other than less chance of measurable success? This is the basis of inequality. Our media hardly reports it. I never remember hearing about income inequality growing up, I just assumed that rich people were either more brilliant academically or just worked unnaturally hard. This is far from the truth though. The truth is that it becomes easier to accumulate wealth as you get more of it.
For example:
Let's take someone coming out of high school, with assets totalling 5,000 dollars. We will compare it to someone with assets of 500,000 dollars. And then we will compare it to someone with assets totalling 5,000,000 dollars.
High schooler, or recent graduate. (Income, roughly 1,000/month, assets: 5,000). Options for making money immediately:
- Go to school, in hopes that there will actually be jobs when you finish.
- Start up a business by selling a given product (requiring a business loan with a limit of no more than 10,000 dollars, assumably with an interest rate far exceeding the average. This is due to the lack of credit worthiness the high-school person has, as well as the limited amounts of assets they have in case they fail to repay the loan)
- Take up a trade. Make pretty decent money doing a job you will likely come to hate.
- Become a wage slave in the service industry, slowly climbing a corporate ladder only to have your social services cut in the name of austerity while your wage continues to stagnate.
Middle class person (Income: roughly 4,500/month, assets: 500,000) Options for making money immediately:
- Assuming there is equity in your home, downsizing in an upwards market can open up some very profitable opportunities.
- Purchasing an established local business. Using the credit worthiness built up over 10+ years of paying bills, as well as the collateral from assets they own, the bank can grant a loan. The loan limits would far exceed the limits of a high-school kid, without even taking into account the actual feasibility of that business venture in the given market.
- Invest in the stock market/bond market/bullion market. Using either savings from your career or a low-interest loan from the bank, these ventures can provide to be very lucrative. The more you put in smartly, obvious the more you can multiply your earnings.
- If this person is a business owner, they can consider cutting a certain portion of staff to immediately cut operations cost. While in a position of financial power, and being on the leading end of employment, this gives the employer the complete control over employment in the workplace.
Upper class person (Income: Roughly 450,00/month, assets: well over 50 million). Options for making money immediately:
- Ability to pay off a mortgage much much easier. We have to realize that the gap between middle class and upper class wealth is vastly larger than the gap between middle of the road and top of the line real estate prices. Much of the wealthy class has the ability to pay off a mortgage in a matter of months, weeks, and sometimes even days. When we consider that Jon Paulson made millions everyday from 2007 onwards, the staggering ability of the rich to be able to pay off their personal debts becomes more obvious and clear.
- Buy up, or buy out companies/corporations.
- Engage in tax evasion. This is often done illegally, but also in many ways legally.
- Invest in real estate, nationally or internationally. Start-up costs for real-estate are often pennies for investors with such deep pockets.
- Buy up local media sources to perpetuate your agenda to society, therefore increasing the chances of socio-economic circumstances being tipped in your favour.
- Become a politician, where you can easily gain support as long as you have businesses willing to fund your cause. (With the often less heard part where that company can make millions or billions off of you).With this method, you also gain celebrity status... so long as you can hold your own in some Fox News debates or interviews.
- If successful in the financial or business industries, advisor positions are readily available at massive arrays of firms looking for insight. These positions can be very lucrative.
- Invest heavily in human needs related industries, whereby the demand for business is almost guaranteed.
As you can see, there is no actual "fairness" within this type of social model. Fairness is to begin on a level playing field, or at least a somewhat level one... I realize there are many more money-making opportunities for each class that I missed, with generalization inevitable in this type of analysis... but you see my point. The precondition of having money immediately gives you an advantage over someone who doesn't. That is fact.
And when we take a look at inequality rates, in correlation with the obscene and very real circumstance of varying social mobility, we further realize that this world is far from fair.
Fairness to me, is not a world where 1% of the population can control 40% of the wealth.
Fairness to me, is not a world where the politicians that are supposed to represent all of us can be bought and sold by elites who can afford to lobby them.
Fairness to me, is not a world where populations can be effectively discontented, disgraced, and assimilated like the Natives in Canada, or the Palestinians by Isreali security forces (Israel happens to be supported by the US, Canada, as well as several other large industrial nations), or even African-Americans in the US, who face tremendous inequality after several severe financial crises.
Fairness to me, is not a world where we still have homeless people. We have all the means of providing human needs to every single human being on this planet, we have just created a system that bleeds inequality and has created social mechanisms/institutions that justify this kind of moral brutality and stupidity. In fact, the cost of all the destruction created by countries involved in World War 2 could have easily provided for every single human need for every single person in the world. The capitalist system of today is the most wasteful of any system in history, yet we try to pretend that we effectively and morally allocate appropriate amount of goods to the appropriate people. This purely political mind-frame MUST stop if we are to constructively deal with human scarcity.
Fairness to me, is not a world where our food supply is threatened by money hungry corporations.
Fairness to me, is not a world where even our water supply is monopolised and profited from...
I think it would be tremendously difficult to make an argument that this world is fair, and able to be effectively and humanely utilized by all beings, regardless of colour, ethnicity, geographical location, or wealth.
We are lying to ourselves if we think this world is collectively doing a good job. It would take a very distorted view of "good job" to believe we are achieving it. It is easier however, which is the reason we engage in it so relentlessly now without thinking about the social effects which result from our everyday actions and ambitions.
We have become disconnected with the humans in which we share this earth with. Animals of the same race tend to band together, in hopes of creating unity and consequentially, strength and power through numbers rather than socially constructed instruments such as money. We have lost our sense of love towards each other...
But fairness; whether it be by mutual respect or mutual work, coincides with love...
For love is the foundation for all that is fair.
"One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that" - Joseph Campbell
"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity" - Albert Einstein
Written by Shelby Bouchard
Follow me on twitter: @SBtheradical
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