It's Crazy...

Why do people associate capitalism with freedom, even when their daily experiences belie that very notion? Why do people believe it's even possible to hang on to a system in which people need jobs to have a decent standard of living, even when it's not only possible but certain that progressing technology and AI will make most jobs obsolete? Why do they accept the creation of bullshit jobs of shuffling money around without creating anything useful, just to keep them busy, to give them a sense of contributing to society, and thereby justify their large incomes?

This, to me, is crazy. I've often referred to the yearly science expo's in the 1950s and 1960s, back when the ultra rich payed taxes of 70% to over 90% on any income above a million dollar per year (just a rough estimation and adjusted for inflation), when the economy was booming and when the middle class was comprised of factory workers that could support comfortably an entire family with just one income: scientists foresaw a bright future in which people would have to work less hours because of all the magnificent inventions that would liberate men and women from having to work 5 days a week and 8 hours per day. There was talk of a 4 day work-week, even a three day work-week; technological and scientific progression could have no other effect. When a big farm needed 20 people to operate back then, nowadays a family of four can do that job. Ford needed hundreds of employees to man their first assembly-lines, nowadays robot-arms are doing all that work and a couple of hands full of technicians and programmers keep the factory running, while many more automobiles are being produced. Less hands make more than many more hands ever could...

Capitalism doesn't allow for that wonderful future envisioned 70 years ago, but it's still realistic to say that if we were to distribute all the NECESSARY work among all that are capable of doing that work, each and every one of us would need to work only a couple of days per week. Instead we've let the capitalists brainwash us into believing it's just fine, necessary even, that we went the exact opposite direction. We work more hours than ever before, not just dad, but mom and the kids as well. We produce so much that there's no way we can sell all of it, creating huge amounts of waste and a paradoxical world in which we produce far more food than all 7.5 billion of us could ever eat while billions still go hungry, we make more cars than all families in the world would need while many still have to walk miles just to get water, we have cities with more empty buildings than homeless people...

This, to me, is crazy. But more than 10,000 years of living with two classes, the producers and the rest, has made us believe that this is the norm. It's crazy that people who are otherwise very intelligent, can not see how crazy this state of affairs really is. Or maybe it's not so crazy... You see, when we allow the existence of these two classes of people, who are the same in every aspect but the difference in wealth this class distinction between producers and the rest allows for, there will always be that small group of people who control everything, including what the rest is allowed to think, to believe. Throughout the ages this upper class has controlled not only the production of tangible goods and services, but also the production of the news, the books, the theater plays, the TV series and films. Not only wealth, but also the ability to speak to the masses is concentrated in just a few hands. And this has always been the case because new technologies to disseminate information is in the hands of the rich first, followed by a short period in which regular people are allowed to also use that new technology. We're now seeing our beloved internet, that has been a place where anyone could say anything, slowly but surely being taken over by "Big Tech"... We've seen this happen before with the press; there were hundreds, maybe thousands of small independent newspapers in America alone up until the early 1900s, but thereafter the merging and the competition knocked them out one by one to the point where Americans now get their news from the NY Times and Washington Post almost exclusively.

That is as far as they still read; radio and especially television has taken over the role of providing citizens with "the news" and other programs that mold the subconscious and conscious mind as to be willing to accept the completely crazy status quo of a very small group that rules everyone and everything else. In America it was Bill Clinton who presided over the death of small independent radio and television stations; right now there are only 5 media companies that own everything that's slung from your TV screen into your mind, day in, day out. That's the topic of the video I share with you today, dear reader. It answers the question why the political spectrum has become so small that the two leading political parties are all but indistinguishable where policies are concerned, why they both support eternal warfare and why they both make sure the taxes of the ruling class will never be raised. The press is lost to us, radio and television are lost to us, and if we allow it to happen, the internet will shortly be lost to us. This, to me, is crazy. So watch the video and reconsider your beliefs about the normalcy of a two class system; after more than 10,000 years it's about time...

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