Our world has a lot of problems, but one stands out – because it is the root of so many others. I would go so far as to say, it is the root of virtually all problems in the modern, western, peaceful world. Problems that do not seem to ease up, as our lawmakers continue to bury their heads in the sand, look out for themselves, in an ever-deepening circle, a circle down the drain, which most people have acknowledged they are unable to change, and try only to live the best they can, constantly being pressured into compromising their original good nature. The problem is:
The staggering inequality of possession and income, that separates people into two major classes: the (ultra)rich, and all the rest.
Once, it was famously stated, that we had reached “the end of history” – which basically implies, that mankind has lived up to its potential, that a satisfyingly good set of standards has been reached, and there is no need to look any further, no room for mankind to evolve any further. After World War II, a global middle class had started to emerge in lots of places around the world, under the rule of democracy and capitalism. A lot of people – including the scholar who uttered the above statement (Francis Fukuyama) – were seemingly content with the general state of affairs.
Inevitably, we learned different. The gap between the ultra-rich, the top one percent (of the top one percent? hey, Mr. Robot!), who basically own everything, and the rest, who owns nothing, is widening each and every day. Lots of people – even middle class people, even people with an academic degree, who seemingly should have good career prospects, start to struggle financially. Get rich or die trying is no longer an exaggeration, but seems to have slowly crept up to be the organizing principle of the western world. Living costs are and have been on the rise for years. Prices for the most basic things, like housing and food, keep getting steeper and steeper. Healthcare has become sometimes unaffordable (especially in the US), when even well-known and well-treatable diseases like diabetics can bankrupt what was before a financially stable household. All the while, the very rich are becoming richer and richer – even in the face of crises like the Covid epidemic, crashes of the financial system like in 2007/2008, or the war in Ukraine. Statistics show, that the ultra-rich have increased their wealth disproportionately during these times, so they seem to profit even more, while all the rest suffers.
“I understand. You needed a job, and they were paying … they back all of us into a corner, until all that’s left is to compromise ourselves.” These words, from the TV-Show Mr. Robot, ring more true every day. It’s in essence a psychological trick: we are forced to struggle for our survival, which diminishes empathy, friendship, caring for others, as any animate being, any animal, uses every trick at its disposal to survive, once backed into the corner of fear for its own existence. Humans are animals, also, and we cannot help but follow the same pattern: evolution has engrained it in us, and fight or flight is always stronger than any higher-level, more evolved emotion. Once you believe you need to struggle to survive, all decorum goes out the window. Let me state, that I am no conspiracy theorist – far from it. This process grew naturally, by design of the system we have implemented: the new categorical imperative is make something of yourself, succeed in life. Once the gospel was out, it grew like cancer into the heart and minds of once good people. Divide and conquer is another example, formed thousands of years ago, which still holds true: classic and internet media, TV and social networks, push us to enrage over issues, and instead of solving them, we attack the (group of) people we deem responsible for the calamity. This is all so much yesterday’s news, actually: I hate to bring it up, but I also have to acknowledge, that it still works – just as much, or even better than it did thousands of years ago. Dominance, and hence stability of the few over the many is still structurally the most prominent element – as has it been for thousands of years. Anyone contradicting that, at least in regards to the majority, I believe is either deluding him/herself, or is malicious from the start, or both: life is not fair – grow up is a rationale by which all human suffering is suppressed, the many held down, shock frozen in their fear over survival, unable to stand up and demand change. The psychology never changes, and our genetic structure did not suddenly change once WWII was over: we merely reinvented the war on another levels, distributed it, folded it into layers, so it is more hidden, latent, like a non-diagnosed cancer, waiting for the day to erupt into view, to finish off the host. Nobody is happy with this state of affairs, sometimes not even the (ultra)rich – as they live in fear of an uprising, a revolution, which they are smart enough to see has to come one day; they just hope it will be after their time on earth. So, sometimes both parties can suffer: by fear of survival, or fear of loss. So we cling on to anything we have, and rip into everything that promises financial gain, no matter the cost to our fellow neighbors. Take care of yourself, and nobody else – is merely the principle our Amygdala, the fear center of our brains, which tends to rule us when we are faced with financial crises’ and never before seen inflation. And the hormones of the Amygdala are many times stronger than our other, higher-level brain functions, for example communication, care for others, and friendship. The old, animalistic part of our brain betrays us: nobody makes more mistakes than the one constantly in the grip of fear. And fear, especially fear of survival, trumps anything else, that might be more fruitful for all parties in the long run, by blocking our view into the future and focusing only on the very moment in which we are alive, carrying us over to the next moment, and the next, all the while inhibiting any higher-level brain functionality.
Take a look around – nearly everybody seems to be struggling. All the while we see billionaires on TV, telling us fairytales like anybody can be become rich – fairytales, that are meant to keep us docile, subserviert, to make us even more hard-working, so they can reap even more of the rewards we are providing to them by our labor. Of course, this phenomenon does not apply everywhere, but there is such an incredible multitude of instances, where workers hardly get by on a fixed salary, while the man/woman on the top claims all revenue for himself/herself. One of the more extreme examples is Amazon, where employees on the bottom of the food chain are assigned a fixed amount of time per day to go to the bathroom, all in favor of more efficiency, and hence lesser costs and more profit, which in turn keeps pouring more money into Jeff Bezos’ pockets – not that he needed it in the first place, but so he can afford trips to space as a luxury endeavor. The American Dream – once a cornerstone for positivity – has been corroded into a principle of enslavement – merely by the law of the perseverance of the stable – a tautology, that is so dead simply as it is deadly for our souls, which would like to value friendship, empathy, and care more than they are allowed to feel and let actually materialize.
So no – absolutely not – have we reached the end of history. Instead, we should usher into a new era, a radically new step in human evolution. This is the central premise and intention for this site:
We may live in a democracy by name – but we have neither thought through, nor fully implemented the concept of democracy. All of us spend the biggest part of our lives in an economy which is not at all democratic. We are still being ruled, like in medieval times. The kings are just named differently in modern times: today, they are called CEOs. A new class system has been established: the very few people who own the “means of production”, the owners of large companies – and the whole rest. Via the necessity of having to make a living, the owner class owns us all just as much. Overall, we are not living in a democracy for the most part: because we spend the biggest chunk of our adult lives not in a democratically organized system, but in authoritarian microcosms called corporations, in which the majority has virtually no say on essential issues, especially in regards to how revenue is distributed.
If you think that this is not true, ask your boss, whether instead of him/her, the staff can call all the shots from now on, based on democratic vote – and let us know what the answer is!
We simply have not pushed democracy all the way through. Sure, we have freedoms, like freedom of speech (sort of, because we can hardly call our bosses everything they deserve) – just not at our place of employment. Sure, we elect our leaders – just not at the place we spend the overwhelming amount of time of our adult life at. So how much are our freedoms worth, if we have to subjugate to authoritarian-style rule most of our time, and especially our most valued time, our productivity-time?
Moreover, our elected leaders and our institutions, i.e. the players that are supposed to hold up democracy and all its values, like equality of all people, and limit disparity, are deeply in cahoots with the economy – since jobs are so important for taxation, and thereby to revenue for the state, our elected officials seem to think it is vital to be obsequious to all representatives of big economy … but the mere fact, that income tax in Germany can reach almost 50%, while gains out of mere financial products, like on the stock market, where money is producing money, are taxed at 25%, has to be called what it is – obscene, deeply unjust, and straight out of the playbook of a rigged system, that makes rich people richer, and is set to keep the poor poor.
A British officer once wrote on the state of affairs in the newly acquired colony of india: “while the vast majority of the population lives and starves in the most pitiful of conditions, one good has been established: the order of a small ruling class, bringing in stability and hence revenue for the British Empire.” A ruling class is seen as something good – stability is valued over everything, especially over endless and unspoken human suffering.
The list of undemocratic elements in our society, if you actually dare to look for them, goes on seemingly forever. In effect, nobody can rationally deny, that 90 percent of our “productive time”, i.e. time that is not spent on sleep, recovery, eating, taking a shower, going shopping, and so on, is not spent in a democratic, but in a rigidly hierarchic, authoritarian one. That is why we need to take the spirit of democracy and extend it to what is indisputably a very important part of life: our “productive time”, or simply the economic side of our lives.
Therefore, this article, and this site, is dedicated to changing the economic system from an hierarchic/authoritarian to a democratic structure. This must be humanity’s most important goal: to create an economic system that does not inevitably lead to the rule of the very, very few, but guarantees a truly democratic economy, by which I mean a lot of things, but one most importantly: that everybody gets a fair share. That nobody has to live in existential fear, that he/she won’t be able to put food on the table next month, won’t be able to care for his/her children, won’t be able to meet the most basic of needs.
Yet, there are two major obstacles, with which we also have to deal: first, the right-wing extremism that is growing roots all throughout the world, which opposes any meaningful leftist/progressive change, e.g. by enciting fears, by calling progressive programs communistic (or worse), and secondly climate change, which is simply relevant because we need to sustain a viable material basis, a planet to live on.
This is why, on this site, you will find articles about the re-rise of authoritarianism: attacks on democracy by right-wing extremism or religious fundamentalism, and also neofascist tendencies, which we have sadly experienced more and more over the last two decades … This is also why the posts on this page are separated into two categories: the problems and the plans (the proposals to solve the problems – see the sidebar navigation on your right for categories).
How do you extend democracy into economy? Well – we have a few ideas, and others have had some great thoughts on that as well. For example, read our page titled the plan, or check out our recommendations page.