Imagine that you and Bill Gates
enter into a poker tournament.
Bill is allowed to bring
all of his money
and you are allowed to bring all of yours.
What will be the result?
Bill will make you go all in
on every hand
and even if you win a few hands,
Bill has enough resource
to eventually break you.
This is the scenario
for the average American
working class citizen
who is told that if
he or she works hard,
it is possible to rise above
the straights to which
they were born
and become a person of affluence.
Is it possible? Perhaps.
Is it possible for you
to succeed in breaking
Bill Gates in a poker game?
Perhaps.
Is it likely? No.
If you consider the lopsided distribution
of wealth and power, coupled with
a culture of institutionalized racism,
is it any wonder why
so many Americans
feel disenfranchised?
“All men are created equal.”
I have some issues with this statement.
a) What about women?
b) Created implies that someone
picked up a piece of clay and formed us.
Sorry, my religious God-believing friends;
I don’t buy it.
c) People are not all the same.
Which is the what the word "equal" means.
This statement was written
in another time
and has served us well in the past.
But like all things,
it’s becoming a thing of the past
and of little use in a time
when everyone being treated equally
is an institutionalized excuse
for allowing the rich to get richer
and the poor to get poorer.
It is time for a paradigm shift towards equity.
What is the difference between
being treated equally
and being treated equitably?
I had a deaf student
in one of my classes
when I was in high school
(a very good student, by the way).
Because of her disability,
there was a sign language interpreter in the class.
If she was being treated with equality,
there would have been
no sign language interpreter
and she would have been expected to perform
at the same level as everyone else.
Remember, equal means the same.
But luckily, she wasn't being treated equally;
she was being treated equitably,
which means she was getting
the extra help she needed
to thrive and reach her full potential
as a human being.
Equity, not equality.
So how do you find the best poker players?
The capitalist mindset would have you believe
that if there is a big enough carrot
being dangled out there,
the cream will naturally rise to the top to nab it.
The idea being that individuals in society
will follow Darwin’s model
and climb our culture's evolutionary ladder
and thrive if, and only if, they are the fittest.
But there are a couple of things wrong with this notion.
First of all, consider the human quality
that is absolutely necessary
for a person to achieve a lofty position
in our capitalistic ecosystem.
Is it kindness? No.
Is it compassion? Hardly.
Is it generosity? Please, spare me.
A person who reaches the highest
of the trophic levels of our economic system
may not be devoid of these qualities,
but these are not the qualities that got them there.
Greed got them there--
the wish to have more,
the desire that puts an individual’s needs
and self-worth above all others,
the driving force that propels a person
up the economic food chain,
clawing and clambering over
the backs of others
who are also fighting their way to the top.
I’m not talking about people
who become doctors and lawyers and such
in order to achieve a comfortable living for themselves.
I’m talking about the two percent
of the population that controls 95 percent of the wealth.
Do we really want to live in a society/culture/economy
that is built on a negative human quality?
I know I don’t.
Besides, it is a flawed notion to begin with.
Evolution propelled dinosaurs to the top of the ladder,
where they stayed for millions of years.
Mammals lived alongside the dinosaur,
but could not flourish because of
the oppression of the dominant species.
It was not until a cataclysmic event
killed off all of the dinosaurs
that the lesser species-- mammals-- could thrive
and reach their greater potential.
So in their infinite wisdom,
those who hold poker tournaments
require that everyone enter the game
with the same amount of cash.
With everyone starting on an even footing,
chances are that those with the greatest ability,
not those with the greatest resource,
will come out on top.
With a level playing field,
it takes skill and ability
to out maneuver your opponents,
as opposed to just having
the resource to overpower them,
much like a brontosaurus steps on a fury rodent.
The wealth (and so, the power) in the U.S.
has steadily, over the last couple centuries,
shifted into the hands of a relative few.
When the phrase “all men are created equal” was coined,
the culture was largely agrarian-- with tradesmen
and shop keepers providing goods and services.
And the “men” in the phrase were just that
-- excluding women, excluding Black men,
oh, and by the way, they only included property holders.
The original phrase was “life, liberty, and the pursuit of property,"
not "happiness."
With this shift of resource and power
to the relative few, it has become
increasingly difficult for the cream to rise to the top.
Those at the top are firmly in place;
so firmly that when they screw up royally
and send our economy to its knees,
as it has gone recently, the government bails them out.
The cream at the top no longer has any accountability;
this is how entrenched they are at the top.
It is tantamount to socialism for the rich
and capitalism for the rest of us.
The system is broken.
The fix, then is logically a redistribution of wealth.
Level the playing field so that those with real talent
have a better chance of attaining their dreams,
even when they are born into one of the oppressed classes.
Remember the dinosaurs?
Where would we be now if dinosaurs still ruled the Earth?
We would still be scurrying around
trying not to get stepped on.
It is not until we have a system
that treats people equitably (as opposed to equally),
giving everyone what they need to thrive
and reach their full potential,
that we will, as a culture,
begin to move towards our greater potential.
Is this socialism? Sure it is.
But socialism is not at odds with democracy
-- one is a political system and the other is an economic system.
We have been duped into thinking that socialism
is necessarily a bad thing.
When socialism is paired with a dictatorship,
we call that communism (USSR, China, etc.).
When socialism is paired with fascism, that's Nazi Germany.
Has anyone tried pairing socialism with democracy?
We tried once with the rise of the unions
and it was working out pretty well for most of the people.
When unions were strong, the economy was, for the most part, stable.
Those under a union's protection made a decent living.
This strengthened their buying power
and so bolstered the overall economy.
But unions were attacked by those with power
until former President Ronald Reagan
finally squashed the union system
(and our economy) back in the 80s.
The economy has been relatively unstable,
violently bouncing up and down, ever since.
So, as the new administration
under President-elect Barack Obama
begins its work and those who have power
start their propaganda machine
and begin to rant about socialism,
ask yourself where you would be
if dinosaurs still ruled the Earth.
And do you really want
to let the dinosaurs continue to rule the U.S.?
