Economy moving backward.

 

 Economy moving backward.

A long time ago, in a faraway land, I was a child living on a farm. No electricity, telephone, or a vehicle that could travel the highway. We had some neighbors off and on. Going to the doctor in the next village required either going on the bus that came twice a day or taking the horse and buggy. No fire department or police, but we had a school where you would come into the classrooms directly from the outdoors.

We had a fire when the dog knocked over a burner. The neighbors came over and helped. Older people lived with their families until they died, and we restricted no one to the level of education they could afford. All they needed were the marks.

Life has changed now. I watch news from the US and see that most bankruptcies are related to health. Many people end up having to sell all they have and accumulate debt to stay alive. Graduated students who are badly needed are working to pay student debts and young people flock into the army for lack of jobs. They talk about national prosperity, but many farms across the border from here look terrible. Seniors are warehoused two to a room and people all over are using food stamps. I ask myself, where is the prosperity that shows on fancy graphs?  

When my parents were young, feudalism was still partially used in Europe. Rich noble families owned all the land, and the peasants worked it to produce a humble living. My Dad was from a peasant family and my mom was from a noble family. When the Russian armies took over, the nobles or “educated” class were the first to be killed. Feudalism eventually gave way to a social democratic system that still exists today. The people themselves challenged this. Remember the biblical story about the Jew’s exodus from Egypt?

Moses took the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt and gave them a law, religion, and freedom. They could have just gone to the promised land and enjoyed life. That didn’t happen. People want a master. We will pay for someone to be our idol, even if it is only the golden calf promoted by bearers of fake news. God opened the ground and let it swallow them and the rest had to all die in the desert and never get to the promised land. Their offsprings fought to get a place on earth, but they didn’t learn. There was a period of relative peace as we had after two great wars, and all returned to chaos.

The period after the second world war, although marked by a cold war, was perhaps the best in recent history. Europe came out of complete destruction with flying colors with the help of America. When people help each other, both those who help and those receiving help do well. In America, the middle class grew and workers gained many rights and had a decent living. Millions received education and the medical professions increased their knowledge many times over. We eliminated major killing diseases. Hunger around the world diminished and other bad things improved. There were resources applied to improve the lives of all humans.

As it stands, humans are wasting more effort on improving military might than on what will help our species survive and thrive. It is as if we are unable to talk and negotiate. All options are open, they say. We compete to get or stay rich, to have power over each other, keep the poor impoverished and are ready to do so by force. All sides believe they are doing so in self-defense.

The years have gone by and instead of improving on what we had; we took more from the masses and gave it to the affluent we adore. Imagining how it could be if we were rich became more important than having comfortable, safe, simple lives. Each election we vote to reduce public services, pay teachers, doctors, police, and all the rest less, and they in turn spend less on buying our products and services. Let the market dictate, we say, but the market is designed to exclude not include more people. Step by step we are wrecking what previous generations have built. We wait for disasters before investing in preventing them and pay a high price to deal with the problems. A good example is earthquakes in Turkey. They had regulations to build proper buildings but didn’t invest in enforcing them. Now, with the buildings collapsed and so many casualties, they are begging for help from those who had the political “guts” and don’t get destroyed by foreseeable disasters. Canada got rid of research on vaccines and we were short when it was most needed. Our attempts to maximize EMS resulted in people dying at home waiting for an ambulance. Where did the money saved on those measures end up? Not to help those of us in the most desperate situations.

Our problem is that instead of building up on the idea that we are God’s children, in His image, we chose to believe that we are advanced apes and act like such. The big monkey steals from the little monkey and beats him up.

I was on an isolated farm with no help, and we built systems to have help. Now we are throwing it away and soon may be in the same predicament, while someone will pocket our money out of our reach.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.