I am right there with you, C.A.L. But I believe that folks of the older generation should not just bring hope to the younger generation, but also bring wisdom with them to go with that hope. My hope and life-gained knowledge both point to our needing to understand the way we have organized ourselves to find the better path forward.
I hear you when you declare your points of view because things are not looking all too rosy. Yet boiling things down to their organizational essence does actually show us some guidance.
If we focus on competition, which is very much part of human nature, then we can distill two different forms of organization, both based on competition. Bear with me while I set this up.
- The Egyptian pyramid shows us four sides that enable folks to climb up the pyramid to reach the top. The slopes are getting less wide, so not everyone can continue to climb and many will have to learn to be satisfied with the spot they ended up in.
- The Mexican pyramid also shows us four sides that enable folks to climb up that pyramid to the top.
As you can probably guess, the Egyptian pyramid is where things go awry. The Mexican pyramid is where thing may go well.
Follow the competition up the chain and see how with the Egyptian pyramid most folks end up being pushed out of the way before reaching the top. That pyramid is the pyramid that gives top position to dictators, communists, zealous ideologists, but also to two-party systems, such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Reaching the top is done by one-of-a-kind or by two-of-a-kind (when two compromise and share the single top). As we know, our nation and the UK are highly successful. They are also highly competitive.
The Mexican pyramid is where competition is the base, but where halfway up the climb a platform is found; there is no single top. At the platform, all four sides can be themselves. None is the winner overall, but all folks are the best each side can bring forward. Together at that platform they agree on how to move their society forward.
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Let's take capitalism as the crude word to work with, because it is a word that can cause folks to reject it, but this can then actually cause folks to throw the baby out with the bathwater as well.
The happiest nations in the world are capitalist nations: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland.
What they do not have is the Egyptian pyramid; they have the Mexican pyramid. They are capable of controlling capitalism their way.
First off, the Scandinavian countries have fewer political institutions than we do. In Sweden, there is no Presidency, no Senate. There is only the House.
The members of the House are voted in proportionally. There is a direct connection between voters and the folks making the decisions how to control capitalism.
- Here, in the United States, we have three institutions based on our votes and they all have to work together to control capitalism. As the French say: The more things change, the more they stay the same. We can easily say that our votes end up fighting with our votes.
- Or... let's look how often the Supreme Court has to step in because our Congress cannot make any substantial and important decisions. Answer: often! I scored points here big time, I hope. Our Congress is not very capable of making decisions and controlling capitalism the way we like it.
- Additionally, US voters compete with US voters for representation. This is the Egyptian pyramid delivered as an insult. Where the parties should vie for our votes & where the voters get to pick, the voters in the US (and the UK) are actively competing with one another who gets to represent them. That is the world upside down.
How can we control capitalism the way we like it, when we are not given our own representatives to declare how we like it?
I calculated how many votes were cast for the US Senate in 2006 and who won the 100 seats (in 2006 that data was readily available on the internet): Just shy of 60% of the voters in these 2002, 2004 and 2006 senate races had picked the winner.
That means that the majority decisions in the Senate were based on just about 30% of the voters. That should show you the limited voter empowerment we have that the Swedes do not suffer from. In Sweden, the majority decision in the House is based on the majority of the voters. There is no competition among voters in Sweden. The individual decides what his or her vote is going to be and that is the end of the story.
In the US, the individual cast his or her vote and subsequently the collective district decides who gets the one seat.
Here is an image that shows it very clearly. Green shows voter empowerment, white the lack thereof. In our system, the minimum always remains 50%. The minimum of the better system goes up further if there are more seats.
We do not live in a democracy, but we do live in a nation of spin saying this is the best democracy of the world. It is competition for the sake of competition that pushed the US (and the UK) to their high spots. It is not because the poor are best off (far from). The US is not the happiest nation in the world (far from).
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In our world, when competition is not controlled but rather placed into the realm itself that controls capitalism, then there is no control with teeth in place. Squabbling Congress is perfect for capitalism doing its own thing. Sweden does not have that problem (but the US and UK do undermine their ability to maintain their high standards).
As long as the leading nation in the world is not a real democracy, then capitalism can sit in top of the Egyptian pyramid, essentially uncontrolled (except for dealing with immediate threats that also threat the wealthy).
We can discuss more, C.A.L., but the point is that there are ways forward that are good for the planet, as soon as we get the lousy forms of organization out of the way. We have to look in the mirror and recognize that we are indeed actively controlling a mechanism that is itself not actively controlling the way our society is set up. We are the ones letting these others get away with it all. We were lulled asleep.
For real change that means that A/ Folks need to understand this very fine point, and B/ Folks need to be willing to make the necessary changes from the Egyptian pyramid to the Mexican pyramid.
Our US Constitution already approves a lot of the change that is necessary. We can start at the local level where it is safest to change the voting system and learn from it as we go.
