Inequality Is Required In Order To Measure Wealth

How, exactly, does one measure "wealth" within a system of equality?

If 10 people each possess $100,000,000, who of the 10 people is "wealthy"?

Doesn't quite work, does it?

Without differing levels of income which, once measured, can then be compared to each other, it is impossible for "wealth" to exist.  Essentially, the concept of wealth can only exist in so far as inequality exists between those being compared to each other.

Is it not safe to conclude that wealth can only exist so long as poverty exists?

Wealth is a measurement of relativity.  Wealth requires poverty in order to be defined as such.  The money-market system requires inequality in order to measure wealth of any kind.  Therefor, as human beings, we participate in and knowingly support a system that creates inequality as a necessary component of "creating wealth" (or the illusion of wealth).

The Global Delusion: Money As Savior

The one dollar bill.

What is it?

Once you strip away everything you’ve been taught by your culture about the nature of money and the value it represents, what are you left holding?

The one dollar bill in your hand is a piece of paper.  Nothing more.  The value it represents within society is no longer backed up by a tangible commodity.  The gold standard was abandoned by the United States in 1933.  The question is, if paper promissory notes no longer represent the inherent value of a tangible commodity (such as gold), how does it continue to represent real-world value? 

Many recent documentaries and thinkers erroneously suggest that the value a one dollar bill represents within society is backed up by our collective imagination.  In other words, blind faith in the system acts as the sole perpetuating force behind monetary value.  While this perspective certainly wields shock value, it completely overlooks the oldest commodity of civilization: The Human Hours Commodity (HHC) or, simply put, human labor. 

Human labor is a real world commodity.  In the same way that the power in falling water can be harnessed by turbines in a dam to produce electricity, a human being’s time can be harnessed to produce a wide range of valuable resources.  In this way, the Human Hours Commodity (HHC) is the same as any other natural resource on the planet; it has inherent value.  When a human being enters a contract with an employer, they are agreeing to exchange HHC for a fixed dollar amount measured either in hours or successfully achieving the goals of an ongoing position.  It is this act, the free will exchange of HHC for money, that fuels the value of the dollar.  How?  Because HHC is a real world commodity, a natural resource no different than gold itself, HHC has become the new “gold standard”.  In other words, HHC serves as a tool for measuring the value of the dollar in much the same way that gold did in the past.

Unfortunately, this transition to HHC as the new gold standard has created a highly destructive paradox with only one outcome: Total system failure.

First, we must recognize that our leaders had no choice in terms of abandoning the gold standard.  It is possible that it could have been postponed, but there was always going to come a day when more money was needed circulating in the global money-market than the gold standard could represent.  In a system that requires perpetual growth to survive, a finite resource like gold will inevitably be exhausted as a measuring stick for value.  In order to create infinite growth potential, the money-market economy requires a tool for measuring value that is equally infinite.  The human population itself (and the HHC it stands for) is the only commodity with infinite growth potential (at least so long as the Earth can sustain such shortsighted growth). 

HHC can initially be viewed as the savior of the global monetary system.  On the surface, it is difficult to argue with.  The more people who agree to exchange HHC for money, the more it bolsters the notion that money has real world value.  Why else would a human being sacrifice their life hours for paper money?  If a real world commodity (HHC) is being traded for money, that money must have value.  The more total human hours worked, the more value the dollar holds in the collective trust.  More jobs, more hours, more value in the dollar… at the outset you could almost believe that the infinite growth potential of this new gold standard could eradicate poverty and usher in an era of prosperity for all. 

Sadly, not only is our for profit monetary system failing to bring prosperity to the majority of human beings alive today, it is aggressively creating poverty in order to sustain itself.

It is difficult to grasp the correlation between HHC and the value of the dollar when looking at the intricacy of the global system as a whole.  Let’s break it down into its simplest form using manageable numbers (NOTE: The thought experiment below is in no way meant to emulate the complexity of the current economy.  It merely illustrates, using basic math, why universal equality is impossible within any for profit monetary system):

Thought Experiment: The Price of Goods

Let’s set our total human population at 110.

For the sake of this thought experiment, we’ll use the price of a loaf of bread as a reference point.

Model #1

10 people earn $100 an hour.

100 people earn $1 an hour.

The price of a loaf of bread: Must remain affordable enough for the people receiving $1 an hour. In this model, a loaf of bread might cost $0.50 - $1.  To keep things simple, we'll use $1 (1 hour of work for the bottom paid 100 people who make up the vast majority of the total population).  While 10 people could buy 100 loaves for 1 hour of work, the majority (100 people) can only buy one loaf for 1 hour of work.  This balances out the equation and enables the business of selling bread to remain profitable.  Further, this model allows for a small number of the population to possess extraordinary buying power within the system.  Because the vast majority make far less then they do (broken down as an hourly average), their surplus of money still retains its value.  Take note that the only reason the top 10 people being paid more actually have greater buying power is because the bottom 100 are paid so much less by comparison, which keeps the price of goods down.

Model #2

110 people earn $100 an hour.

The price of a loaf of bread: If the entire population earned $100 an hour, the price of bread must reflect that.  If bread were to cost only $1 per loaf as it did in model #1, every individual could buy 100 loaves for every 1 hour worked.  In other words, there would be no profit in producing and selling bread for $1 a loaf (because the human hours of labor needed to produce it would cost more than the product is being sold for).  In this model, bread would need to cost $50 - $100 per loaf.  Anything less, and the business of selling bread becomes insolvent.  Ultimately, because the price of bread must rise to reflect the universal hourly income of the entire population, NONE of the people would benefit from the wage increase.  All goods, whether needed for survival or desired for enjoyment, would become far more expensive in relation to the universal hourly wage.  In a for profit monetary system in which true equality existed between all participants, no matter how large an amount each individual received in exchange for HHC, poverty (rather than wealth) would be universal. 

Conclusion

Even if it is only at a subconscious level, each and every one of us trapped in the money system knows that we cannot universally earn $100 per hour (Or whatever arbitrary amount you want to assign as being a large “improvement” over current wages).  The moment every worker in the world earned $100 per hour minimum wage, the price of goods would rise to balance out that universal gain in hourly income.  There is no other way for the monetary system to perpetuate but to continuously raise the price of goods to balance with the global average income.  

Understand that this is the paradox we have unleashed (or, more concisely, the paradox that has naturally emerged as a mathematical certainty within the for profit monetary system). 

Human beings are in a constant tug of war with ourselves.  We are collectively fighting against our own forward momentum, killing ourselves and our planet in the process.  Once you understand that the Human Hours Commodity (HHC) is locked in a zero-gain relationship with the value of the dollar, you become fully aware that poverty is not an avoidable byproduct of the monetary system, it is a vital pillar holding up an unsustainable model for civilization. 

The only means the dollar has of maintaining meaningful value is by forcing a large percentage of the population to work for as little as possible.  In other words, the actual goal of the dollar is to pay as little as possible for HHC in order to buoy the value of the dollar.  For this reason, American companies outsourcing jobs to countries with vastly lower hourly wage requirements is not merely a scheme to increase profits, it is a necessary component for maintaining the dollar’s value.  If outsourcing jobs hurt the dollar’s value rather than bolster it, politicians would already have passed concrete laws against the practice.   

Just as the thought experiment above showed, the price of bread can only remain low when the vast majority of the population earns a low hourly wage.  Broken down in this way, it becomes a matter of simple mathematics.  The global monetary system, by its very nature, can only sustain a small number of highly prosperous individuals.  The moment too many individuals within the system become highly prosperous, prosperity itself is devalued.  Is it not clear that humanity has entered itself into a highly destructive feedback loop by submitting to such a self-defeating system?

There will never be enough human hours to sustain the debt created by the financial machine.  Entire countries are collapsing beneath the weight of debt.  Debt is not money.  Now that computer networks have become the standard for the banking sector, most money in circulation is no longer printed, it is merely a number on a screen; nothing more than information fabricated at will.  This means that money is twice separated from the “real world” (in which value is measured by actual commodities with inherent value).  The first separation is 1. the printed dollar which is only a representation of real-world value (typically HHC) and 2. the digital dollar which is only a representation of a printed promissory note. 

Every dollar created by our current system represents a dollar of debt and, remember, the debt owed is in human hours (HHC), not money.  The real world commodity backing the entire system is HHC.  Our trillions of dollars of debt represents human labor, human labor for generations of people not yet born.  Are we really going to ride this train to its final stop?  Are human beings going to allow our own invented system of money to dictate the course of our evolution as a species?  We truly are a snake eating its own tail.

The Rise of Automation

As a species, we have placed all of our eggs into the for-profit-monetary-system-basket.  Our future as human beings is currently locked into a relationship with a system that produces extreme inequality by default, which in turn creates tremendous instability (conflict) between individuals, groups, and countries. 

The advent of automation via technological advances has already impacted the global job market, and this sector is still in its infancy.  The truth is, 80% of all current jobs available to human beings could be successfully automated via computers and machines.  Take a moment to absorb that fact.  80% of all jobs earning individuals an hourly wage could be fully automated using today’s technology, and that technology is advancing rapidly. 

From a wholly rational (scientific) perspective, automation is beneficial in every way.  It greatly reduces waste within the production process of goods, lowers the chance of error to nearly zero, and removes human beings from positions that are highly tedious, unfulfilling, and/or unsafe.  As an example, let’s analyze the construction process for homes today.  Despite incredible advances in technology, human beings are still constructing modern homes using nails and hammers.  This is an archaic approach given available technology.  40% of the materials used in traditional construction work winds up as throw-away waste.  Construction’s carbon footprint is massive in the United States, making up a third of the country’s total footprint.  This includes the production of raw materials used, the transportation of those materials, the machines and tools needed to manipulate those materials, the waste inherent in the process, etc.  For an extremely detailed look at construction’s carbon footprint, read “Efficiency and Equity Implications of Carbon Tax in the Construction Industry” (PDF).

Nearly 6 million Americans work in the construction industry and the average pay is roughly $40,000 a year.  Where does automation fit in?  3D printing may be viewed by many as a novelty suitable for nothing more than producing simple trinkets using a small desktop printing device.  However, there is an incredibly strong push to leverage 3D printing for the construction of ultra-modern buildings.  There are countless benefits at all levels when creating a home as a single molded piece using a 3D printer as opposed to the ancient methods and tools being utilized today.  3D printing, by default, creates zero waste.  In a world of finite resources, reducing construction waste to 0% from 40% is a huge step forward in efficiency.  Designs can be much more organic, functional, and pleasing… not to mention far more safe (100% fire retardant materials can be used, no sharp edges, stronger, more weather resistant, etc.).

There are countless articles available regarding the move toward 3D printing in construction.  Below are only a couple:

Printing 3D Buildings: Five tenets of a new kind of architecture

Dutch architect to build house with 3D printer

The question is, when (not if) 3D printing takes over the industry of construction, how do you replace the 6 million jobs that will be lost?  Keep in mind, those 6 million jobs only represent individuals who work directly at construction sites.  This does not reflect the jobs that would be lost across other reliant sectors, like the production of raw materials (lumber, concrete, nails, hammers, etc.), the transportation of those materials, and the hauling away of waste leftover from tradition construction techniques.  How many millions of relatively high paying jobs will be liquidated by this move toward automation in construction?  Where will these millions find work?  How much less will they earn on average for their hours worked?  Additionally, 3D printing technology is poised to impact many industries in a similar way.

The Inevitable Decline in the Inherent Value of HHC

When it comes to automation and the for profit monetary system, it must be recognized that the value of HHC (Human Hours Commodity) is being directly threatened.  If 80% of all existing jobs can already be automated by current technologies, are we not moving toward a time when HHC’s inherent value may cease to exist at all?  There will (likely) always need to be some measure of human involvement overseeing any automated system, but the number of people required for such a task is completely irrelevant when compared to the jobs lost by automating an industry.  

The truly disturbing thing to understand is that the monetary system itself views any decrease of value in HHC as a positive outcome.  Why?  As the value of HHC decreases (as human beings are paid lower hourly wages), the value of the dollar is actually bolstered because the price of goods decrease.  This of course means that the number of people near or below the poverty line increases (as HHC is devalued) while the buying power of those already wealthy greatly increases. 

Our for profit monetary system leverages HHC to drive the value of the dollar.  As entire sectors transition toward automation, the demand for HHC goes down and this works to degrade the inherent value of HHC as a whole.  In a world in which human hours of labor or less and less vital to the production of goods, it is a mathematical certainty that the value of human labor will fall dramatically.  Given this truth, is it not clear that human beings have anchored themselves to a system that is rapidly rendering human involvement and compensation obsolete?   

Automation should be viewed as a giant step forward for humanity.  It reduces waste, removes human beings from tedious and/or unsafe tasks, lowers the price of goods (both in the real-world sense of fewer commodities being used and in the monetary sense), and increases efficiency across the board.  And yet, because humanity has locked itself in a relationship with the monetary system, automation is largely seen as “the enemy” by the average worker because it threatens jobs and will ultimately render HHC valueless.  This is a contradiction that we can no longer afford to ignore.

Ending the Global Delusion of Money as Savior

While our scientific knowledge and technologies have advanced greatly and continue to do so, our social systems remain absurdly archaic.  If we fail to bring our governing systems into alignment with reality, the world will become increasingly unstable and it will require an unsustainable expenditure of resources to uphold our civilization.  In contrast, once we transition to a scientifically grounded system (such as a Resource-based economy being developed by The Venus Project), the advancements made in technology would become beneficial to all humankind rather than representing a threat to an antiquated system.

We are quickly moving toward a future in which the Human Hours Commodity will cease to have any value within our monetary system.  If we insist on clinging to such a system, we are literally fueling our own obsolescence (which will result in human suffering on a massive scale).

We no longer have the luxury of planning a lengthy transition to a new system.   If we are to avoid the inevitable planetary genocide our current money-market system is racing toward, we must take immediate action.  At some point, a large percentage of the world’s population must stand and reject money as a viable form of exchange.  The monetary system is clearly working against human progress on many levels, and that truth has never been more apparent than it is now. 

Human history is at a crossroads and the choices you make today will determine which road we travel.  Each and every one of us is responsible for our own complicity with a highly destructive monetary system.  In our defense, no alternatives exist within our culture.  Survival and also individual success can only be obtained by way of earning money in our current system.  This fact does nothing to change the reality of the situation, however.  If we are to transcend the self-destructive certainty of the for profit monetary system, many of us are going to have to sacrifice the lives we know in order to bring about a cultural shift in ideology.  

Paradise or Oblivion

97% Owned - Monetary Reform

The Money Matrix

NOTE: Yes, The Matrix has long since become a parody of itself.  However, the original film still resonates for me despite the franchise’s myriad problems… which is a super-charged-geek discussion for another time.  The now iconic red pill/blue pill monologue awakened a powerful longing in me all those years ago in a packed movie theater and it serves as the foundational metaphor for this essay.

Humanity has reached a monumental “red or blue pill” moment. 

So which is it going to be?  Are you one of those who will choose to stay in Wonderland (no matter how false it may be) by taking the blue pill?  Or, despite the knowledge that it will awaken you to a gut-wrenching truth and a difficult path, will you choose the red pill?

“The [Money] Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.”

When I first saw the film and Morpheus began uttering the words quoted above, a strange and exhilarating feeling took hold of my entire awareness.  From an early age I have been hyper-aware that something was diabolically wrong with my culture. As an individual, I have had great difficulty finding a place within my society that did not result in frustration and, ultimately, a debilitating depression.  Watching the original Matrix film, during those handful of minutes while Morpheus began to lead Neo toward the red/blue pill choice, all of that emotional baggage boiled to the surface.  Subconsciously, I fully understood that I was watching a pseudo-philosophical sci-fi action flick pumped full of fetish-like style.  Somehow, that awareness did not matter.  Those words lifted me, however briefly, toward the possibility of an answer that I had been searching for all of my life. 

The film continued and that feeling quickly evaporated, of course.  But, even to this day, the exhilaration generated by that scene in The Matrix still brings a smile to my face. 

And now, 14 years after the film’s original release, I have true cause to smile.  The answer I have been desperate to discover is no less tangible than Neo waking up in that machine-built cocoon and seeing the reality of his world beyond the virtual deception that had imprisoned him for so long.

Money As Matrix

The thing we call “civilization” is nothing more than interconnected systems governing human behavior.  Just as the millions of programs that make up the virtual world of the film, human being’s invented systems create the reality within which all of us live out our daily lives.

Money permeates all aspects of our existence.  It is, quite literally, everywhere.  The roads we travel on, the buildings we inhabit, the food we eat, the technology we interact with, the work we engage in… everything around us represents a monetary value.  I challenge you to come up with a single physical component of humanity’s current civilization that does not have a price tag attached.  It is impossible.  Within a for profit system, each and every piece of the puzzle cost some amount of money to produce, even the most insipid trinkets cannot become reality without an investment of capital. 

Imagined Value Vs. Real-world Value

We must ask ourselves, “What is the true cost of all this STUFF?”

Money is nothing more than imagery printed on paper.  Collectively, human beings have agreed to accept that these promissory notes have real-world value.  In truth, money is an utterly useless commodity.  You cannot eat it, build a shelter with it, or leverage it in any concrete/useful way (although it could provide a few moments of warmth if you burn it).  Ironically, even the process by which the money itself is produced COSTS MONEY.  Consider the absurdity of that for just a moment. 

Human beings require resources to both survive and to lead meaningful lives.  We have collectively accepted that resources can only be acquired with money.  Is it not madness to make something (paper money) that, in and of itself, has zero real-world value more valuable and sought after than the actual resources we require to survive?  There is a lunacy present in our monetary-based economic system that is impossible to justify by any rational method.

Resource-based Economy

Excerpt from The Venus Project Website:

“The term and meaning of a Resource Based Economy was originated by Jacque Fresco. It is a holistic socio-economic system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counterproductive to our survival.” 

Rather than delving into the topic of how and why a resource-based economy will solve nearly every problem humanity currently faces in this essay, I will instead urge you to visit the website yourself and take advantage of the wealth of information it provides:  www.thevenusproject.com

THE CHOICE

The [Money] Matrix has you.

The moment of choice has arrived for our species.  The fantasy world propagated by the for profit monetary system which has immersed us in violent conflict and needless human suffering has been torn away.  The real world—a world in which we must intelligently manage Earth’s resources collectively as a species—awaits us.  We possess the technological ability to create abundance for all.  We have an opportunity unprecedented in human history to forge a new civilization in which war, hunger, and ignorance can be washed away and replaced with true prosperity.

The choice is yours.

Which will it be?  The blue pill of monetary delusion and a continuation of the same destructive cycles that have consumed us for centuries?  Or the red pill which will lead to an evolution of our culture… a culture that will be defined by intelligence, equality, and abundance?

Sharing Claus

NOTE: This essay has been updated with an afterthought below - TG

One of the first ideas many parents try to instill in their children is that sharing with others is the good and ethical thing to do.  Unfortunately, Western culture is completely at odds with the concept of sharing on just about every level imaginable. 

Ultimately, teaching children that sharing is an important life skill within a for-profit monetary system is a lie on par with Santa Claus. 

Just as children outgrow the cultural lie of a jolly fat man in red delivering their presents down the chimney at Christmas, they soon outgrow the lie of sharing as a way of life.  The for profit motive demands that they do so in order to not only achieve a high level of monetary success, but to simply survive.  This is not a problem created by Capitalism or any other “ism”, it is a problem created by money itself.  Profit is an exploitative process.  The greater the exploitation, the higher the profits.  This is not an opinion but a fact clearly visible in our global economic system.  The exploitative nature of our monetary system is absurdly evident in the extreme inequalities that exist in all parts of the world.

If, as adults, we truly wanted our children to adopt the ideal of sharing as the proper way to live, is it not our responsibility to construct a civilization that embraces sharing as more than empty rhetoric?    

It is unfair to pawn hollow ethical standards on children when we know they are nothing more than Hallmark card platitudes they will need to toss out once they enter the “real world”.  I would go so far as to say it is cruel to burden children with ethical concepts we fully know cannot be practiced within the context of our cultural systems.  It ensures them a life of guilt because, even if they attempt to hold to an ideal like sharing into their adult life, the contradictions it creates for them in terms of succeeding (or merely surviving) will create tremendous mental turmoil. 

Since we cannot deny that our current for profit system creates nightmarish inequality and endless violent conflict, is it not time to rally toward a NEW system?  The resources of Earth should be the common heritage of every human being alive.  We possess the technological ability to create abundance for all, and we can do it in total balance with the environment.  The barrier that stops us from achieving this is our current system which requires ever higher profits in order to sustain itself.  In a world of abundance, NOTHING would have any monetary value.  Therefore, scarcity is created intentionally in order to safeguard the ability to generate profits. 

Isn't it time that we constructed a world in which the “Sharing Claus” was not a naïve notion to be killed off like Santa Claus as we move toward adulthood?

AFTERTHOUGHT

I am adding this bit because I realized this essay was incomplete or, perhaps more accurately, lopsided.

Within our communities across the United States, acts of isolated kindness and sharing take place on a regular basis, despite the tireless pursuit of profit and exploitation the for profit monetary system inspires.  The purpose of this short essay is not to suggest that sharing is wholly absent within Western culture.  However, in the year 2013, it simply is not good enough to “think local” (a popular movement where I live in Chico, CA). 

Technology has transformed the way human beings view the planet and the world’s population.  Just as our economic system is a globally interconnected network, our awareness is global.  We remain complicit with a global monetary system in which a wealthy country (the U.S.) is capable of manipulating (often through direct violence or the indirect support of violence) an impoverished country (take your pick) in order to siphon their natural resources and enslave their population for financial gain.  How can we urge people to “think local” when the reality of our world has shifted entirely to a global interconnectivity?  As cliché as the saying may be, we simply cannot “have our cake and eat it too”. 

Our concept of sharing must also evolve toward global awareness.  It is folly to believe that we can cause human suffering and environmental destruction in other parts of the world for our own benefit and somehow make up for it by “thinking local” and sharing on a limited basis with our close social circles.  As the interconnectivity of our globe continues to intensify at ever increasing speed, our neighbors are no longer limited to the families living along the same street.  Because our economic choices as individuals and complicity with a global economy have far reaching impact, people living on the other side of the world have become our neighbors as well.  We cannot take from one neighbor with ruthless disregard for their well-being and share those gains with another neighbor and hope to live in a civilized world.  

The concept of sharing as an ideal must become a global phenomenon.

Ignorance Was Bliss[?]

Knowledge is a powerful thing.  In an instant it can transform our perception of reality and every choice we make from that moment on is influenced by an evolved awareness.  It can change the core of who we are and open gateways onto paths we never knew existed.  Once such transformative knowledge makes contact with the mind, it cannot be erased—ignored by force of will—but never forgotten.

There may have been a time when the American dream was a tangible and shining possibility, a time when the majority of U.S. citizens innocently sought their individual piece of that apple pie ignorant of the price people in other parts of the world were forced to pay to hoist that dream ever higher.  That time has passed. 

In this age of information overload, the blissful ignorance that fueled America’s pursuit of excess has been made impossible for all but the most diligently uninformed.  Over 100 million Americans use smart phones, each one connected to a global knowledge base unrivaled in human history.  Even the smallest deviation from mainstream online media opens a Pandora’s box of awareness in terms of the inequality and injustices hundreds of millions of human beings face beneath the boot heel of the for profit motive.  Of the 100 million smart phone owners, how many are aware to at least some degree that the technology in their hands is made possible (and affordable) only by a series of destructive business practices?  Even the ultra-mainstream media outlet CNN consistently reports on an array of labor violations by companies such as Apple (more specifically, Foxconn Technology Group, one of Apple's biggest manufacturing partners in China).  The links below are only a few of the recent articles appearing on CNN regarding these abuses:

Apple manufacturing plantworkers complain of long hours, militant culture

Apple, consumers must urgeworker justice

Report: Poor conditionscontinue at Apple's China suppliers

Long before a single labor violation takes place in the manufacturing of any electronic device, the precious minerals needed to produce them are acquired by a much darker, violent process.  As stated on the website www.raisehopeforcongo.org, “The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been plagued by regional conflict and a deadly scramble for its vast natural resources. In fact, greed for Congo’s natural resources has been a principal driver of atrocities and conflict throughout Congo’s tortured history.”

It is difficult to imagine that any smart phone user at the start of 2013 is blissfully ignorant that their super device is the product of immense human suffering and environmental destruction.  But, as they say, out of sight, out of mind… right?  Or is it?  The human brain is capable of all manner of self-delusion, whether consciously or subconsciously enacted.  After all, more than 50 million Americans continue to smoke cigarettes despite a relentless campaign to educate the population regarding their extreme health risk.  I should know, I am one of those people.  The cigarette industry is also ripe with labor and environmental violations.  Do I experience guilt regarding this undeniable truth?  Absolutely.  What is the full mental impact of such an awareness in the face of my inability to quit, not only for my own benefit but in opposition to the tobacco industry’s harmful practices?  I have no real way of knowing.  When combined with the literal tidal wave of other lifestyle luxuries I enjoy as an American that I know originate in human misery and planetary genocide, is it any wonder I have spent many years of my life in a state of inconsolable depression? 

What has become of us?  When did we become so willing to sell out our fellow human beings for something so trivial as a drag of nicotine or a time wasting digital App?  Are we so deadened by the rhetoric of the American dream turned nightmare that we are incapable of standing against the “profit at all costs” mantra that is tearing humanity apart?

I feel a deep and unrelenting shame when I attempt to grasp the scope of needless human suffering being perpetrated in the name of profit.  I am ashamed because I am complicit with the monetary system responsible for it.  I am ashamed because I know it is happening and still remain here, nestled in the safety of my American facade, warmed by the glow of my computer screen… one more tainted product wedged like a splinter of culpability in my mind.

We are better than this.  I am better than this.

A new reality is possible, but it must be a reality in which the very concept of profit is a foul and detestable crime against humanity.  If we are to forge a truly civilized world in which prosperity—both for human beings and the planet—is the primary function of our lives, it must be outside the box of the monetary based economic system.  The Venus Project is the only movement I currently know of that embraces such a future.  I urge you to visit their website and learn how we can transition to an enlightened civilization in which the resources of Earth are the common heritage of every human being alive, no matter where they happen to be born.  We can no longer afford (pun intended) to ignore the extreme inequalities our current system inspires. 

We live in constant fear and guilt; fear because others might forcibly take what we have callously horded and reduce our lives to misery as we have done to them… guilt because we know it is a fate we deserve for our complicity.  Ignorance was never bliss in terms of the American dream—not for those on the flipside of that dishonest coin—and a joy so much more profound awaits us on the shores of a long overdue cultural [r]evolution.

A 7-year-old Bangladeshi boy is mutilated after he refuses to beg.

This was the top bullet-point to a headline story on CNN the morning of December 4th, 2012.  Several men dragged the boy into an alley, held him down, and took a switchblade to his throat.  They sliced his chest and belly in an upside down cross.  And in a final brutal act, they hacked him sideways, chopping off his penis and his right testicle.  Why?  Because the boy refused to make money for them by begging in the streets.  Often, these abandoned street children will be horrifically maimed as it inspires a higher level of charity in others.

I refuse to accept this as the best that we—collectively as human beings—can do for each other.  The violence inflicted on that child in Bangladesh is a violence born in our own living rooms, across the smallest communities and largest epicenters; it is a psychological violence that has permeated every aspect of our lives.  The monetary-based economic system which dominates most of the world has become the seed for every needless horror our species currently faces.  

In order for any problem to be resolved, regardless of its complexity, the absolute source of the problem must be discovered and addressed.  Resolving only the side effects of the core problem is a temporary and unsustainable solution.  If the core cause of the problem persists, the side effects will resurface indefinitely and with greater force over time until a tipping point is reached, rendering further repair impossible. 

There are a growing list of negative side effects impacting our species and planet as a whole.  A great deal of time, money, and energy are being consumed combating these side effects (climate change, the war against terror, poverty, human trafficking, torture, etc.), but next to zero resources are being committed to discovering and addressing the true source of the problem.  Human beings have become so entrenched in our own invented systems that we have lost the ability to think, see, or even imagine a reality beyond them.  At the very heart of these many layers of systems (politics, law, education, etc.) is the monetary system.  Money exists at the heart of all other systems because human beings have allowed money to become the prime motivator for achievement.  Because of this, all systems serve the primary function of generating and hording wealth.

Money as a motivator and system of human survival has long-since become counterproductive.  The basic concept of money, or, to be more specific, fractional-reserve banking, can be dated back many centuries.  This gives us the advantage of leveraging most of recorded history as a measuring tool for money’s success as a system of human progress.  The critical mistake humanity has made is viewing money as an absolute, as a foundational pillar of human existence.  Money is an invention of human creativity.  Money solved a problem shaped by a growing need and/or desire for people to trade and acquire unique goods.  Our world has changed.  Technology has opened gateways to entirely new methods of automated production and resource management.  Money is no longer a necessary component for human survival.  Human beings are capable and ready to move beyond current economic structures toward a world truly interconnected, prosperous, and peaceful.  So long as we allow money to rule our governing systems, there will be endless conflict and needless human suffering.