Some observations … Ian’s words quoted:

“Inequality is an extremely frustrating issue that I truly believe will plague our societies around the world for quite sometime.”

Inequality has always been, no matter the economic system, and therefore there is no reason to think that inequality will someday be resolved. Is there?

You allude to this many ways in your optimistic view, which is fine, but is it realistic? You say that …

“our economic systems are to young and immature to really know”

But as long as there have been people, or rather people in society, there have been those with and those without. It’s an old saying that those in power will always work to remain in power …. is that true as well? It seems so … capitalism is a human contrivance to maximize economic benefit in the only measurable method we have … money. We do not measure our worth by hoards of gold in walled cities protected by large armies anymore, but the structure is similar … power begets power begets power …. birds of a feather will flock and nurture each other to their particular advantage.

What is precisely right is that education is key to success. But even there we find gross advantage to the Harvard grads over the University of West Florida grads. And why would one choose UWF then? That is a rhetorical question. Thus, inequality will remain … always.

And then you say …

“capitalism, [you say it is in the extremes but the essence of capitalism is in fact that] ... the rich suppress the poor for their own personal gain; this may have been the case in the past, but I truly believe this is not sustainable

Except, not just the poor, but the masses – consumers. Consumerism is the true cancer of our capitalist system and, as you correctly state, impatience. We want everything now … and society perpetuates the cancer to the Nth degree with its message … just flip channels at any time on any day. So, the circle is complete … corporatist feed off the unsustainable hunger of the masses of consumers and there is no end in site. Our children are brought up more hungry than we are … on and on …

It SEEMS unsustainable, but is it? Like nature, these beasts have a way of surviving (nature finds a way). Isn’t it possible that if capitalism/consumerism continues to perpetuate from generation to generation AND for some reason facets of it become unsustainable (like the end of oil, say) then won’t the rich continue the advantage (ability to afford) while fewer and fewer others will? But then, because those dollars are not being spent by the masses, the beast will morph as needed to contrive methods to continue the influx of billions from the millions of pockets full of ones, fives, and tens?? Surely. Nature finds a way.

You say later …

“The greatest investment any of us can make, capitalist or non-capitalist, is in oneself. We need to take the time and effort to expand our minds and continuously learn, while pushing others to do the same.”

True … but this takes work AND is a learned habit. Therefore this is, in essence, an empty statement (to be bluntly candid) because the notion means different things to different people. I know what you mean and I agree completely but … I build for Habitat, those who receive advantage from what I do would not really get the essence of your statement. What does that mean? Different things to different people and it is work and a learned habit. That too is a part of the system and not their fault, although the strict contemporary conservative would say it is their fault …. to lazy, or other reasons, but “not my problem.“

And so … in the beginning you ask …

“So, how do we tackle the topic of creating a more level playing field and what would the world look like if we did? Would we all be truly happy, healthy, individuals?

Since the field will always be slighted we must dismiss the former question (sadly). The latter then becomes an internal question of personal moderation and the relative nature of success and personal self-worth. We have to find our niche and our relative success and be happy with that. But the language is all wrong. The message of society is thin, beautiful, and consuming, often white and god fearing, but the key is consuming … many feel left out because they do not “measure up” to the “standard model” of American “values” ... the model is …

Wave the flag, put the “support the troops” magnet on your SUV and head off to Walmart. It works for the naive consumer, but it divides many.

I wish vocational schools were fair more numerous and consumer channels far less.

I could go on and on, but it is late and I might have worn out my welcome!

Peace!

I think William makes some great observations. However, I feel it important that I clarify some items discussed.

First of all, William is absolutely correct; as he commented “Inequality has always been, no matter the economic system”.
However, in response to the second segment of his comment;
“and therefore there is no reason to think that inequality will someday be resolved. Is there?”

There absolutely is! Though inequality may exist into the future, one cannot deny our society of the tremendous progress we have seen. Let me provide the most illustrative example I can think of; In the last century, we had something called slavery- we actually owned people! We actually could use humans as currency for trade! On a relative basis, our society has improved radically over the past 100 years. Just imagine, there was a day women in America who couldn’t vote, segmentation on buses by skin color, restaurants displaying signs saying “no jews allowed”... Pretty indicative of our society being capable of radical change on a societal basis as well as an economic basis. (by the way, some slaves actually became milionaires in the gold rush… from slaves in chackles to being extremely rich- pretty radical change).

In regards to your comment: “You allude to this many ways in your optimistic view, which is fine, but is it realistic?”
My only comment to you William is please don’t give up on optimism; it is a powerful tool for change. Without hope from bright minds such as yours, how can we envision a better world for tomorrow?

I will be honest with you, i didn’t really understand your commentary on consumerism. Maybe you can clarify? From my understanding, we are consumers. We are free to buy from where we do so wish. That is a good thing. That gives great opportunity to society and companies that do good for our society; we can choose to buy from them, thereby benefiting the whole.

In regards to your commentary on continuously learning: ”... but this takes work AND is a learned habit. Therefore this is, in essence, an empty statement…”. Can you clarify? Work and habit in my mind is a good thing. This is why I believe we need to work on ameliorating our educational systems. If we did, there would not be such a big difference between Harvard and UWF.

Explain this system of worker prosperity to the billions without a sustainable amount of work. We’ve got an economic system that can’t put two and two together. 30 percent of the world’s workforce is under or unemployed(Wall Street Journal 1995)..but there is obviously a lot of work to be done, the system is obviously beyond repair. Being patient and trusting that business leaders will right their previous wrongs, that the system will correct itself is relinquishing our responsibility to control our own resources for the good of the community, not pockets. You see, bettering our communities with the currently usurped resources would cost the elite class a lot of their power. Power they aren’t going to forfeit without a fight.

The ineptitude of the system goes beyond a few companies who want the best talent, and a workforce educated enough with access to all relevant information to the best work choice. The incentive to externalize costs are still there. The unaccountability and corporate/government collusion still festers. Generations of people will still live as repressed untouchables. No, we can’t be patient and remain virtuous while lands are overexploited and waste overtakes communities. Capitalism is not healthy, as Lynx put it on his website, capitalism disrupts the homeostasis of the world, the homeostasis every single organism needs to survive.

Richard brings up some interesting points. However, I think that some other interpretation (or clarification of some of the points) is in order.

First of all, I think there is a large misinterpretation on my use of the word “patience”. My intentions for the word should not be interpreted as “sitting around and doing nothing”. On the contrary; hard work is required to have commitment towards achieving change in our systems.

On the comments about the rich, powerful and elite; I am not sure about your sources/ references, but I honestly question their accuracy. Any reference to corruption of elite should to be interpreted as being a very small percentage of them. Lets think of it in another light; The powerfull people are those in the best situation to be advocates of positive change. They have resources, knowledge, and connections to actually mobilize change systemes. And, the powerful people I know are living up to this.

Reclarifications: By “patience”, I mean the kind of patience a battered woman has when she sends her husband off to anger management therapy. I mean the kind of patience it takes to patch up a dilapidated house. All this while a nice guy and a lovely home call to you. No, sometimes patience isn’t the right approach. Will it take hard work and commitment to rehabilitate a violent husband or rebuild a crumbled house? Indeed. But you might as well invest that hard work and commitment in building a new home and getting a new man. You say, that takes more effort, I say more effort pushes us further away from capitalism in general – “why create a whole new system, when you have one to work with?” you ask. This is where my analogy fails…in economic systems and social attitudes you simply can’t “get a new house” one has to evolve from the other. But just as Capitalism grew from Feudalism, and Man arose from bacteria long ago, so a new system must emerge from the current. Getting a new house in economic terms, is creating an entirely different system, from the one we have now. Still why strive for such a radical change? Because capitalism and corporatism is an outdated, repressive economic and social model. It creates an unnecessary hierarchy, and disparity that is intolerable when we as society strive for equality, and self-management…i.e freedom. It may not be the people that are corrupt as much as the system.

Which gets to a clarification of the term “corruption.” The elite class is raised, pampered, groomed…socialized to care about certain things. Think of it this way. A rich person benefits from practices that hurt poor people. This is the worst case then to have the very people who have the resources, knowledge, and connections to actually mobilize and change systems benefit from systems that create disparity, isolation, deprivation and on and on. Consider the goals of a corporation – expand profits, protect shareholder investment…the corporate version of the Hippocratic oath – first lose no money. Short, sweet, laudable set of goals…right? Well, wage raises reduce profit..money lost. “In some cases, corporations will increase wages to attract the best and brightest, this competition creates a balance between pay cuts and raises” you might retort. In short, the effect is CEO’s get paid a shitload, and Janitors don’t get paid shit. Few rich people, many many poor people.. supply and demand says, poor people jobs won’t pay. Lots of hungry people willing to work for a little bit of food. In fact, this pool of hungry people is a corporate executive’s wet dream. Can you honestly think of a better scam than cranking out shoes for 5 dollars, then flipping them for 120. I sure as hell can’t. I think even crystal meth’s profit return is smaller. These poor people’s wages will be depressed for the shareholder’s benefit. Do you honestly think Disney will pay Haitian worker’s more when it can get away with a measly 2 dollars a day. That would be stock market suicide, and against the law because it knowingly devalues the shareholder’s stock. Now what kind of system fosters poverty this way? A corrupt one, all the while the employees carry on their duty feeling completely moral – one need not feel corrupt to act corruptly. “But the people won’t stand for this treatment and boycott the product.” Disney’s not going anywhere anytime soon. I’m sure you’re familiar with the consumer collective action problem that results in industry leader’s interest being more important to politician’s than consumers’. A problem exacerbated by the fact that Disney owns ABC, so ABC (who has the resources, knowledge, and connections to actually mobilize and change conditions) is highly unlikely to create a national awareness about the need for better working conditions for Haitians. Again, stock market suicide, and illegal.

How, then, are we supposed to rely on these institutions, who are practically bound by law to oppress and deceive, to be advocates of positive change. I also think it is a just a little disingenuous of you to imply that only powerful people can bring about change. Remember this, throughout history it has always been the disenfranchised, the trodden slice of society that has brought about revolutionary positive change. From the inception of our nation, to the abolishment of slavery, to secured labor rights, the weary have never failed to stand up in defiance of the powerful who benefit from their misery. Common sense tells us, people exploit others for an advantage, and upon gaining the advantage become more powerful and better at exploiting. Until the most exploitative group of people reach the top – that is, the few people that exploit all others, the class to which we cater to, and even aspire to join. It’s a form of social Darwinism. The great thing about society though, is it is a human construct, we can set the parameters for evolution. We can just stand up and say…those who exploit others will not survive, any institution that inherently causes exploitation, is fueled by ignorance and greed, will be dissolved. We can demand a system in which goods and services are provided in a way that leads to community betterment by inherently causing cooperation and progress. The structures await, nested within the capitalist world, just as the capitalist structures nested within the feudalist world – they await a social movement that will cultivate and focus them, that will allow them to grow and reshape our lives and planet.

For more on these structures go to http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=14085
Also check out the Fair Trade Federation, and always think of solutions..think big.

your argument that capitalism is becoming more ‘enlightened’ and that inequality will soon be a thing of the past is so far beyond disingenuous it’s just plain silly.

Capitalism requires poverty since it relies on economic coercion of the majority through the threat of poverty or starvation in order to force people to accept the low-paying jobs that form the basis of the capitalist pyramid. And that’s before you even touch the fact that the profit system itself is based on systematic theft. for example:

say I work in a shoe factory making shoes. In the course of a day the wealth I create is equal to the value of the number of shoes I produce minus the cost of materials and overhead (the value-added which my labor creates). Now that’s all wealth that I created and, by all rights, should own. In capitalism, however, the owner of the factory or workshop appropriates the vast the majority of that added value and pays me some lesser amount, and it is that act of theft that creates profits for the owners since my labor becomes just another cost and they become free to appropriate (ie steal) all of the surplus value that my labor created. They do this by leveraging the fact that the means of production are owned by a minority to force the working majority to work for the owners instead of simply working for themselves. In other words, inequality – the fact that a minority owns most of the worlds wealth – is a vital and indispensable element of capitalism. Without that inequality the entire wage system would collapse.

Ordinary people, given free access to the means of producing wealth, could self-manage their own production without bosses or hierarchies, there are literally thousands of worker-owned businesses around the world that are doing it already. Existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth are the only thing standing in the way of the immediate and virtually instantaneous abolition of capitalism. All that is required is for us as a society to (1) recognize that humans do not own the earth because we did not create it and that therefore anyone who claims to own land is nothing more then a thief and (2) for us to realize that the accumulated wealth and technology of the planet – what Kropotkin termed the “common heritage of humanity” – also belongs to everyone. Not to capitalists, not to governments, but to all of us.

And no, that’s not a ‘communist’ argument. Notice that I’m not arguing that we should turn over control of the worlds wealth to the worlds governments and expect them to run things in the interest of the people. Anarchists denounced such plans as lunacy years before the Bolshevicks ever seized power in Russia and the massive failure of Marxism there just proved us right.

<pre><code>Instead I'm arguing for an entirely different approach to property and ownership, a model where no one owns the land but local communities take stewardship responsibility and have oversight powers over all businesses that operate within their borders. where factories, firms, stores, etc are all self-managed by the employees without a managerial class and decisions are made on the shop floor, democratically, by the people who work there. where the market actually becomes a meaningfully free market - one that is not constrained by the massive barriers to entry that accompany an economy based on private ownership of the means of production. An economy where how much you make in a year directly depends on how much wealth your labor creates - not on how much wealth you can extract from the labor of others or how little is left after the boss steals all the profits from your work. A society, in short, without significant institutionalized inequality - something that can never be achieved in a capitalist system.</code></pre>

Lynx brings up some great points. However, I feel the need to address a certain common understanding of all those against the Capitalist system.
In many ways, I am starting to feel the sensation that the picture of this article sparks a lot of emotion. The underlying rationality of why I posted this picture was not to reinforce this pyramid. I look at it and say “its crazy how far we have evolved since”. It is important to understand that this picture is very far from the Capitalism of 2007.
Continuously, a lot of references that are made in argument against the system (and this goes for everyone I have seen on Rethos.com with anti-capitalist views) are things that are taken from histroy books, not present day fundamentals. IBM, Coca-Cola, and Nazis are a long way off from where we are today (in reference to Richard’s post “A Corrupt Patience- Reponse to Ian Wooden).
Just to clarify (as I have mentioned previously); Capitalism is far from perfect. But, it is with great ambition and faith that we can make it better.

My problems with this article have prompted me to reply with a post of my own at the following link:

http://www.rethos.com/news/view/748-A-critical-essay-in-reply-to-Ian-Wooden-s-article-re-Inequality-and-Capitalism

Like Alec, my response to this article required a new article. mine is at http://rethos.com/news/view/692-On-Revolution-How-and-Why-

in a nutshell, my big beef is that you seem to believe things have changed since the days of old-school industrial capitalism as depicted i nthe pyramid picture you posted. you’re wrong. there are just many more layers today, the essential structure is identical.