Another victory for boundless equality
I was in my bathroom this morning for some reason thinking about socialism and capitalism... you know, like you do before you're going to brush your teeth and go to work. Doesn't everyone think this way? (I thought not.)
Separatists (capitalists) draw lines in the sand. Taxes are a forced means to erase these lines. We're contributing to the betterment of all via city, county, state, and federal taxes. These lines keep the haves and have-nots apart, and then mediate the gap. It is sort of like an economic heat pump: you draw heat out of the places with heat to the places that need heat. In this case, heat is the desparation and low wages of the tropics and of depressed nations (who have generally and historically had a wall in the sand, rather than just a line, such as formerly communist nations who were separate from us...)
Conservatives and capitalists have a chink in this armour (no, that wasn't a racist comment versus Asians): family. You see, those who purport to have 'family values' have no problem sharing (socialising) their earnings with their immediate family. And some even extend this to a larger circle of family. So, I ask, what is the difference between someone sharing amongst their immediate family and an extended family? What about extending that to your tribe? Your neighbourhood? Your village? Your city? Your county? Where do we draw the line and why do we draw it where we do?
In other countries, this arrangement is extended to a vast network of cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. That is how the Chinese buy houses: they buy them as a community effort. This is part of the reason why they became socialist in the first place.
Our culture, which is deeply individualistic, has atomised families to a very small degree. Many many (many) other cultures do not view a single family as a mother, father, and children. It is much broader than that and spans more generations. Our selfish, line-obsessed nature is a product of this. My effort in meditation and learning is to erase as many of these lines as possible. Philosophically, this is often difficult to reconcile with living an everyday life.
Unfortunately, I know you can't change culture through will; you can only change yourself. Instead of fighting that battle against everyone, I'd rather move to a place where I don't have to fight it. It is the path of least resistance, you know? Additionally, this will allow me to learn a different way.
I now have a map of potential places where I would like to go:
Interestingly enough, almost every single place I have an interest in travelling/moving to are on this map. The ones that are left out are the UK, Ireland, Danmark, and Austria.
My top two picks to check out are Spain and the Netherlands, though. I'm completely drawn to them to the extent that my desktop wallpaper at work are scenes from Amsterdam or Barcelona; the irony is that I did this a while ago, not knowing it would predict who would make it to the World Cup. Prescient? I'm not sure. I'm still learning.
So, yeah, this makes me even want to check out S'Africa now.
Oh, and if you want to read the article (front page of BBC news) you can see it for yourself here.
Separatists (capitalists) draw lines in the sand. Taxes are a forced means to erase these lines. We're contributing to the betterment of all via city, county, state, and federal taxes. These lines keep the haves and have-nots apart, and then mediate the gap. It is sort of like an economic heat pump: you draw heat out of the places with heat to the places that need heat. In this case, heat is the desparation and low wages of the tropics and of depressed nations (who have generally and historically had a wall in the sand, rather than just a line, such as formerly communist nations who were separate from us...)
Conservatives and capitalists have a chink in this armour (no, that wasn't a racist comment versus Asians): family. You see, those who purport to have 'family values' have no problem sharing (socialising) their earnings with their immediate family. And some even extend this to a larger circle of family. So, I ask, what is the difference between someone sharing amongst their immediate family and an extended family? What about extending that to your tribe? Your neighbourhood? Your village? Your city? Your county? Where do we draw the line and why do we draw it where we do?
In other countries, this arrangement is extended to a vast network of cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. That is how the Chinese buy houses: they buy them as a community effort. This is part of the reason why they became socialist in the first place.
Our culture, which is deeply individualistic, has atomised families to a very small degree. Many many (many) other cultures do not view a single family as a mother, father, and children. It is much broader than that and spans more generations. Our selfish, line-obsessed nature is a product of this. My effort in meditation and learning is to erase as many of these lines as possible. Philosophically, this is often difficult to reconcile with living an everyday life.
Unfortunately, I know you can't change culture through will; you can only change yourself. Instead of fighting that battle against everyone, I'd rather move to a place where I don't have to fight it. It is the path of least resistance, you know? Additionally, this will allow me to learn a different way.
I now have a map of potential places where I would like to go:
Interestingly enough, almost every single place I have an interest in travelling/moving to are on this map. The ones that are left out are the UK, Ireland, Danmark, and Austria.
My top two picks to check out are Spain and the Netherlands, though. I'm completely drawn to them to the extent that my desktop wallpaper at work are scenes from Amsterdam or Barcelona; the irony is that I did this a while ago, not knowing it would predict who would make it to the World Cup. Prescient? I'm not sure. I'm still learning.
So, yeah, this makes me even want to check out S'Africa now.
Oh, and if you want to read the article (front page of BBC news) you can see it for yourself here.