Tyranny, Exploitation and You

I often talk about being free and not being a slave to the ruling corporate elites and their political lackeys. My beautiful and incredibly intelligent wife pointed out that we are all slaves to something, which is true in a way. I am voluntarily a slave to my family, which in turn forces me to work and participate in the military industrial machine so I can provide health insurance for my sons.


I also often mention how we are trying to live without exploiting other people, mainly in developing countries. But last night Kristina (my beautiful and incredibly intelligent wife) mentioned about how the poor are exploited here in our country (and likely most other developed countries). That those who are living in poverty or close to poverty most often do not have the choice to eat organic or even non-processed foods, or avoid products that have potentially dangerous components or compounds. That those in poor areas often have to pay higher for goods and services than those that live in a more affluent area (take health insurance as an example). I can just imagine the pain of a parent who is unable to take a child to the dentist or must use the emergency room as their primary care physician.

This got me wondering how much of this was intentional, whether it was planned or just worked out that way. When the primary means of livelihood was agriculture the poor at least could produce their own food and much of their own needs even if they had to trade labor for land. Trading labor for land was a basis for both the feudal system and the sharecropping system of the old south. It was also used in a different form by the old factory system in industrial society where your employer provided you with housing, a company ran store to shop at and a company doctor to care for you.

Both of these systems were either broken or severely damage by the prosperity that followed the end of the Second World War. With the increase need for labor and resource extraction that happened during the World War II, the poor could choose to leave and go to an area that offered more freedom and less exploitation. It seems like Lyndon Johnson tried to correct this by concentrating poverty and creating a dependent class with his Great Society programs. The poor became concentrated in the inner cities while the middle class and the factories in which they were employed moved out to the suburbs. The services that use to serve the middle class in the cities followed them out to the suburbs leaving only small independent providers or exploitive enterprises to serve the new poorer inhabitants of the cities.

This was actually not a new development and the conditions that the modern poor face are much better than the tenement slums that populated so many of the major cities in the western world during the early industrial age, the inhabitants of these early slums worked as domestic servants, general laborers and other low wage low skill jobs. For the most part the rural poor fared better health wise than their urban counter parts. Of course many of the rural poor fled famine and harsh political oppression, but many also came at the promise of a better life (measured in luxury goods) than they had in the countryside.

What was new about the Great Society and its programs was that the Federal Government provided for the basic needs of the poor under the supposed idea that they would use the boost to improve their lives. How they were going to accomplish this when they had lower quality schools, less access to goods and services and little are no role models was apparently not thought of. This concentration of poverty, lack of opportunities and the absence of the traditional labor for services system lead to an increase in crime, poverty and decrease in education and opportunity. The fact that this system has lasted for so long and is still in place (although not as bad as it was during the 1980’s) leads me to believe that the effect of it was the desired one and the stated aim at improving the conditions of the poor was just so many platitudes.

Today in the United States you can tell the wealth of a community by how many title pawn shops, cash advance and rent to own business (which have some of the most exploitive usury rates) are located there. You can also tell the socio economic class that a person belongs to by looking at their teeth because dental care is still a privilege of the wealthier classes. I wonder why the poor so often buy inconsequential material possessions when their income can obliviously be better spent. Whether it is 42” chrome spinning rims for their car or a big screen HD TV with an extended cable package, instead of healthier food or saving their money for a medical emergency. I know that they are targeted heavily by advertising but I think that there is some desire for a display of wealth that some socio-economic classes express. Why certain parts of our society values displays of wealth over health, food and security is something that I cannot comprehend.

It is ironic that one of the reasons that small farmers and shop keepers where able to beat the largest industrial power of the time was the diversification of their agricultural and industrial system. The sheer number of cottage industries producing rifles, muskets, clothing etc…. made it very hard for the British to hurt the economy of the rebellion, even when they occupied the largest cities in America. This was due in part to the British Empire forcing raw materials to be sent to England’s industrial powers to be refined into finished goods which would be then be sold back to the colonies. Now we freely ship our raw materials to foreign countries to be manufactured into finished products. I feel that the out sourcing of our manufacturing capability will come back and hurt our country.

It is the small scale manufacturing capability that I feel is most important for us to have. Small textile mills, small shops making bicycles, blankets, dinner and cookware are what we need to survive the decline of petroleum. I think that this will happen but it will be much smoother if we can transition at a controlled pace instead of transition only when we have no further option. But our laws and government not only favors large scale manufacturing and agriculture that outsources jobs, it actually provides disincentives for small companies to thrive. This is namely because our large corporations write the regulations that govern our economy.

Not only is our economic system exploiting developing countries, it is exploiting our lower and middle class citizens. We face a tyranny of the wealth and power of large multi-national business’s and banks who seem to run our country. It is time that we elect politicians who represent the people and not the corporations. For the courts are no longer protectors of the people but enablers of big business.