Chapter 1: Intro and Chapter 2 - It Takes Money to Make Money - How the Stock Market Strongly Favors the Ultra Rich

The dictionary defines Capitalism, the dominant socio-economic system in the United States and most of the world, as a socio-economic-political system in which resources are owned and controlled by private parties, which can be individuals or corporations. These “private parties” who control access to resources and processes are almost always a microscopically tiny handful of ultra-wealthy people and the corporations that they command. There is a slightly larger segment of the population who serve and enforce the will and interests of these ultra-wealthy and administer land, labor and other resources on their behalf. The vast majority of people are forced by economic necessity to live in dwellings ultimately owned by this tiny ultra-wealthy sector, and work for them at whatever wages the ultra-wealthy choose to pay while paying whatever this same sector chooses to charge for literally everything. Whether we look at land, goods, services, or simply access to basic needs and necessities, we see that almost all of them are controlled by this miniscule sector.

The same dictionaries define Feudalism as the Medieval socio-economic-political system in which monarchs and their families owned and controlled resources and processes, parceling out large portions of them to vassals and minor nobility to run as they saw fit in exchange for protecting and enforcing the will and interests of the monarchs, while the vast majority of the population were forced to live on the nobles’ land and work for them, giving up to them as much of the fruits of their labors as the nobles and the Crown saw fit to take.

Though the vocabulary, titles, legal definitions, modes of enforcing compliance, and trappings are different, Capitalism is functionally indistinguishable from Feudalism if allowed to operate long enough. Therefore we refer to the ultra-wealthy, the billionaires who command the mega-corporations that control all but a few slivers of resources, as neo-Feudal Lords.

Generations have been taught that Capitalism is synonymous with democracy and freedom, while all other socio-economic paradigms are deemed synonymous with dictatorship, just as generations in the European Middle Ages were taught that Feudal dictatorship was the only Divine and natural order. This book shows how that is but a myth at best, and a deliberate deception at worst.

Under both Feudalism and Capitalism, the overwhelming majority of people are kept disempowered and compliant by brute force should they actively resist obeying the behavioral rules set by the paradigm and the ‘Lords’ at the top of the command structure. In daily life, compliance was assured in Feudal times by keeping the serfs and peasants underfed, overworked, steeped in fear, uneducated, and by using religion to make them believe that to rise up against the nobility was to go against God. Under Capitalism, compliance is similarly assured by keeping people underpaid, overworked, stretched thin and competing over deliberately scarcified resources and opportunities, and distracted by a wide range of entertainments and consumer goods while steeped in the myth that “anybody can make it,” implying that if you aren’t “making it” then it’s because of some defect of your own.

Investment is the most reliable way to amass wealth fast enough to outpace inflation to a meaningful degree. There is a belief that investment is a pathway to financial freedom that is available to everybody. This is a myth, not a reality. It is compelling, like the myth that “anybody can win big” at a casino. In practice, the only way investment is truly viable is if one has enormous sums of money (think millions) to invest, and has enough income or wealth to be able to leave it invested for decades with no need to tap it. The reality is that the richest 1% of the U.S. population owns 50% of all stock, and the top 90% together own 92% of all stock. The 50th to 89th percentiles control among them just 7.75% of all U.S. stock. The bottom 50% own only a quarter of a percent of U.S. stock among them. Inflation (about 3% per year) outpaces wage growth (0.28% per year); the stock market out paces both (about 10% per year) on average. Yet a 10% return on a handful of shares is not enough to keep the wolf from the door.

When a farmer and a rancher meet to do business in a pre-Capitalist environment, they meet as equal partners negotiating an exchange as equals. Under Capitalism, the employer is always afforded a vastly superior bargaining position relative to the employee or job applicant. They do not meet as equals. Unless the applicant is a CEO candidate, they must pretty much accept the employers terms or they won’t be hired. The one bringing a paycheck to the table dictates the terms. Yet when an individual is seeking a residence, they are still the one at a disadvantage since the landlord or mortgage lender is granted the right to dictate terms, which the applicant must accept. Since every living space is owned by someone else, the applicant has no real choice. In both situations, we see that the neo-Feudal lords, in the role of Corporate CEO and as landlord or landlord’s employer, dictates the terms. In a society that prizes ownership above all, the employer often requires the employee to agree to sign over to the employer all rights to any inventions or innovations that they may produce. The non-wealthy individual must accept those terms or be without livelihood, food, lodging, or even the right to occupy space.

The Constitution guarantees all persons the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness along with many more. The economic “reality” contradicts these Constitutional rights, denying those rights to anybody who can’t afford the price of exercising them. The microscopic sector of the population who ultimately decides how much we are paid, also decides how much we will have to pay. Any truly Capitalist society is essentially, schematically identical to the “company towns” of the pre-labor-union era.

Employee pay has gone up only about 12% since 1970, while the cost of living has risen around 500% and CEO compensation has increased 800 – 1,200 percent. The U.S. economy is becoming ever more Feudalistic at an ever-accelerating rate. As of 2017, the top 1% most wealthy Americans control 40% of all U.S. wealth while the bottom 50% or more control only 2% of the wealth among them all. This neo-Feudal economic power structure is in direct conflict and cross purposes with any form of government of, by and for the people, and constitutes a direct threat to it. It is inherent in the paradigm. No amount of tweaking or regulating it will make it viable.

The necessity is clear to overthrow the economic power structure and institute an economic paradigm that is functionally compatible with, conducive to, and harmonious with government of, by and for the people. In any country having a Constitutionally democratic governmental structure, that structure is best left in place while non-violently forcing a Transition away from hierarchical, pyramidal economic power structures to peer-based, democratic economic paradigms consistent with a free, democratic, thriving society of self-actualized people working symbiotically together for the good of each and all. This economic overthrow and democratization of the economy will also require a whole new approach regarding how to non-violently force a change of paradigm. The fact that such an undertaking feels daunting and is unprecedented on such a scale does not negate the necessity or the viability of doing so. Paradigm changes of similar magnitudes have been successful many times in recent and distant history, from the American Revolution to the removal of the British from India and much more.

The extent of the subsumption of government into the service of the ultra-rich can be seen in efforts on the part of some governors and legislators to lower the minimum wage in U.S. states where the minimum wage already falls far below a living wage. Some legislators have even pushed to abolish the minimum wage altogether and let “market forces” determine wages. In fact, at the time of this writing over 52% of Americans are paid less than a living wage. This is because the structure and the psychological reinforcers inherent in the Capitalist paradigm strongly reinforce businesses paying the lowest wage that they can get away with while charging the highest prices that “the market will bear.”

Capitalist apologists like to compare the paradigm favorably to Communism because Communism was implemented with monolithic central control of every aspect of the life, claiming that Capitalism grants freedom of choice and a democratic society. This is another myth. The only difference between Capitalism and Soviet-style Communism in that respect is that under Communism, central monolithic control was by the government, which was theoretically answerable to the people, while under Capitalism, the central control of all aspects of life is in the hands of mega-corporations and the billionaires who control them, who are in no way, shape or form answerable to the people.

Resources are kept deliberately scarcified in accordance to the “law of supply and demand,” thus putting the overwhelming majority of people in the position of having to vie against one another for scarcified resources and opportunity. Keep currency scarce and hard to come by and make sure that everybody must have it, and you make sure that almost all people will be willing to enter virtual indentured servitude or slavery in order to get it. Keep housing, food, education, medical care, etc., in short supply and you can drive prices up almost without limit, as long as Capitalism is the only game in town and all are required to play. This is a very effective strategy for controlling most of a population and keep the people engaged in perpetual servitude and disempowerment.

Yet it is not a matter of bad people being bad. The problem is that the operating principles of the dominant paradigm strongly reinforce these neo-Feudalistic behaviors while failing to reinforce co-operation and synergistic mutuality.

Back to the dictionary, one of Merriam-Webster definitions of Feudalism is “Any of various political or social systems similar to medieval feudalism.” By that definition, the current dominant socio-politico-economic paradigm fits the definition to a tee. We are not, however, doomed to continue in this paradigm. It only continues to function as it does because we all continue to live our lives and function according to the rules dictated by it. If we choose, pretty much en masse, to function according to the parameters of a different paradigm at every level of a country or society and cease following the parameters set by the feudalistic paradigm, then those addicted to the Capitalist paradigm will not be able to stop us, no matter how hard they try to suppress the Transition. There are ten thousand or more of us for every one of them. If we simply change the way the game of life from research & development to production of goods and services to distribution of resources to consumption of goods and services, at the grass roots level, the neo-Feudal lords will be helpless to stop us.