Old man's ramble

So I'll try again writing a blog, slightly political, slightly sociological, slightly entertaining. I'll try. I'm making the commitment to my small small readership, once a year.

The whole question is what to start with. And I came up with an idea. I don't know if you've other articles, but I came upon a realization. As we all know, we have an unfair economical system that does not promote wealth redistribution even if it is in the interest of society as a whole, so all its actors, even the one benefiting of the economical system. Some smart business man are aware of that, and we ought to give them credit more often than we do, they are saving it for the others, blinded by their inheritance. 

We have an economical system that does not in general promote its perpetuity, or societies, or most of enterprises. Indeed, a company that sells well its product, that is reasonably in the products it provides, would have sold at some point to everybody a product that last and at some point, that company will have serve its purpose, and will have to dismantle. Now, that ought to be normal. It is normal. Except that we do not easily accept it, and it is mainly because of vested interests. We are blinds to the normal need for change and evolution. Companies ought probably to think about their end, and I think it was the idea behind having a mandatory amount of money in a bank, to prepare for the end. The workers are not happy when this happen,and it is because the average expectancy of humans has outgrown the life-expectancy of most economical enterprises. We are not told that.

Indeed, between the reality of capitalism and the theory of capitalism, we can find a universe. Anyway, capitalism as it is is about keeping an advantage on everybody else, by mean of control of the land, of the media and of the political landscape. It's about an oligarchy that provides nothing fair,and keeping that advantage constantly. That's where Marx was probably the most right, alienation is a necessary by-product of a mode of wealth distribution based on private property. We are, entrepreneurs as well as workers, alienated from everything. The only times labor laws were put in place, in most countries, it was because either the populations were too educated for their own good, and sacrifices were made by the owners of means of productions to prevent a good revolution, or because the big companies wanted to make investments, but to keep their advantages, they would require all their competitors to do the same. This is what happened with most welfare or mandatory insurances schemes: keeping the advantage by uniforming the procedures.

A fair competition is non-existent. It is in theory possible, if we adopt a total
transparent society, but we are very far away from that. As much as we can still consider, and we will have to or fall in a dark age, that we can reshape our economical system ( limiting the use of limited first-hand goods ( and redistributing first to the region holding these goods) – eliminating everybody's debt – having a different economy for life ( as it is – so the enjoyment of culture) – an ownership of material products by societies ), we are far away from considering total transparency as another need for keeping human society going on. Total transparency seems to be an invasion of our private life, but more than the fascistic idea that people who have nothing to hide do not hide anything, I think that there is something wrong with society when we feel like hiding.

For example, someone prosecuted for a crime will try to hide it, for shame and knowing that most of us will judge him. How can people who are condemned are supposed to reintegrate society when they hold a stigma. I think that there is indeed something stigmatic in secrets. We also know that secrets only exist for the powerful. There is a very clear example in the news this week: the PRISM scandal is only relevant when put next to the Bradley Manning prosecution. The U.S.A. Are allowed to uncover everybody's secret conversations around the world, but the world is not allowed to know what the U.S.A. did wrong ( shooting journalists, torturing people in private prisons, supporting dictators and telling their diplomats to keep rubbing on their good side, fueling military-coup against socialist leaders...). Even for rich people, the fiscal audits from most European countries are actually limited in their research when auditing the fiscal revenues. Other than it is still legal, to some extent, to have off-shore accounts ( rich people have the right to pay taxes anywhere they want, as they pay handsomely lawyers who research what are the loopholes in every tax code)

Of course, total transparency is impossible at the moment. The wealth injustice, the conservative spirit touched by everyone, the frustrating mediascape, leads us to be incomplete being capable of all freudian pathologies. We are not sincere with ourselves, me least of all. Total transparency would require that we get rid of some constants in our constitution ( all around the world, everybody think they are slightly better than the average...), like our need for consistency, which prevents us from accepting change, especially in ourselves, or our need for a positive self-image, which explains why there is no Joker around the world ( no one I've ever met would consider themselves a bad person).

Anyway, I'm back, I'll try to be there as often as possible, with rambles and constructed thoughts. We'll see how it goes. By the way, calling on readers, if you have a theme you'd like me to express my opinion on, I'll gladly do !

  The next article will probably be on badly paid jobs we can't relocate,  language and what it shows about societies, and any thing that passes through my head at the time