Spy vs Spy - The Great Capitalist / Socialist Debate

The problem with the capitalist system is too many greedy chiefs, not enough productive Indians.

The problem with the socialist system is too many greedy chiefs, not enough productive Indians.

Two things destroy productivity.

1. Greed - Too many want something for no investment of time, energy and effort and believe they have a right to it. Too many people who have plenty want more simply because they can get it - it may be more money, it may be more power. It doesn't matter. It sucks the life out of a nation.

2. Lack of incentive - When greed runs rampant, the haves go out of their way to protect their position. They usually do that by preventing the have-nots from becoming haves. The socialist overlords do it by creating a system that punishes anyone who excells. The capitalist overlords do it by creating a system that sabotages competition.

The thing that drives me bats is that the great debate of our times as it's being delivered in the American media is between two groups of rich people protecting their turf!!! Sadly, whoever wins the debate, the ordinary American loses.

Ironically, the folks who are Reagan conservatives and Woodie Guthrie style Socialists are seeking pretty much the same thing - opportunity, freedom from want, public safety. If we could ever agree on how to get those things, the upper caste in this country and worldwide would collectively wet their pants. So long as they keep us all fighting their battles for them, their position is safe.

The nobility of the middle ages used to run wars once in a while just to keep the peasants in a perpetual state of fear and to thin the herd of uppity commoners. The same thing is going on now. Wealthy scions of the upper crust judiciously spend their money playing a vast game of political power chess with their peers using voters and politicians and activists as pawns and knights and rooks. I believe it's being done in cold blood, in the full knowledge that what it's all about is making sure you have so much money and so much power that God Himself couldn't knock you from your well cushioned perch at the peak of society.

It's like the Spy vs Spy cartoon in Mad Magazine. Two sides working busily at blowing each other up. Ultimately, it's all a big old game and none of us matter to them.

If somehow, ordinary, non-greedy, power-hungry people could organize and take over, the world would be a better place. The problem is that the whole structure of the world's vast right wing/left wing conspiracy spreads through the human race like some incidious spider's web. It's too big.

The only thing left for those of us who live on the outside and who genuinely don't care about being filthy rich or fantastically powerful is to wait for it. Jesus must be coming soon. I've got my thumb out....

Just one man's opinion.

Tom King