Two cave men live side by side. Life is hard, food , survival.
They have to dedicate their efforts to looking after their personal needs but also looking for chances to exploit their neighbour to gain advantage. They do this because their very survival is under threat. They are scared and feel insecure. Also they must dedicate their time to defence, as their neighbour will try to exploit them.
Lets introduce a 3rd cave man. He is dominant, and has a strong sense of justice. He stamps out the exploitation and the need for defence as he imposes his own sense “fairness” on the group, however has to take on these extra roles in additional to his own survival.
By now introducing a ‘system’ including collective and collaborative working into the equation, we can make the basic survival easier. Whist the mis-trust still exists there will still be a need for ‘Boss’ caveman to rule. How do we then dissolve away the mis trust, remove the need for defence and the desire for exploitation, and advantage.
We need to illustrate the huge gains made by collectivisation shared by all.
These gains must far outweigh the temporary petty gains made by cheating, or the effort used defending themselves. Then surely the path forward will be quite natural and obvious. No envy, greed, need for competition, but a real passion about improving society for all. We have complete trust that your neighbour’s actions is for the common good, therefore good for you. The question is when are we ready to make this leap to a high state of social consciousness. This is I believe what Marx termed as true communism, and the disbanding of the dictatorship of the proletariat. If we are not ready to make this leap then the first signs of rot will be quickly evident. We can paper of the cracks by imposing rules and systems but we must ask why is this necessary?
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
The elimination of greed PT4
Not convinced? Well lets just return to the game one more time to another contestant called Gerard. Maybe he’s got something really interesting to say.
“Gerard”
Background 29yo, married, no children, buying house, average paid job.
Gerard went in the room and came out with the envelope of money. We asked him the usual questions, why he chose what he chose and did he feel greedy. He said that no he didn’t feel greed but he had a plan. When we inquired what the plan was he just smiled and said ‘you’ll see’. What I didn’t tell you earlier was that the amount written on the envelope ($260) was in fact incorrect. The envelope contained a bankers cheque for $44 billion. Impossible I hear you say, well after all, this is fictitious so you’ll have to bear with me. So, Gerard has just wandered off with this immense sum of money. What will become of him? One of two luxuries perhaps. Well, here’s what Gerard actually did. He hired a security team to maintain his anonymity at quite a sum. Second he got ad space on the television network for tomorrow at prime time. This advert was seen by a large percentage of the population and those that didn’t see it were soon aware of its content from the extreme impact it would have. On the ad, one of Gerard representatives appeared and read from a script. At 9pm tomorrow and each day onwards you will all be getting a windfall, the rep said. Literally, $20 bills will be dropped from the tallest building in the city. Come down to the city and see what you can collect, the rep shouted. The plan, each evening was to drop a few thousand pounds of one of the tallest building in the city, let it flutter down and let the public gather it all up. As you may imagine it would take a while to get through £44 billion by this method but that was the plan. So as the following evening approached a crowd gathered beneath the advertised building. There was a real buzz in the air. Most people thought it must be a prank but were happy to humour this fool to see what happened. On the dot at 9pm, some fireworks exploded and a light show begun, shortly followed as promised by the night air filled with fluttering banknotes. Everybody went crazy fighting for their share. This was repeated the next day and the next. The only addition via another TV advert, was that special secure charity boxes were to be placed beneath the building and if the ‘gatherers’ wished they could donate their bounty to the registered charities listed on the boxes. The boxes remained somewhat empty. This process was repeated for several weeks, secretly viewed by the anonymous Gerard from the top of the building. Months passed, and not a night of banknote rain was missed, but a strange thing began to happen. The charity boxes began to get some donations. This was highlighted particularly when one cold February evening when the turn out was less than usual at the drop, and as the crowd dispersed some bank notes were still strewn across the floor. Gerard watched as 2 teenagers nonchalantly kicked at the notes as they walked passed going about their business, but didn’t collect them. All became still again with several hundred dollars laying in the street like litter. If fact it was 3 street cleaners that were next on the scene and they swept the notes up just like clearing litter. They tipped the notes into the charity box. Gerard lifted his head, and thought to himself, could greed be finally on the wane.
“Gerard”
Background 29yo, married, no children, buying house, average paid job.
Gerard went in the room and came out with the envelope of money. We asked him the usual questions, why he chose what he chose and did he feel greedy. He said that no he didn’t feel greed but he had a plan. When we inquired what the plan was he just smiled and said ‘you’ll see’. What I didn’t tell you earlier was that the amount written on the envelope ($260) was in fact incorrect. The envelope contained a bankers cheque for $44 billion. Impossible I hear you say, well after all, this is fictitious so you’ll have to bear with me. So, Gerard has just wandered off with this immense sum of money. What will become of him? One of two luxuries perhaps. Well, here’s what Gerard actually did. He hired a security team to maintain his anonymity at quite a sum. Second he got ad space on the television network for tomorrow at prime time. This advert was seen by a large percentage of the population and those that didn’t see it were soon aware of its content from the extreme impact it would have. On the ad, one of Gerard representatives appeared and read from a script. At 9pm tomorrow and each day onwards you will all be getting a windfall, the rep said. Literally, $20 bills will be dropped from the tallest building in the city. Come down to the city and see what you can collect, the rep shouted. The plan, each evening was to drop a few thousand pounds of one of the tallest building in the city, let it flutter down and let the public gather it all up. As you may imagine it would take a while to get through £44 billion by this method but that was the plan. So as the following evening approached a crowd gathered beneath the advertised building. There was a real buzz in the air. Most people thought it must be a prank but were happy to humour this fool to see what happened. On the dot at 9pm, some fireworks exploded and a light show begun, shortly followed as promised by the night air filled with fluttering banknotes. Everybody went crazy fighting for their share. This was repeated the next day and the next. The only addition via another TV advert, was that special secure charity boxes were to be placed beneath the building and if the ‘gatherers’ wished they could donate their bounty to the registered charities listed on the boxes. The boxes remained somewhat empty. This process was repeated for several weeks, secretly viewed by the anonymous Gerard from the top of the building. Months passed, and not a night of banknote rain was missed, but a strange thing began to happen. The charity boxes began to get some donations. This was highlighted particularly when one cold February evening when the turn out was less than usual at the drop, and as the crowd dispersed some bank notes were still strewn across the floor. Gerard watched as 2 teenagers nonchalantly kicked at the notes as they walked passed going about their business, but didn’t collect them. All became still again with several hundred dollars laying in the street like litter. If fact it was 3 street cleaners that were next on the scene and they swept the notes up just like clearing litter. They tipped the notes into the charity box. Gerard lifted his head, and thought to himself, could greed be finally on the wane.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
The elimination of greed PT3
What can we learn from all this. Well the game listed above was fictitious, but you may agree the results could be true. My suggestion is that that we are influenced by our surroundings, conditions of life, prejustice, and exploitations which make greed a very tempting emotion. Without theses negatives then greed will just melt away. Without these negatives then it would serve no purpose. This now leads me on to open up this discussion to more topics to get to the bottom of what makes us think the way we do.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
