Born poor

By far, most of the children born into our world inherit nothing except poverty and debt. This is true all over the world. And this is actually the crux of the problem. Or, perhaps I should say that our conditioned thinking is the crux of the problem. Can we even envision a world where most children are born into prosperity? We are constantly conditioned almost completely by the cultural belief system that surrounds us - indeed, we swim in it. This belief system leads us to accept poverty as if it were a natural part of life. Poverty is unnatural. It exists only because of the division of labor to enrich the capitalist class. For most of us, any capital we have grew out of accumulated savings from labor. Once upon a time, that labor resulted in a handcraft that was a complete product, or work that could not be done by a machine. Today, automated machines have eliminated an uncountable number of jobs once done by human labor. To make it worse, the same machines produce products that people favor over handcrafted products - eliminating the craftsman. The first cars were built by small shops employing skilled craftsmen. Henry Ford realized he could make cars cheaper by replacing one skilled craftsman with several low-paid assembly line workers - each doing only a part of what the craftsman did. Ford's new manufacturing method (assembly line mass-production) soon became the norm for all production. The craftsman went away, replaced by workers who are really only replicable cogs and gears. That simple little man who overcame his cultural conditioning to believe with all his heart that nonviolent action could liberate the people of India, Mahatma Gandhi, also showed us a way to achieve prosperity without capitalism. If all Indian homes today had a spinning wheel in regular use, then the Indian people would be offering the world the finest garments available anywhere; and every household would be a cottage industry. And those spinning wheels would be "spinning off" 12v household electricity. With incredible foresight, Gandhi realized that the division of labor would eventually lead to a world of indentured servants. However, the world will not go backwards to another day. Division of labor is now the norm, and we must focus on the present and future. Everywhere governments are in the pockets of big business. The poor can not wait for governments or charitable capitalists to save them. It will never happen. The poor must find a way to save the poor! Micro-finance is a fantastic tool for this, and I have long been an admirer of Muhammed Yunus. However, we must find a way for the gains of micro-financed enterprise to be sustained and passed on to the next generation(s). Inheritance tax must always be levied only on the wealthy, never on the poor and middle class. And we must continue to work to economically empower individual families, family groups, and villages.