The Distribution of Wealth

For many the issue of financial wealth is very important, not only because of the financial status associated with it, but also because it enables prompt access to invaluable services. Therefore, it is no surprise that in a society fuelled by capitalist driven economic model, the accrual of wealth plays a significant role in determining its progress. It is an open secret that in Great Britain today, the gap between the rich and the poor is at an all-time high. The economy has in effect being hijacked by a few individuals who pull the strings in order to dictate the pace of its progress. The result is that the upper class is accruing wealth at a faster rate than the middle and lower classes. Consequently, what we have is the development of a financial chasm separating the rich from the poor.

This state of affairs prompts the following questions: What factors control wealth? How is wealth defined? Why has the distribution of wealth become polarised into rich and poor classes? Is it possible to have an even distribution of wealth in our society?

In order to answer these questions, it is important to realise that wealth is defined intrinsically by value. When an item or service is deemed to have some value attached to it, it becomes important. The more value it has the more important it gets. The more important it is, the more the progressive instinct within each human being compels them to strive for access. This immediately creates a tension that leads to scarcity, with the consequent association of more value to the item in question. A vicious cycle is established. What this means is that he who controls value controls wealth. This in effect creates artificial demand. The most obvious step now would be to figure out the origin of this artificial demand in order to determine a way to counter it.

To do this we would need to go back to the beginning – the big picture so to speak. In doing so, we find that the existence of modern man, in response to the urge to evolve, has always revolved around three themes: the acquisition of knowledge, biological continuity and health. The acquisition of knowledge is what we are interested in because this is what man uses to consciously react to the natural phenomena of demand by attempting to understand the self and the environment and how the two interact. To this end, he started off with the formation of society, came up with rules to strengthen and protect it, before moving on to looking for ways to obey the urge to progress by trying to understand in greater detail the dynamics of society. Of course, this meant understanding his relationship with his fellow human being and with the environment. From this endeavour, the institution of economy was born and the various economic models put into play. Next came the institutions of science and technology– they found expression because they augmented the goals of the institution of economics. The same applies to other institutions dedicated to the acquisition of knowledge such as the Institution of the Arts and Crafts, Medicine, Nutrition and so on. This leads to the important conclusion that since all these institutions of knowledge originated as tools to be used to understand the phenomena of demand, they could all be classified as physical applications of demand. The phenomena of demand would then be a universal principle that humanity is able to apply in any way it chooses using any tool it pleases. The tools in this case would be the various institutions – economics, science, technology, Arts, and so forth.

And so coming back to the original question about the reason behind the financial class divide in society today, it becomes obvious that this is due to the dominance of the institution of economics over all the other institutions. So why has the institution of economics being allowed to run away with the prize and dictate to the rest of society how it must evolve? Surely, this is a pertinent question given that if every institution is simply a physical application of demand, then they should all be given equal weight with respect to their function in serving as an outlet for the phenomena of demand. A logical answer to this question would be that the institution of economics, in its bid to articulate the dynamics behind the interaction between the various elements of society, i.e. people, sectors and institutions, decided on using money (the so-called legal tender) as the defining tool to quantify the exchange of service between these elements. Consequently, since the institution of economics was responsible for coming up with the rules and regulations that defined the usage and availability of money, this implied that it in effect controlled the growth and evolution of society. This is wrong! It is wrong because natural growth in any given system should be dependent on equal contributions from every element within the system. If any element were allowed to dominate, it would result in the polarisation of growth within the system. In order words, the growth within the system would be unevenly distributed.

It is obvious to see now how our society became polarised into classes of wealth. How do we solve this? The solution in this case appears to be a simple one; remove the agents of polarisation and this would result in the even distribution of wealth. To achieve this, it would be necessary to re-define our societal perception of wealth. The current definition of wealth as equating to financial/monetary surplus must be discarded in favour of a one that is a direct function of the successful application of demand in a fluid and dynamic system. In other words, the medium of exchange that has been traditionally used to quantify the exchange of services should no longer be an external object. Rather, it should be intrinsic and non-physical. The medium of exchange would be the services themselves. This would lead to an even distribution of wealth, in which growth in society would become a direct function of the exchange of services in response to genuine demand from the people, sectors and institutions that make up the societal system.

To summarize, in order to effect the even distribution of wealth in society, the dominance of the institution of economics, which currently dictates the terms of exchange of services, must be removed. This can be done by shifting from a model promoting the quantification of the exchange of services with a physical, external object – money (legal tender), to a model whereby the exchange of services, in response to demand, is quantified by the service itself. This would usher in an era of wealth by even distribution and would remove monopoly of the market by a small segment of society. In addition, the proper implementation of this model would result in a gradual but inevitable transition from a consumer oriented society held hostage to artificial demand, to a service oriented society reacting only to natural demand.

The Problem of Demand

Society today is a paradox. On the one hand it is in rude health - modernization, technological progression and the steady stream of innovative discoveries that push back the boundaries of knowledge all attest to this. And yet on the other hand, it appears to be on the brink of imploding – as evidenced by the prevalence of poverty, crime, war and aggressive diseases. And so the question becomes how and why has it come to this? Is humanity on course to wipe herself out or is she on the verge of something great.

The key to this answer is to understand the nature and purpose of that which drives and controls society. This means understanding the nature of demand. So what is demand? The phenomenon of demand is an attribute that is inherent in any societal system. It derives its existence of the property of diversity, which is itself a natural consequence that arises by virtue of the presence of the uniqueness of each element that make up a given system. In other words, since any system in nature is composed of many elements, each of which is separate and subtly different from any other element, this automatically creates diversity within the system. And when this scenario is extrapolated into a societal system, which is composed of sentient, self-aware organisms such as man, diversity gives rise to demand because the each element recognises its deficiencies relative to the strengths of the other
elements and strives to correct this perceived imbalance.

The desire of humanity to address the urges of demand has given rise to the various economic models we have in existence today. The proliferation of crime, poverty and war show that that humanity hasn’t really made a good job of it. The reason for this is simple, the economic models are all flawed in some crucial way. To understand what this flaw is, it is necessary to examine the philosophy behind the main economic models in use today – capitalism, socialism and communism. For simplicity, will ignore every other economic model since they will be in most cases a combination of one or more of the main models.

The model of capitalism, stripped down to its barest essentials embodies the concept of a free market. It assumes that the market is a spectrum with the consumer at one end and the supplier at the other. The model requires that the system be self-sustaining. So far there is nothing wrong with these assumptions since in this case demand would be a direct reflection of what people actually need. However, where it becomes flawed is in its assumption that for the system to be self-sustaining this requires that the consumers must be kept wanting. This goes contrary to the phenomena of diversity and introduces a loophole that can be exploited. And so elements within society use their strategic position and influence to interfere with the natural phenomena of demand by acting as self-appointed stabilizing agents. Thus in societies today that boast predominantly capitalist economies, demand is not a direct reflection of the actual needs of the people. It is an artificial demand, which in essence is another word for consumerism. In other words, consumerism is demand created artificially by government, businesses and unscrupulous individuals with a strangle hold on the market. The effect is twofold; first it continually widens the divide between those who have and those who have not – poor and the rich, and second, it starves people of their true demands. The presence of slums and ghettos side by side with wealthy suburbs is a symptom of this divide. It is apparent in the presence of crime, diseases, and disaffection that is rampant within the so-called technologically advanced economies of the earth. On a global scale, it is apparent in the divide between the rich and poor nations where the poor nations are used to serve as fodder to feed the rich nations. This leads to the conclusion that the economic model of capitalism is flawed because of the inherent flaws in man – nothing else.

With regard to the models of socialism and communism, since the ideal of communism is buried within that of socialism they can in their most fundamental forms, be treated as one and the same thing. In their most fundamental form they both rest on an ideal that is designed to negate the effects of consumerism by taking away control of the market from individuals and placing it in the hands of a centralized system. The idea being that the needs of all would be treated on an equal footing. The result would then be the provision of specific services to the people without prejudice or bias. These specific services would take the form of a centralized welfare system, benefits system, and state pension and so on. Debates on the potential pitfalls of such a such a model has over the years led to emphasis being placed on controlling the degree of centralization. This has spawned numerous models all of which answer to the same fundamental principle – to take away power from the individual and place it in the hands of the group. However these models are also flawed for two pivotal reasons. Control is not placed in the hands of the group. It is placed in the hands of a few individuals who purport to represent the group. And since human beings are inherently flawed – greed, and power to name two of the most damning attributes, then it means that any socialist or communist economic model is doomed to failure. Secondly, the creation of specific services through the centralized system implies that the system has anticipated the needs of the people. This is a flawed argument because it goes against the principle of diversity and in turn creates artificial demand by starving individuals of their true demands – their needs and desires. In this respect it also creates a form of consumerism, i.e. artificial demand. This is true of any economic model that proposes to work through a centralized system.

To summarize, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the capitalist, socialist or communist economic models. Each model has the capability to aid humanity in satisfying the natural urge of demand. However each model becomes flawed for one reason only – the weakness of human nature. The conclusion would be that if humanity wants to give herself any chance of eliminating poverty, disease, war and crime, she must look inwards and bend all her powers to really understanding the self. She must look to understand the origin of the self and attempt to understand the nature of the forces that have given rise to humanity's existence in the first place. She must finally look to understand the key to that which controls these forces. These are non-trivial requests but they are crucial for the progression and survival of mankind.