Privilege

The CurrCon Java Applet displays prices on this web page converted with today’s exchange rates into your local international currency, e.g. Euros, US dollars, Canadian dollars, British Pounds, Indian Rupees… CurrCon requires an up-to-date browser and Java version 1.5 or later, preferably 1.7.0_02. If you can’t see the prices in your local currency, Troubleshoot

The CurrCon Java Applet displays prices on this web page converted with today’s exchange rates into your local international currency, e.g. Euros, US dollars, Canadian dollars, British Pounds, Indian Rupees… CurrCon requires an up-to-datebrowser and Java version 1.5 or later, preferably 1.7.0_02. If you can’to see the prices in your local currency, troubleshoot CurrCon.

Privilege

Sometimes I feel compelled to state the obvious, just so it is out there explicitly. This is such as essay. The notion of privilege has caused so much human misery, I thought I would like to dissect it.

Historically

A certain freedom and a certain equality passed out of human life when men ceased to wander. Men paid in liberty and paid in toil, for safety, shelter and regular meals. By imperceptibe degrees, the common man found the patch he cultivated was not his own; it belonged to the god, and he had to pay a fraction of his produce to the god. Or the god had given it to the king, who exacted his rent and tax. Or the king had given it to an official, who was the lord of the common man. And sometime the god or the king or the noble had work to be done, and then the common man had to leave his patch and work for his master.
~ H. G. Wells (born: 1866-09-21 died: 1946-08-13 at age: 79) The Outline of History page 228.

Historically, as soon as populations grow to a certain size, they stratify. An elite class forms. The entire society creates a myth to maintain the stability of the elite. The Egyptians created the myth that their Pharaoh was a divine being. The Hindus created the caste system supported by the myth of rebirth merit to justify the extreme privilege of the Brahmins. The European nobility created the myth of their inherent genetic bloodline superiority. The North Americans created the myth that those who had wealth or who were children of those of wealth were superior people, harder working, and more intelligent.

Purpose

In earlier times, there was a benefit to society as a whole to have an elite. Freed from manual labour, the elite had time to become literate, to study and to invent. You will notice all the early inventors, scientists and philosophers were from the privileged class. They were the only ones with sufficient free time and resources to experiment.

Excess

Thorsten Veblen wrote a classic book about the silliness of the leisure classesThorsten Veblem wrote a classic book about the silliness of the leisure classes and their wasteful status displays.

recommend book⇒The Theory of The Leisure Class

by:

Thorstein Veblen

978-0-14-018795-3

paperback

(born: 1857-07-30 died: 1929-08-03 at age: 72)

978-0-8488-1659-9

hardcover

publisher:

Penguin

published:

1994-02-01

This is one of the most amusing books I ever read. It is funny by being so on. He coined the terms conspicuous consumption and conspicuous waste to explain modern status displays.

Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

Originally, these antics were amusing, but today these excesses are destroying the planet, as well and oppressing others to the point of murder. Globalisation, international corporations and immense fortunes have made it possible for elites to squeeze the rest of the population, especially the third world, as never before.

Entitlement

One thing you can count on, is a member of an elite will never question whether he deserves such status. He will tell the silliest lies to himself to justify his privilege. But mostly he just takes it as a given, as part of the natural flow of the universe and sunrises and sunsets. For example, North Americans who are the global elite, believe they are hard done by when their incomes are still thousands of times higher than those in the third world. They will tell you with straight face the Chinese are lucky to find jobs in Nike sweat shops to make shoes for $0.06 USD an hour. They will tell you that $0.50 USD a day is too much to pay a man to grow and pick their coffee. An American believes his country manages to consume 1/3 of the world resource pie with only 1/17 of the population because Americans are more hard working. It never dawns on him that the reason the rest of world hands over such a big share is that America commands a military bigger than all other countries combined and has military bases spanning the globe.

Oddly, you find the non-elites equally enthusiastically supporting the privilege of the elites. For example, in the USA, the majority of ordinary Americans voted Republican in 2004, thus endorsing a tax holiday for the wealthy. Most Britons are happy to fund the pomp of Queen Elizabeth.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is an elite is never aware that their status is both undeserved and unfair. They always fight for ever greater privilege. Change comes, often violently, when those denied even a bare livelihood to provide for luxuries for the elite, put their feet down. This is harder than ever to do, since globalisation provides the ultimate union-busting tool available, a planet of absolutely desperate scab labour.

recommend book⇒Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class — and what we can do about it.

by:

Thom Hartmann

978-1-57675-463-4

paperback

(born: 1951-05-07 age: 60)

978-1-57675-414-6

hardcover

publisher:

Berrett-Koehler Publishers

B001AFF25M

kindle

published:

2006-09-01

Hartmann argues that historically the wealthy elite have always worked to eliminate the middle class, and hence stomp out democracy. They can then run things for their own ultimate financial benefit. We are going through a period now where the middle class is collapsing as a result of the corporatocracy and wealth of the tiny elite at the top is exploding. Since they control the media, they spread all manner of myths that make people vote against their own self interest in favour of those of the elites.

The book also discusses how the war business hijacks government to provide it with endless streams of money for perpetual unnecessary war.

Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

recommend book⇒The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger

by:

Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson Hartmann

978-1-60819-036-2

hardcover

publisher:

Bloomsbury Press

published:

2009-12-22

The book explains the research that shows that equality, even more than economic growth, determines wellbeing. Equality improves health, lawfulness, civil participation and trust. The wealthiest citizen of the most equal countries are better off than the wealthiest citizens in the unequal countries like Britain and the USA. Further, inequality fosters consumerism and ecological destruction. At the time of writing this book has still not been published. I learned about it from a speech by Ed Broadbent, former leader of the NDP at the NDP convention in Halifax.

Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

	You can get the freshest copy of this page from:	or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/mindprod.com website mirror)
	http://mindprod.com/money/privilege.html	J:\mindprod\money\privilege.html
	Please email your feedback for publication, letters to the editor, errors, omissions, typos, formatting errors, ambiguities, unclear wording, broken/redirected link reports, suggestions to improve this page or comments to Roedy Green : If you want your message kept confidential, not considered for posting, please explicitly specify that.
	Canadian Mind Products
	mindprod.com IP:[65.110.21.43]
view	Your face IP:[38.107.179.214]
Feedback	You are visitor number 5,985.