A plutocratic system of patronage and a system of egalitarian meritocracy.
In the first, birth within certain families guarantee financial success and security. No one can join in except by marriage or willingness to advance those groups beyond the reach of law. Their bottom levels are pirates, corporate raiders and those willing to sell propaganda to confuse the second group. All of these functions are beneficial to the first group and harmful to the second.
The second group, those not advantaged by birth or receiving funds for doing the work of their patrons, gain financial success and security through education, bonding with larger groups to create an equal opportunity to advance.
Their ways of organizing society differ.
The first want to protect inherited wealth and not pay for anything that would cause cash to flow from their hands. Their enemies are those voices who tell them they are not entitled to take from the commons that the second group counts on for social mobility. They will do all they can to suppress them.
The second group values government that regulates the first group from taking their land, labor and environment to maintain themselves. They need public services to move ahead and provide for themselves, and pay for most of it.
They have always allowed a premium paid to the other group, as landowners, bosses and often employers. They value worker and civil rights being maintained to survive the condition they are reduced to being in as they do not own much of anything, but are constantly paying the first group.
The first group believes they are the ones who are being put upon when they see how much greater the numbers of the second group grow, and that some of them do profit them. The second feels that the other group is killing them.
They are both right in their own way, or at least in their own eyes. We once had and still do, have some members of the first group who believe their souls are dependent on not harming others to the extent that some of their fellow feel is necessary. They feel that mankind can advance with greater number educated and inspired to do great things.
The second group in large part, do agree with that latter part of the first group, but another part of them have decided to throw in their lot with those who serve the interests of the plutocrats.
Just a few ideas I am working on here, nothing to get excited about. Anyone who finds those categories useful or cares to add to them, just reply.
I don't feel the argument of good or evil is going to help us in the long run, but that we need to understand each other's motives in a deeper sense. I think most people act in what they believe are their best interests and are not stupid for the most part, but not all people have the same interests.
That is where we have to meet and negotiate. Some of the plutocrats do indeed have very destructive plans for the rest of us and feel they are right to do what they are do. We can't negotiate with all of these people.
Short of going to war, which they are masters of both at home and abroad, and are likely to win, I have no solution but to learn. But then I am a life-long liberal and want to make things work for all. Not every person wants that.
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