Just a Note about a Society Based on Competition

I believe the ills of competition outweigh the gains.

Now, I am not saying that competition is not inherent in most relationships, in a web-like fashion. It is. And to let it run free, might be the best thing.

But people suffer greatly because of it. Physically and mentally. Free market? Sure. But in the end, when there are thousands of homeless men living in the streets of downtown Los Angeles, doesn't it seem like, well, one should help these losers? When asthma afflicts one out of every three children in industrialized farming areas, the children are weakened. Is this their fault? In a man-driven evolutionary experiment, are we choosing for certain types of resistant lungs?

Do we set up a society that breaks people down and then we blame them for being broken?

There's a strain of Calvinism in our nation which righteously blames the weak for their weakness. This is too bad. Sure, the weak are weak. But is it their fault? Could they have ended up otherwise? And can we all go to work and eat our big fat hamburgers knowing that there is all this suffering going on?

It's just so brutal.

I am no savior. And I have done nothing to help the throngs of suffering humans. I am looking at the big picture. When we, as a society, won't truly help the drug addicts, the alcoholics, the mentally ill stragglers on the streets, the kids who can't breathe the air, then who are we? It seems that the enormous amount of privately held money really should be taken and used for these people. It seems that the enormous amount of privately held money is a form of theft. And it needs some serious recirculation. Especially these days. The richest people in this country are the richest ever. Poverty levels are rising every day.

This must be changed. There must be redistribution. End of story.

As far as incentive goes. It won't be harmed. Future Edisons and Einsteins really want to figure things out. Those people are motivated by very strong forces, stronger than the thrust of the market economy. And if business is thwarted a bit, because heavy taxation reduces incentive, then I say, "GOOD!"