There seems to be little doubt that, throughout the world,
and particularly in the US,
there has been a monumental transference of wealth from the Middle Class to the
very highest levels of the Upper Class. Substantiation of this trend is readily
available from a wide variety of sources – it is reflected in tax rates, real
estate and equities ownership, valuation of net worth, salaries and bonuses. It
is happening – it is real. But is this the result of some sort of diabolical plan,
a grand conspiracy?
A few years ago I heard a story on
National Public Radio’s “ThisAmerican Life” (Act 2, ‘The Plan’) which told of gentrification of
neighborhoods in Washington
DC. Here predominantly Black
neighborhoods were slowly being replaced by upwardly mobile middle class
Whites. In one specific instance, an academically well performing school was
condemned in order to make room for new housing – housing which was marketed to
mostly higher income (White) people.
The synopsis of The Plan: “American cities have gone through
a massive wave of gentrification in the last few decades. To some people, it's
not a natural ebb and flow of the real estate market, but a plot, by rich,
mainly white people, to take over the neighborhoods of poor, mainly black
people.”
But it turns out there was/is no “Plan”, at least, not one that
can be attributed to a designed conspiracy, that is. These sorts of changes
are, of course, happening in neighborhoods all over the country. My own kids
recently bought and renovated an old home in an inner city Portland, Oregon
neighborhood. Now known as the Alberta Arts District, the neighborhood is
frequently the subject of articles in Sunset Magazine featuring its eclectic boutiques
and restaurants. To people of our kid’s generation, integration of
neighborhoods such as this is a positive for society. But are these changes the
results of specific planning or the result of other perhaps not so obvious
forces?
In Europe “Austerity” looms
threateningly over the customary way of life. In Greece, people experiencing
shortages of food.for the first time in their lives. Here in this country the social safety net is being targeted
as the source of both our moral and economic decay. Erstwhile CEOs pull in
salaries and bonuses that would make the Vanderbilt’s, Carnegies and
Rockefellers of their day looking like chumps.
We read that the Koch brothers have convened secret meetings
including influential business and political leaders; even Supreme Court
Justices. But do these individuals truly have the power to coordinate a
conspiracy on such a monumental scale?
Many now grudgingly accept (I among them) that the boom
times after WWII in this country was more of an economic aberration than an
linearly upward trend into future decades. Is the flow of culture, for that
matter, designed or driven through it’s own momentum? Consider the attitude
changes over the past decade regarding Gay Marriage, for example. Was this
progress cooked up in some elaborate plan or the result of some sort of
cultural evolution?
I recall observing large flocks of hundreds of individual
birds flying in undulating, random patterns; the whole of which appearing to
have some direction. Scientists studying this behavior were curious if, among
the individual birds, there might be a “leader” directing the movement of the
flock.
Such movements are a prime example of emergent behavior: the
behavior is not a property of any individual bird, but rather emerges as a
property of the group itself. There is no leader, no overall control; instead
the flock's movements are determined by the moment-by-moment decisions of
individual birds, following simple rules in response to interactions with their
neighbors in the flock. [1]
Rising consumer prices, falling standard of living, the rich
becoming richer, may more be a product of individuals or groups taking
advantage of opportunities and situations, than any sort of detailed conspiracy
– Cultural Evolution through Emergent Behavior? Perhaps.
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