Class system: The strong and the weak
Class system: The strong and the weak
Patterning the past (part 3)
I talked about patterns from history in part 1 and the concept of morality on a spectrum in part 2. Today I am going to talk about class - class systems specifically.
A pattern that I see over the last 5000-10000 years is the concept of class. At a broad level, one could distinguish into two types - the have’s and the have not’s. The strong and the weak. And at a high level it is all about wealth creation and taking advantage in some form in order to do that - acquire, grow and retain wealth.
Whatever form is used to take advantage whether be it government, monarchy, law, rules, slavery, religion - these were all used to keep people in class systems so that people could be taken advantage of. In fact, I would argue that even democracy, economics, markets, and capitalism are all power structures to create, maintain and sustain a class system.
I come from the Indian sub-continent. Caste was used and still being used as a class system there to detriment of various segments of the population. These systems have existed for over 3,500 years. And when the British East India Company ruled India from the mid-1850’s they used the strategy of “divide and rule” pitting one local kingdom vs another and one caste vs another to keep the population busy, so that they would not focus on the occupiers.
Wealth has been and even more so today has been concentrated in the hands of a very few. Take a look at how I model class systems from the synthesis of my readings from the picture below:
Most human population (over 99%) is in the 2-3-4 spectrum. These are the classes that I collectively call the WEAK. The Wealth and asset distribution are held by the STRONG. The wealth scale is a log scale. Each level of wealth is 10 times the previous step. And it all adds up.
The less than 1% have an overwhelming hold over the markets, property, mining, and exploration, resources. It's funny that there are a very small amount of humans actually here. Nameless faceless corporations, government (which holds rights to the commons) control what I call the “Winner takes all” class.
Some wealth through the stock markets and speculation are shared down the chain, but not much. Just enough to keep the top end of the WEAK happy. I also believe that the WEAK keep themselves busy competing with the other WEAK in their segment to keep rearranging their social order, a little bit at a time since they have no abilities to take on the STRONG.
The STRONG perpetuates the STRONG. And sometimes the government steps in with new laws and regulations when the STRONG seems to be getting out of hand. However, after a while, the old STRONG is replaced with new STRONG within the same segment. Just a shift of power from one large corporation to another. And we all believe justice has been done. And life, as we know it goes on…
Surprisingly, the STRONG require the services of the WEAK to help keep them in prosperity. So, the WEAK are slaves to the STRONG helping the STRONG build, maintain and sustain the momentum.
Big change happens when the WEAK has access to education so that they can move up the chain. I wrote about this a couple of months ago. But there is no incentive in either government or large corporations to do this. Because it stops their cheap supply of labor and even highly educated Cognitive creatives who are the slaves required to execute the creation of the IP that is required to maintain the stranglehold of the STRONG. So, the WEAK are never allowed to become STRONG as it is detrimental to the STRONG.
Well, that is my model so far. It provides me the utility to map everything that happens in this world against this simplified form of my reality. And it fits in well as an explanation to me for every scenario (so far) that I could think of. Reducing the complexity with a simplified answer to a reductionist brain.