Politics, Power, Wealth & the Envy Equilibrium

Nearly 2000 years ago a brother of Jesus named James wrote a good article on ethics for the edification of church goers. James 3:1-12 is still an excellent reminder of the better ethics from Heaven than the bitter envy and strivings of mankind in a social environment. Politics and economics are interwoven though and democracy requires active citizen participation so the high ground of ethical conduct and definition of virtue are important concerns for anyone seeking to be free from oppressive political power and the repression of classes and networks of concentrated wealth.

There is an equilibrium of envy, power, wealth and democracy somewhat like a feedback loop regulating the decline and fall of quality of life, utilitarian pragmatism and the prospect for an eternity in heaven or hell. Duplicity makes difficulties for political credibility; Rush Limbaugh-a talk radio ‘host’ of a few million listeners criticizes Democrat Party political pablum for low information voters while sardonically Rush’s audience is largely  comprised of low information voters  tired of watching Nazcar for a few laps. Limbaugh’s machinations haven’t coincided with Republican Party Presidential victories except for that of George W. Bush who presented the appearance of a low information President tired of T-Ball.

Plainly money buys political power not only in elections and lobbying but in getting favorable judicial decisions. Concentrated wealth may also exist in collective social organizations in various forms from corporations to class identity groups. Neutrality is difficult when political abhors a vacuum; to be unconcerned with the evolution of corrupt economic networks of power is to become effectively powerless and ruled by unrepresentative powers that govern through economic force.

Some pundits would have the masses believe that fair taxation of the rich is just envy they ought to lose. Yek when wealth is not taxed adequately and it concentrates too much the masses lose political liberty; democracy dies in all but name only.

Do the wealthy envy power as much as some of their lap dogs believe the poor envy the wealthy? Perhaps yet for some the idea that they as wealthy people admired by the masses seeking to peer through a lens at their personages seems important. Yet other may simply enjoy the quiet satisfaction of pulling the strings of millions whom are impotent yes-persons without balls jumping like mutts at meat held above them.

Without doubt wealth may follow technical innovation that improves the well being of society. Political oppression may arise from the adverse influence of sundry forms of repression collectively applied some of which are wealth or some that are like Mexican drug mafias seeking to knock off top gang guns and get a bigger piece of the action. Envy is certainly an existing element in over-reaching for power yet envy as a psychological factor does not mean that economic and political security aren’t real and really important per individual social standing when there are so many cold-blooded, impersonal exploiters ready to reapportion one’s organs or redistribute one’s inheritance amongst the social mix.

During the post-second world war U.S. economy when wealth was least concentrated and political power most responsive the nation worked best. True there were oppressed Negroes in the Jim Crow south yet that civilization was steadily evolving improvement while the ability of women to have more prosperous lifestyles was increasing too. Generally speaking the decay of American nationalism and decline of the nation’s comparative economic standing in the world coincided with the return to a concentration of wealth. History shows that with the concentration of wealth develops moral decay for some reason. The ethics of the wealthy may become depraved, cocaine using and interfere sardonically in the individual lives of citizens capriciously. They may own their own propaganda media reinforcing the way of concentrated wealth as God’s gift to the world and the only alternative to godless communism and a return to the dark night of an evil empire when the truth is something like the evil empire evolves from both directions of concentrated wealth and godless socialist evil empires. I hope that made at least one thing perfectly clear.