Punish The Rich?

John Taube

1997

Published in:

Technocracy Digest 1st quarter 1997, No. 323

A member of Technocracy responded thuswise to a writer on the Internet who felt we should punish the rich.

The ``rich'' seem to disquiet many people. As Technocrats, we have no qualms about them. Technocrats would put it this way: it is true that many of the rich may have their snouts and all four feet in the slop trough.

Our social-economic structure, our ``Price System,'' rewards the person who has little scruples. One hears the expression that business has ``social responsibility.'' That's a joke, a bad joke. When a business seems to take on social responsibility, you can bet your last dollar that they do it because it makes more money for them, or because of PR, and nothing else. Sure, there are exceptions to this statement; rare exceptions.

We don't live in a friendly world. We live in a vicious world, and it always has been that way.

Think of this: Ours is a scientific, technological society unlike any known to people before. All previous societies were crude agrarian by nature. Because of what technology does for us, this age should quell the horrors of yesterday and, with it, abrogate all the social norms of yore. But nothing of that nature has occurred -- it's still a vicious world -- maybe more so. The basic reason viciousness is so pronounced today is because we run our scientific, technological society with a Price System, with principles which have come from antiquity.

Our age has so much to offer for a relaxed way of living, but, instead, we have become the most stressed people ever known. We should be living with constantly decreasing problems; instead, our problems are constantly increasing.

More to think about: when we initiate a social structure that is compatible with our scientific, modern, technological age, all of us will be able to have our `snouts' in the trough. But it won't be for ``slop.'' The slop that ceases to exist will be a hangover from the Price System, which can be expressed this way:

One won't be able to take advantage of one's fellow men or women;
One won't be able to make money off the sweat of one's fellow men or women.

The elimination of this Price System slop is part of what Technocracy's Technological Social Design offers.

Two questions: with the installation of Technocracy's proposed Design, will the morals of people -- rich and poor -- be changed? Because of this new design will people be looking out for their fellow men and women?

No, to the first, and yes to the second. But morality of both the rich and poor will not have changed.

This is so, because, with a new social structure, an environmental change will have occurred, and the environment always dictates people's behavior. When one doesn't struggle to keep body and soul together, one is not stressed out, and one acts like homo sapiens should act. Today, both the rich and poor act like wild animals, grubbing for a living.