Sta.sh
In 1905, Albert Einstein revolutionized our understanding of space and time when he published his "Special Theory of Relativity" with it's well known axiom E=mc2. While few truly have a deep understanding of the meaning of it, most people know the formula, and a fairly decent number have a basic understanding of what the formula means. Simply put, E is energy, m is mass, and c2 is the speed of light squared. And the entire formula can, in one way, be described as saying "Energy cannot be created or destoryed, merely changed in form".
One might wonder what any of this has to do with Social Constructs... well, it all arises from a thought I had. Just like the E (energy) in Einstein's equation, P (for Power ie: political or governmental power) cannot be creatred or destroyed, merely changed in form or redistributed.
Taking that as true, one could try to determine some form of equation to desribe this... I like to think of it so: P=G$ or to put it in easier to understand terms... Power equals Government (or control) multiplied by Wealth (or ecomonic power). Assuming this is a valid equation, one becomes aware that it operates exactly as Einstein's famous equation... any decrease in G (or governmental control) must cause a corresponding increase in $ (or economic power).
But, I hear someone ask, what does that mean?
It's really very simple... but let's look at some other "equations" to describe what G and $ are... G (or governmental control) could possibly be expressed as G=V(HR/B) where V is the voters HR is the honesty of their elected representatives, and B is beauracracy, so we see that the power of G (government) is dependant on the voters,multiplied by the honesty of the elected officials they choose, but lessened by the power of unelected beauracrats.
And of course, $ (or economic power) well, we all know what that is and who holds it.
So what does this acttually mean? It's really quite simple, when you hear these "fiscal conservatives" claiming we need to "cut the size of government" what they are actually saying is, we need to take power away from the voters, and give it to the "money men"... remember, P(or power) is a constant, it cannot be created or destroyed... so lessening G (government) MUST cause a corresponding increase in $ (or economic power).
I don't know about you, I kind of like the idea that we can determine who leads us, and we can influence the laws and policies of our government by voting... and I cannot remember any time when I was asked to vote for the next CEO of Exxon, or vote for the Board of Directors of Goldman/Sachs...
Some might try to argue that the right wing does not actually propound such policies... but look at what they do... they want to privatize nearly every government program. They want huge tax breaks and loopholes for Corporations and the wealthy. They have even stated, in the guise of Grover Norquist that they wanted to "starve the government until it was small enough to drown in the bathtub"... that's what they want to do with the only thing that gives the average American any power at all... shrink it, starve it, and drown it in the bathtub... and I assume, spit on it's corpse when it's dead... that's what they think of the voters.
To make the picture simple, imagine if the civil war in the US would have been won by the Confederates. Well, the civil wars in Argentina during the 19th century were finally won by your equivalent to the South...
Sad to say this mirrors many nations. The UK and Europe are in exactly the same situation. We are all getting screwed by goverments and bankers.
The UK's goverment is full of ultra rich posh boys (Mummy and Daddy's money) who don't understand real life.
As for counting sheep, I never really had any luck with that for falling asleep... lol
Apparently, according to our glorious rich posh boy leaders in the UK "we are all in it together"....
I saw a thing a little while back... it was about the rich hiding money ion off shore banks that do not report the incomes and are therefore not taxed... while it is impossible to determine how much money anyone has in one of these accounts, it is perfectly possible to determine the total amount of money that is contained in ALL these accounts combined... If I remember right, it was something 250 trillion dollars (in US terms) That's more than enough money, that just the taxes that are not being paid would get every nation on earth out of debt...