Frank's Musings

America is now experiencing the result of its creation of a split society that includes a wealthy elite who can afford an education instilling critical thinking and an enviable lifestyle at the top of society and a lower class made up of those who are forced by circumstance to serve only their animal needs (cf. The 9.9 Percent by Matthew Stewart.).  A confirmed portion of those in the bottom layer of society resents what they believe to be the arbitrary division in individual fortunes.

In some ways modern advances and features of communications technology, particularly privately owned cable news channels, the Internet and social media, have made this division more apparent and raised its immediate impact on personal values.  In the U.S. the Republicans have taken advantage of this to build a power base of anti-intellectual voters.  Their leaders seem to have opted to relinquish the burden of making sense to thoughtful conservatives as they seek to maintain a hold on a more reliable constituency driven by the pursuit of material advantages, including passive entertainment, leisure travel, and physical comfort.

One of the possible costs of this trend is the ultimate destruction of liberal democracies established by the Lockian founders of the U.S. republic and other like-minded political philosophers around the world.  A delicate balance exists between individual benefit and community welfare. (The Framers of the U.S. Constitution made a lasting error in allowing racial corruption to deform individual rights.) Recent history shows the vulnerability of democratic government to the seduction of its population by creature comforts.  In fact, one of those comforts is relief from the burden of governing oneself and one’s society.  It is easier to leave that to a supposedly beneficent autocrat. 

Centuries ago, education made it clear that government is not like the weather.  Something can be done about it.  Technology has spread that knowledge widely; on the other hand, it has also strengthened the ability of tyrants and narcissists to exploit the public’s natural preference to be ambivalent.  Moreover, governments can alter society’s priorities, and specifically whether it frames its goals in terms of the common good or individual personal advantage.  Providing incentives for individuals to achieve excellence can only promote democratic societal welfare when it encourages systemic improvement that distributes its fruits to everyone.

Alas, human thinking is not as mechanistic as an economic model.  A theoretical case can be, and has been, made that a capitalist economy eventually spreads wealth to the benefit of all participants in the market.  Unfortunately, human patience is not broad or long enough for all but the top stratus of society to anticipate or wait for that result.  (This was the shortcoming of “Reaganomics.”)   A successful market economy like the United States creates enormous wealth; however, that economy will eventually fall into civil disorder or martial law if its benefits are not equitably shared by the entire populace.  In that case, it will no longer be a true democracy. 

The Biden Administration is faced with an ultimate turning point in America’s history--now that the U.S. has the resources to reward individual excellence while assuring high common living standards.  Setting the nominal price of that program ought to be relegated to a bookkeeping task rather than be regarded as a threat to a budgetary wall.