Spritzler - NO RICH AND NO POOR: The Populist Goal We CAN and Must Win

NO RICH AND NO POOR:

The Populist Goal We CAN and Must Win

By John Spritzler

Copyright2017 John Spritzler

Dedicated to the memory of Dave Stratman, who made it possible for me to write this book

INTRODUCTION

The children of a janitor and the children of a physician or of anybody else should enjoy the same standards of education, healthy food, quality health care, comfortable living space, quality clothing, leisure time, fun vacations, and healthy and attractive environment.

Practically everybody in the United States They know that the important economic and government decisions that affect us are made by the very rich, not by ordinary people. They know these decisions reflect the values and aims of the very richinequality, domination of the many have-nots by the few haves so the haves can enjoy enormous wealth and privilege and power at the expense of the have-nots, and pitting ordinary people against each other in dog-eat-dog competition so as to more easily control us.

Most people, in sharp contrast with the very rich, want society shaped by what I call egalitarian values: equality in the sense of no rich and no poor, and mutual aidpeople helping each other.

If the above assertions, about what most people know and want, were false then I would not have written this book. Why not? Because this book is about not only why we must, but also how we can (see ) make what I call an egalitarian revolution to actually remove the rich from power to have realnot fakedemocracy with no rich and no poor. This would be impossible if most people thought we were living in a genuine democracy and thought there should be some rich and some poor. The standard wisdom holds this wrong view of people. If it were true then this book would be just a lot of nonsense based on a false premisenot worth writing.

This book is entirely based on the fact that most people know we live in a dictatorship of the rich and would LOVE to replace that with a genuine democracy with no rich and no poor where people helped each other and were not pitted against each other to be made controllable by the rich. This book is about: 1) How, because its what most people want, we can actually make the world be the way most people want it to be despite the obvious financial, governmental, police and military power of the very rich who disagree, and 2) Why the way most people want the world to be is a) very different from Communism (which people rightly dont like because it is so anti-democratic), b) extremely democratic, c) economically very practical, productive and desirable, and d) far more desirable in all other ways than our present society for almost everybody. This book, in other words, is about the need for, desirability of, and possibility of egalitarian revolution, and none of the arguments made in this book would make any sense if most people did not already know and want what I claim they do. I provide evidence for these claims in I discuss how you, dear reader, can verify for yourselfeasily and without interrupting your daily life routine at allthat these claims about people are true.

The assertions I make about what most people know and want fly in the face of standard wisdom. One never hears these assertions about people made anywhere in the mass media or the alternative media, whether these media cater to a conservative or liberal audience or anything in between. These media, because they are controlled by the very rich, also censor any expression by anybody of egalitarian aspirations. Why? To make it seem to those (the vast majority) who have such aspirations that they are all alone and should not waste their time (or risk ridicule or ostracism) by even talking about wanting to remove the rich from power and creating an egalitarian society.

So whats my evidence for the assertions I make about what most people actually know and want? How can I be so sure the standard wisdom is wrong?

My first piece of evidence is this. Others and I have asked thousands of random people if they think the message on the button shown below (Lets remove the rich from power, have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor) is a good idea or a bad idea.

No matter where we have gonebe it five different neighborhoods of Boston, or a rally of Trump supporters (all white, mostly from western/rural Massachusetts, many wearing Trump Make America Great caps and NRA apparel and holding American flags), or a Bernie Sanders rally or a rural New Hampshire town where the people listen to Rush Limbaugh and not NPRthe response is consistently that at least 80% and often 90% of the people (86% at the Trump rally) say the message on the button is a good (or a great!) idea. The buttons message, Lets remove the rich from power to have realnot fakedemocracy with no rich and no poor, is the heart of what egalitarian revolutionthe subject of this bookis all about.

Although one would never know it from the mass or alternative media, egalitarian revolution is what most people want, regardless of whether they consider themselves to be on the Left or the Right of the so-called political spectrum. experiences asking other peopleoften strangers on a sidewalk or encountered while shopping, etc. what they think about the message on the button.

My second piece of evidence about what people value comes from realizing what the significance is, in this regard, of how people live their everyday lives. I learned about this from reading Dave Stratmans book, We CAN Change the World: The Real Meaning of Everyday Life. As Stratman points out, the capitalist class is clearly in power and its values of greed and self-interest and domination of others control all the major institutions of society. Everyday were told how important it is to make the world a level playing field, which means a place where people (individually or as parts of businesses, nations, races, genders, ethnicities, etc. ) compete against each other (like opposing teams on a soccer field) instead of helping each other (with mutual aid, a.k.a solidarity). The message is that of course youre in competition with others; the only thing you have a right to ask for is that the playing field be fair, i.e., level.

If everybody shared these capitalist values and were thus always knifing each other in the back in ruthless competition to make a buck and trying to dominate and cheat others to profit at their expense and never acting out of concern for others, not to mention love for some, we would be living in a veritable nightmarish hell. But were clearly not living in that kind of hell. Why not? This is the extremely insightful question Stratman asks, and answers in his book.

Were not living in a nightmarish hell because most people reject capitalist values and try in their everyday lives in the small corner of the world over which they have any real control to act on the opposite values of mutual aid (a.k.a. solidarity and concern for others) and equality. Without consciously thinking of it in these terms, peoples everyday lives are implicitly a resistance to capitalism. The evidence that people have these values is that nothing else can explain why our society ruled by capitalism is not a nightmarish hell. Most people know that if they challenge capitalist values too overtly or on too large a scaleif they get too visibly uppitythey will be attacked by capitalist corporate and government power. So people mostly act on a small scale, in their personal sphere, in ways that only implicitly challenge capitalist values; but it is enough to make our world far better under capitalist rule than it would otherwise be.