We live in a modern civilization. Organized. Structured. Peaceful. Productive. There is very little want. We should all be so lucky to be alive in this epoch.
Civilization wasn’t built in a day. It’s taken thousands, if not millions of years, for humanity to reach today’s precipice.
We can easily take this for granted. Feel entitled. Feel deserving and assuming of our current luxuries, ease, and carefree life.
Make no mistake. Your life is comfortable.
Undeservedly so.
Generations before us suffered and battled with basic life necessities. Clean water, food and shelter; disease and basic dental care. These are the least of your worries today.
Entitled you are not. Lucky and fortunate, we all are.
Let’s not underestimate our fortune. We spend most of our days sitting and sleeping. Comfortabe in a temperature controlled room. Gazing into a box that dazzles us with amazing images and sound.
We have access to clean water with the flip of a switch, not directly hauled from a mountain or creak with our own bare hands, but through modern infrastructure.
We stand on the shoulders of our forefathers. What they’ve built. Not only physical structures, but ideas, rules, laws, innovation and technology.
We leverage our history and the work of our great mothers and fathers to live in the comfort we do today. This legacy, this gift, passed forward from prior generations is what empowers us, standing on their shoulders.
I would estimate that 40% to 60% of our national population is not directly employed, working, or adding value to our economic infrastructure.
Consider our elderly generation that’s retired, our children under 18 that’s still attending school or nursing, a percentage of stay-at-home parents, the infirmed and disabled, the criminal population and those incarcerated, social program recipients, and welfare recipients.
It’s staggering!
Consider the criminal elements that are not only parasitic, but a cancer to society. Assiduously planning their next heist, robbery and rampage.
Politicians and bureaucrats. This bloated and top heavy white collar group we employ as government workers who do nothing more than shuffle paper, create red tape, confusion, wind and noise. Perhaps 10% of them are necessary, the rest may go to the fodder.
So imagine that. 40% to 50% of our populous supporting and ensuring that our society does not devolve into chaotic anarchy and ruin.
Our overall tax structure is estimated to be about 40% to 60%. This translates into 40% to 60% of your earnings going to a central agency who then disperses this to other agencies and populous. Some of this is necessary. Budget for law enforcement, national security, and bureaucratic paper pushing.
If you consider the necessity of a tax system at all, you can argue that bookkeepers, accountants, CPA’s, IRS agents, and IRS workers are non-essential.
The red tape, waste, and bloat in society is nothing short of an astonishment!
Given all these headwinds, how do we manage to live in such privilege?
Not only do we live in modern privilege, but we can afford time for sports, entertainment, the arts and leisure. The reality seems to defy all logic.
This modern privilege was built on hundreds of thousands of years of human sweat, blood and tears. You are not entitled to this privilege, but a fortunate recipient of this benefit.
Each generation has added an iota of value to this thing we call Modern Society. With the lifelong effort of each generation before use, we have the infrastructure that honors us today. Talk about generational wealth, this is the ultimate example of generational wealth, bestowed on all of us, from all those who have preceded us.
Technology is the 2nd leg of this facilitation. Without innovation and technology, humanity would not have developed and civilization would not have evolved. With innovation and technology, we are able to leverage the super powers of the few, to benefit the masses.
Today, one man or woman can do the work of 1000 men. One person with the aid of a computer or smart phone can be more productive than a 100 rural farmers from a generation ago. This ability for “leverage” through the harnessing of technology is what empowers the 40% to support and entitled remaining 60% populous and still have time left over to travel and leisure.
I can only fathom what our world would be like if the remaining 60% were also productively engaged.
We stand on the shoulders of our forefathers, the innovators, technologists and entrepreneurs. How grateful we should be…
