Competition in the Workplace and the Human Condition

Do you notice where you find yourself competing with your other fellow employees, because you can’t all ‘win’, you can’t all get the bonuses, and this puts you in a position where you’re against each other, instead of working together toward the common goal, you’re now working in separation for ‘potential rewards’. And the only reason this competition exists, is because there are these possibilities/opportunities to get more money, but not for everyone. That means, very simply, it’s either ‘You or Them’. So now your focus is distracted from the task at hand, and now focused on ‘beating everyone else’ to get to that prize. And for many people, this is not something that sits well, as most people don’t want to be against one another, but would much rather get along well and work together on things, but find oneself torn now between one’s own personal well-being/income and everyone else’s. In this, one will have to find whatever way one can to cope with or justify having to compete against one’s fellow man, like coming up with reasons like ‘why I deserve it more and they don’t’ and ‘I have to look out for myself/my family’.

What hasn’t been considered within this is the simple solution of giving to all equally, and giving enough that each and every individual can have a dignified life, the best quality life possible, where there is no worrying whether you will be able to get the healthcare you need, or the food you need, or adequate housing, education, etc.

If everyone gets the same support, competition will cease, because you won’t have to compete with others to get what you need and to have a dignified life. Then we can really focus on the tasks at hand and the productivity of humanity will not diminish, but will be of a higher quality, as when we work together on things, we are capable of so much more than when we’re all ‘on our own’ and having to work against each other.

What’s really incredible is the extent to which competition has been and is accepted as a ‘normal’ part of life, and it’s essentially forgotten that competition had to be conditioned in – we aren’t born with it. It’s something we learn through our family structures and in school, especially in sports for example, where winning is emphasized, and you’re separated into ‘teams’ instead of everyone being on the same ‘team’ and working together.

Some will argue that competition builds character, and it sure does – the question is, just what kind of character does competition create? The kind that has justified and accepted turning against one’s fellow man and seeking to ‘win’ no matter if it means someone else loses. And that is the very basis of our current economic system and our relationship toward/with it, in which we’ve accepted that only a few can ‘win’, while most everyone else has to ‘lose’, and never considering the option that everyone can win, and that if you winning means someone else losing, that is not really ‘winning’. The real way to win is to have a world where we’re actually supported to live in the best quality, and none are denied access to what we need here to live and thrive, that none are allowed to suffer for no good reason in order to make profits.

And it’s actually thought that using ‘incentive’ actually ‘increases productivity’, and you’ll have things like ‘quotas’ to meet at work, where what happens is this actually limits growth and productivity, because once you’ve met the quota, there’s no motivation then to go on any further, as your movement was dependent on that incentive. And where in the case of meeting a quota, the reward is usually actually the ‘avoidance of some form of punishment’, so your goal becomes totally removed from the actual task/job you’re doing. And that begs the question, why does what you’re doing require incentive to get you to do it? Is it not something you would do otherwise? So that really calls in to question the nature of what it is that we require incentive to do, and whether it is really the kind of jobs that are of benefit to ourselves and each other, and all of life here, or whether it’s jobs that only exist for the making of profits, without concern/regard for life?

See, we wouldn’t just naturally abuse ourselves and our home the earth and nature, but we had to be incentivized to do so, so that we won’t question what’s really being done and what are the actual consequences and outflows we’re creating, and why it is that we’re doing it, because we’ve been given a reason, it’s for a reward, which for many the ‘reward’ is literally one’s survival, and there is obviously no freedom in that. So it’s slavery, we’ve enslaved ourselves to/within this capitalist system where we must work within what’s available to us just to be able to survive, and thus there is really no free will in this reality, no ‘free choice’. Because not everyone can become, say, president of a country or a business. I mean, it’s obvious no starving child is ever going to be a wealthy business owner. And that even the majority of those in elite countries who are surviving in relative comfort, and living paycheck to paycheck, are not going to become world leaders or big-time CEO’s.

Obviously a system based on competition is not working, with most of the population living undignified lives, lacking even the most basic of needs, when there is plenty for all to live the best quality life. It’s as simple as no longer accepting a system that is based on us competing against one another, and instead one where the starting point principle is to work together, as the world we can create through cooperation is one in which no one starves. Where no one suffers from lack of clean drinking water, effective education, proper housing, or effective healthcare. I mean it really makes you wonder why haven’t we done this already and established an Equal Money System, so that we can give ourselves the best life possible, and All of us, not just a few with the most money in a system that doesn’t give enough to all, through which we’re allowing people, children to starve every day, when it can be prevented. Time to give ourselves the life we’ve always wished for – join us today at http://equalmoney.org.

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• 209. Successful Living = Capitalist Brainwash

A People’s History- You Weren’t Taught This in School!

While learning about history in school, I just knew there was something missing- I mean- it’s kind of obvious- all sorts of atrocities are mentioned, but there is never really adequate explanation as to why or how these things came to take place.

The way history is taught now, it kind of leaves you with the impression that some people just like to be oppressed- in fact, that the VAST MAJORITY of people seem to prefer to exist with just barely getting enough to survive living and working in poor conditions.

A little common sense goes a long way here- to realize that if you were being oppressed or abused, you want to do whatever you could to stop it- and the times in your life where you have been oppressed or abused are when there was nothing you could do about it- like if 4 guys beat you up in a back alley- you had no choice but to be beaten- so how our history is currently taught- the guys that beat you up would then go and tell everyone that you actually wanted to be beat up and it was your responsibility to stop it. Yeah- you can see how ridiculous this is.

Which brings me to my point- which is that our history has been taught from a perspective of justifying the abuse and oppression of the majority of the population, when we all know in common sense that no one would actually want to live that way. Yet we have trusted the ‘professionals’, the professors, and the textbooks, the media- however, in this system in which only a very few have the power, because they have the money, the schools, the media, the information that is taught and presented to people is all controlled, and is deliberately manipulated and distorted in favor of protecting the current system and those who profit from it.

However, it is possible to find out what really happened, from the perspective of the people, and how things have really got to be how they are now- why so many are oppressed and suffering.  A book called “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn gives a really thorough and effective explanation of what actually happened in the history of the U.S., of the pivotal events that took place- I was totally shocked in the staggering difference between the actual perspectives that is shared in this book, it becomes abundantly obvious that what we are taught in schools is so obviously one-sided and on the side that favors those in power. I so highly recommend all to read this book- you will actually be interested to be learning about history.

Reading this book, I realized a major part of the reason why I hadn’t been interested to learn about history in the past, was that it never really made sense, because you could always tell, there was a lot left out that simply was not explained and thus not much made sense, and learning history was actually quite depressing- as it basically served to tell you what your place was, and that’s just the way things are, and if you have a problem with it it means you’re lazy.

You can get this book in audio format as well- but no matter which way you read it/hear it, I suggest that you do- so you can get some perspective on what really went on to get to where we are now- it will give you much more of a clearer perspective on what is going on today in this world even now- the very issues at hand today- labor unions, immigration, inequality, etc. And through this understanding, you empower yourself to be able to understand what is going on, and can begin to see what the solution is, which is for us to stand up and stop allowing this oppression to continue, that this is not the way things ‘just are’ or ‘must be’, but have been very deliberately made to be this way through the use of force- yet, we have quite a good opportunity to change this system now through the political process that’s been established, that’s currently utilized by those seeking to oppress the many to profit from their labor.

Therefore, I highly suggest to read this book “A People’s History of the United States”, so you can get a clear picture of our history and how the political system has ‘evolved’ and thus you’ll better understand how it can be utilized and changed. It is just like this with anything- you can’t really change the design of a car until you fully understand how the car works, what the parts are and what they do, etc.

“A People’s History of the United States” is a Must Read for anyone who is an activist and stands up for Equal Rights for All and a world without suffering.

Within this account of history it’s abundantly clear that we require a new system which is based on Equality for All- that that is the only real solution we have currently, to be able to stop the oppression and abuse taking place all over the world. So, in addition to reading this book, I suggest to investigate the Equal Money System as well- as it will be the key to finally putting an end to this abuse and exploitation that’s been going on for eons.

Learning from History: Time For a Real ‘Reconstruction’

I’m currently taking a class on American History, and reading about what’s called ‘Reconstruction’, which is the name for a period that took place between 1865-1877, in which the Southern Confederate States were reunited with the Northern Union States after the Civil War and the legal abolition of slavery.

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A perspective that is given in my textbook, is that at that time, while it was becoming more normal and accepted in the North to work for wages, in the South this was seen as degrading, as to work ‘another’s’ land was seen as dependency, and working and owning your ‘own’ was seen as freedom. Therefore the freed ‘slaves’, were not all that excited to now be able to contract with the former slave owners. One South Carolina freedman responded to an offer of wage work, “I mean to own my own manhood, I’m going to own my own land.”

Quite fascinating to consider this when now across the whole country the vast majority of people are wage workers, and very few are landowners. Also, to see how we’ve formed this definition of what it means to be ‘free’, in terms of ‘ownership’, within the context of a system in which we don’t work together, and each is ‘out for himself’ and everyone has to have ‘their own’ because we don’t share, because we don’t trust each other, because we can’t in a system where each has to be ‘out for himself’. Lol, Catch-22 there, isn’t it.

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There was also friction around an issue where on some plantations, the ‘planters’ would tell the men that their wives and children couldn’t live with them unless they also worked in the fields.

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Quite fascinating when you consider that in many cases nowadays, the wife has had to seek employment so that the family can ‘make ends meet’ and the wages of the husband is simply not enough to support the family. And if the family can’t pay it’s bills, NONE of them get to live there- they lose their home and are Out On the Street.

We Sure have Come a Long Way, haven’t we?

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There were a lot of negative reactions to the efforts of the former slaves taking control of their own lives from those whites who held the belief that blacks were meant to be subordinate to them. In one case in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, after a dispute with some ‘freedmen’, the whites burned their cabins and hanged the inhabitants. Thousands of Blacks were murdered and beaten. Now, you can see how delusional it is for some to believe that others are less than they, when they will commit acts such as this- this kind of behavior is not acts of superiority, but in fact infeariority, totally hypocritical, and obviously unacceptable.

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Quite disillusioning to see who we have been and what we’ve accepted and allowed in the past, especially when so many act ‘patriotic’ and ‘proud’ of this country, when- when you look at the history, it is an absolute Disgrace, that we can learn from, to be Sure that this kind of Abuse Never Happen Again. Reconstruction shows us who we’ve been, it’s Time to Let the shit from the Past Go, so that we can begin to ‘Reconstruct’ our Nature, to that which is Supportive to All Life, and End this System of Debt Slavery- because Slavery hasn’t yet Ended, it’s actually increased.

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Time to Give ourselves the Opportunity to Live a Dignified Life Here with an Equal Money System.

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U.S. Government: Founded in Inequality

I remember studying about the history of the U.S. government in high school, yet I just sort of, ‘took it all for granted’ in that I just accepted it as ‘the way things are’ and ‘the way they ought to be’. It’s quite fascinating to ‘revisit’ these points now, and considering everything from a starting point of equality. It’s cool now, to look at what we’ve done in the past and have a look at why/how it didn’t work, it’s great from a ‘here’s what not to do’ perspective.

So our government, the U.S. that is, was basically founded by some guys, some rich white guys to be more accurate, who sat down to make up some rules on how we shall live in this country. Fascinatingly, even though in the Declaration of Independence from Britain (lol, which I am just realizing, is not actually possible, you can’t actually be independent of anything in this world as we’re all here existing in the same system, our economies together making one economy) they wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”- people were anything but treated or considered equally. We still had slavery, the out-in-the-open obvious kind (Now slavery has been upgraded so that the ‘plantation owners’, so to speak, don’t have to house and feed you, they give you money to deal with that yourself, and so that you will perceive yourself as not enslaved, hahaha).

So, obviously the main point, the main problem within the government that was created, is that it doesn’t consider the point of Equality. In fact, that’s the problem with all the governments at this point, that will have to be corrected. And that is going to take some time.

To continue on the topic of studying the Judicial system, what I’ve learned is how laws are enforced- basically its up to the courts, the judges, to decide how to apply the law to each case that comes before them. Lawyers go through past cases to find cases that support or seem to support the point they are arguing for, and that is how they ‘make their case’, they ‘plead their case’ and it’s up to the judge, or jury as the case may be, to finally determine how to apply the law in a particular situation.

So, those who blame the ‘government’ for the laws ‘they’ make, realize that the laws are somewhat general points, and it’s within the courts with the lawyers and judges where those laws are actually decided how they will apply.