Another Outrageous solution to an Intractable Problem: The Wealth Gap Part 2 of 3 Problems

by Gary Berg-Cross
  

In an earlier post I proposed an outrageous solution to Climate Change. Make it a bet with $$ behind it to help the winning side.  We'll need trillions to clean up the mess if it is an accurate prediction of a similar amount to heal wealth that is taxed to solve a non-problem. Well the 1% creeping into the climate change issue and they are part of the destabilizing wealth gap issue.  It is worldwide, (see Thomas Piketty, professor at the Paris School of Economics) but just the trend in US is troubling with lots of downsides and destabilizing effects.  So they say.

“Since 1960, income inequality has jumped more in the U.S. than in any other major Western country, according to a November analysis from noted economics professors.” HufPo article

It’s “ Let them eat cake” and what follows are problems of neglect.  I’ve got mine and earned it (well I was born into a worthy family in a prosperous place).  But who wants the French Revolution on a global scale?

Now in finding a solution here we want to avoid class warfare. Well since one class has the weapons that wealth brings such as owning politicians and media that's not likely to work well.

To ease the problem we might dream of outlandish solutions like Scandinavia annexing the US or China buying up the Kochs, but that’s not likely.

So here’s another idea to find some transcendent force that can close the gap despite the 1% opposition.  

We can start a morality-based religion.

Something where solving the wealth gap is a moral good, espoused by Religion.  I've heard rumors that this idea is in some religions, but obviously the message isn't getting through.  It’s buried too deeply or covered up by other commandments and priorities or abstractions that are interpreted by special people who have a direct line to the supreme mover.

Indeed there is a prosperity gospel which pushes things in the other way towards the chosen 1%.

So maybe we have a good start from some earlier work in this area but we need to start over.  Earlier efforts has been captured by elites and we have wealth religions.

Let’s be a little scientific and systematic about this and get to useful ends like narrowing the wealth gap. 

Practically we need an inspired book to start.  Who can we get to Ghost write the book? Chis Hitchens’ ghost perhaps?  Wishful thinking. I tried that and got no response.

The founding fathers might be good, Jefferson and Madison could take a swing.  They might include Tom Paine.  That’s a better set of writers than most books of revelation can claim.  Unfortunately I got no response from them either.  Maybe I’m not a good conductor and need to fast in the desert a bit.

Perhaps a team of folks lead by a philosopher like A.C. Grayling might ghost the book.  His “The GoodBook" is certainly a good start with parables and quotable ideas that get at thinking, belief and lifestyle values.  Here is one example that gets at the asymmetry or wealth issue in a moral, reasoning way:

These reasonings are unconnected, though foolish people think them: 

’I am richer than you, therefore I am better’; ‘I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better’.

The true connection is this: ‘I am richer than you, therefore my property is greater than yours’; ‘I am more eloquent than you, therefore my style is better than yours’.

From “The Good Book”

And he reuses much wisdom to put wealth and foolishness in perspective:

"Prosperity reveals vice, adversity virtue;" and 
"They are strong who conquer others, they are mighty who conquer themselves."

We just have to treat the ideas a bit more reverently. Dress it up and get some persuasive spokesman out there.  Maybe Chris Hitchens will respond from beyond in time.  Here’s an idea we'll just make it up as if he has.

Ok, so we start with a revered book and disciple who preach the message.  I guess we’ll need some institution building.  How about Humanist Libraries and academies where people come to learn and hear the word?  Well we do have a start with AHA, CFI and others (like WASH), so I guess we just need to gear up with long range and short term or conversion approaches flowing out of them.

We probably need a better conversion mechanism to get this rolling. What facilitates conversions?  If it isn't the gradual process of being raised in the culture (a long-range approach), it’s all about sudden turning points and well crisis. So we need to be prepared as they come via the wealth gap as the 99% run out of cake. Let’s be ready for the next big finanhcial bubble bust. Sudden conversions will come as a result of overwhelming anxiety and guilt from personal errors.  Why didn’t I sell all my stock or protect my retirement of sell my house or not take on that college loan?  Guilt will becomes uncomfortable, making conversion a functional solution to ease these emotions.  What actions will ease this guilt? Let’s get into those Occupy Wall Street crowds and Walmart protests and get people committed to a moral, caring society.

So Psychological understanding helps. We can leverage for example Rambo, L. R. (1993). Understanding religious conversion. New Haven: CT: Yale University Press.

We need to structure the right type of encounters and interactions as people search for a solution to problems caused by some people having it all and not contributing to solutions.  Using our Gooder Book we can lead converts to a moral society recognition and a new identity. We’ll probably need some songs and ceremonies.  We can leverage the progressive community a bit here.

We can expect some pushback for sure.  After all this would be a pretty “light” religion.  I guess we should use Religion in quotes.  So "religion." 

One without the usual God, spiritual aspect.  So we may have to get the Templeton Foundation to fund us and help clear the way with things like their evolution of "religion" efforts.  It's might be a challenge, but, hey, let's keep the faith and try.

We should have a contest for the best name for the new religion.  Something catchy like secular humanism perhaps.  Let’s give it a try and cross our fingers (is that too superstitious?) for the best. I sure hope we don’t need martyrs to make this work. 

Behind the Prosperity Message of Happy Warriors

By Gary Berg-Cross
It’s great to have a positive attitude, especially if it’s realistically based. But when I consider some well-positioned contemporary figures, such as Bob McDonald and Donald Trump, I get a sense that their bonhomie is more superficial and synthetic than deeply held. Pol Marco Rubio has that happy warrior charm and youthful vigor that makes him seem a popular and attractive figure. His nicknames is McDreamy. But what is behind this projected charm? In part it seems to me part of a conscious tactic to do what Norman Vincent Peale called winning friends and influencing people as part of positive thinking. (Peale published “The Power of Positive Thinking” in 1952). My working hypothesis of the classic, happy attitude and seeming brightness of people like George W. Bush is that it is reflexive strategy implemented as a habit and not necessarily a deep seated trait. As a persona strategy it sometimes combines an ego trip of self-delusion with an ideological certainty of how the world ought to be with an unconscious, habitual need to influence people. This mix can lead to some seemingly paradoxical and awkward behavior when reality and delusional certainty collide.

Willard Mitt Romney seems to be in this mold of an artificially upbeat character. His persona seems to produce moments of false bravado and good, old boy cheer that seemed forced, synthetic and sometimes just weird, "ya'll". His efforts at a common touch strike me and many others as programmed in. Because of this he’s been described as a robotic cheerleader type. Alternately he’s labeled as a Richie Rich (aka Richee Mitt) character that is devoid of “real” emotions. His wealth and privilege seem to prevent him from getting in touch with the common man. He seems ill at ease campaigning in front of various groups around the country. One wonders what world view or vision they reflect. It seems a bit hypocritical as I posted in Becoming what we Hate. Whatever the reason the vision seems to be something that most of us can’t relate to. It produces friendly, global demeanors but at times these seem per-programmed and not quite appropriate to the situation. I posit that these awkward behaviors have roots in both his religious-culture experience, the prosperity gospel, and as a “motivational” corporate leader in late 20^th century American. Both exhort believers to be positive, very positive not matter what.

The religious connection apparently started during his over seas Mormon mission work. While there he read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich on the recommendation of a Mormon church leader in Utah. First published in 1937 and eventually selling 60 million copies, Think and Grow Rich is probably the most widely read book teaching what is called a gospel of positive thinking as a means to financial or business success. In Mitt Romney’s Mormonism Robert M. Bowman Jr. describes Hill’s book as:

“a thinly veiled version of the New Thought prosperity doctrine, according to which the universe is suffused with “Infinite Intelligence” into which one can tap by thinking and thereby achieve whatever one sets out to do.”

This aspect of a prosperity gospel is well described in Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided which explores the “Dark Side of Positive Thinking” in both the religious and corporate world. Ehrenreich, who is beyond wonderful in all her writing, charts the path of the positivity messages such as “When life hands out lemons, squeeze out a smile”. In religion the surprising story is how a positive philosophy has pressed on and partially displaced the older, gloomy message of Calvinism. Its positive message has found a place in religious niches as diverse as Mormon and evangelical mega-churches. There pastors have been celebrities as robed motivational speakers selling a stitched-together faith called “prosperity gospel. Essentially the message of this gospel is that God rewards positive thinking with material riches. God WANTS the faithful to be rich. All that believers have to do is have the right attitude and keep working. It’s a powerful message to blue collar workers. One also sees a message of hope projected by bright aura politicians like Herman Cain, a former motivational speaker. 

And the positive, prosperity message has a resonance in Corporate American, from which Mitt Romney comes. Enhrereich wrote pitch perfectly about this sunny, guru world of CEOs long before Mitt's 2011-12 campaign. The older Corporate American included pragmatic professionals such as Mitt’s father George, which mixed technical ability, leadership and liberal values. His son Mitt is more of a country club member and celebrity CEO who is proud to say he knows the elite owners of this and that. This connection to the prosperous works in the board room which, aside from the Mormon church, is Romney's natural playing ground. He is probably at home inspiring (or firing) employees.  It's a strength and as a motivational speaker he probably expects to pump up an audience of true believers with a few good lines about conservative staples like lower taxes. After all isn’t money - and Mitt has money ranking in the 0.006 percent of Americans - next to godliness? His formula to win people over is a mix of “tribal stories” of hope set in a positive message in which poverty is the fault of the poor for not being better people. Need to stir the emotions? Just a few dog whistles about the “enemy” and evil will do that. Although Rick Santorum seems better than Mitt at that, after all he's brought the devil issue into the campaign. To Rick most things seem to simplify down to a battle of good against evil, which I've blogged on earlier as part of Binary Thinking.

But Mitt expects to win since he is Chosen, and after all he is a proven corporate success with a winning smile. He's a turn around artist that generated wealth for him and his Bain fellows. Turing around the country might just mean acquiring a few governmental things and firing people and, well making a few rich people richer.Perhaps what he is thinking is that what resonates in the Corporate Board room should work as an empowering message to with the mass congregation that is the electorate. Or perhaps the idea is that as a preacher of the positive message he can convert all of us to the prosperity gospel and its implications. It's not clear which it is and when people ask such questions we get what seems disingenuous answers.  He seems to not know what answers would be perceived positively by an audience.   As a take over artist he has to sell some vision, but  as in many take overs, it will all be different when the new management team takes control.  They get to dismantle the pieces as a turn around artist.

But converting the populace isn't so easy in an economy that has brought more layoffs and financial turbulence to the middle class. People are skeptical ,as they should be of happy warrior pols whose plans to help seem, upon closer analysis, might be geared to helping the already prosperous. The father, George Romney’s message would probably play better than Mitt's thin veneer of positive thinking. People want to know where’s the beef of these motivational speaker and smiling cobra corporate types. People know that corporate elites have fought for government subsidies, tax benefits and tax havens. And they perhaps wonder if the Richie Rich and famous CEO types are the new emperor who have neither clothing for the masses or beef.