Capitalism worked better for the low paid over a century ago. We must look to history to understand ethical commercialism and how we can solve problems and do even better now.

Yes, making such a statement is certain to raise the heckles of both those on the left who believe that they have workers’ rights completely nailed, and those on the right who think that the money-comes-easy lives that they have are an economic miracle that is shared by all.

Sat on either end of the supposed spectrum which is the political divide, those with such refined and apparently generous world views share ignorance of the laws of consequence in common. They have little if no appreciation of the effects that such self-righteousness and outright selfishness actually have.

It is little wonder that many of those who are on the arse end of all this are feeling real pain. With rights gone mad and the part they are forced to play in a cultural system that is so obsessed with monetary and material wealth, normal people have no idea what a balanced, fair and just model of society would actually look like. Just as they have no real appreciation of what good has looked like at any time before.

The painful truth that underpins the history of humanity – and particularly the two or three hundred years since the industrial age began, is that the strong have always had the ability to abuse the weak.

More often than not, they have done so.

But whereas strength was once based on physical or military strength with both the threat and action that too often followed it, the phenomenon that is the strength abused today is a money, wealth, influence and power-crazed age that only misuses physicality at the intranational level, whilst the governments themselves smile nicely at their people and bully them with the misuse and manipulation of money and ‘the markets’ instead.

Our politicians quite literally do not understand nor appreciate the role and the neglected responsibility they have for creating and continuing to evolve a world where a basic self-sustainable life without debt or help, is something that those on a weekly minimum wage simply cannot afford.

Business has also lost sight of its role in supporting not only its own employees, but the obligation it has every member of society too.

First, the focus on service and quality for customers was replaced by the obsession with profit, efficiency and the overall bottom line. Then, the dwindling value of the low amounts of money and benefits that the lowest earners were once paid were pulled back so extensively, that systems of mutual benefit that worked for both the employer and the employed have been at best completely obscured from view.

Over a Century ago, great industrialists like Cadbury and Rowntree had the sense to build homes and infrastructure to support both workers and their families.

Farms, the Police, utility services and even Council Highways provided their staff with similar (and in rare cases still do), and those who have followed such TV Dramas as Downton Abbey will recall how the staff of great houses and estates were all accommodated.

Yes, lower-paid staff may have literally lived below stairs and the wages may have seemed very low. But all of the needs of those who worked were considered as a responsibility of the employer. People worked hard, but they were also genuinely happy too, because the relationship between everyone wasn’t just about the cost or what people are being paid.

Greed, selfishness and the obsession with one-sided rights that never had their true consequences thought through, have conspired to make basic life and the ability to live happily and free, a concept that is now neither possible, nor something that anyone on a low or even average wage can afford. And that affordability is heading quickly towards the top.

The introduction of the FIAT money system that has allowed politicians and bankers to live the myth that they can just print whatever money they want, because its true value isn’t actually anchored to anything, has literally allowed cash to be fire hosed at all those who have more money and wealth that they could ever need.

Meanwhile, the increase in the amount of money available has meant that the small amounts earned and in the possession of those with less are continually being devalued. Wage rises never keep up with out-of-control inflation and we are now experiencing retail price rises that even well-paid people are struggling to afford.

The real tragedy is that few can even see the mechanics of what those who have abused their power have actually done to us all. Many of those being hurt the most, wouldn’t even believe you if you could take all the time necessary and use every too possible to show them how it all works.

There really is little or no understanding of the role that the obsession with profit at all costs has had.

For instance, the pub and hospitality industry has always required long hours, but historically paid those taking the risks and responsibility very well. It has been broadsided – not only by the government response to covid, as many publicans believe – but by an industry that is predominantly owned by profit-obsessed capitalists who have used 80’s legislation to appease the EU to take all the fat from every part of the publicans pie that is possible. A process that has often led to many who would have previously thrived as great landlords not having the financial wiggle room to operate in challenging times and therefore going broke.

It doesn’t have to be like this. For any of us. It never did.

The reason that people cannot afford to live on a basic wage and small businesses that should be thriving are closing at a rate that society can ill afford is greed and the selfishness that underpins it. Nothing more.

It doesn’t matter what value is placed on the size of the cake, which is everything in an economy combined.

If anyone is playing that system and creating value that doesn’t exist, so that they themselves can profit, or get themselves out of a problem that their gaming helped to create, it is inevitable that those who do not have that control will be hurt.

Those who are furthest away from that power and influence will always be the ones to be hit by the consequences of this deranged behaviour. It is inevitable that they will feel the pain first.

Those at the top of this system’s hierarchy are too far away from the pain that their bad decisions will cause, to be insulated from the rose-tinted view of life they have for everyone outside their spere of contact.

Exposure to real life might otherwise prevent them from believing – as they now so clearly do – that they are the new gods and can do no wrong.

We can no longer rely on trusting that the good amongst those who lead us will be able to maintain any change in standards that they might be able to impose.

It has happened before, too many times, that devices and rules installed to protect the weak and innocent from the self-serving actions of the few within public policy have been overturned or removed. Often under the watch of leaders too weak or out of touch to know or understand why they were there.

We must return power to the most local level possible.

Where power must be shared regionally, nationally or at a world level, our representatives must come from and be recognisable amongst us at the most local level.

The local level is where every politician’s real power must remain. And that power must never be given away again to people who will forever be distant from us and out of touch.

I’ve spoken before about how it feels to be sat watching those who are still invested in the normality of the chaos that the establishment is fueling on one side. On the other, I have observed the many who are ‘awakening’, scrabbling about, desperately trying to make sense of things that no sensible person can really make any logical sense of, falling into the arms of conspiracy theorists or false prophets with big social media followings, as these sources offer the only answer they can find.

People are understandably very prickly about everything that is going on. Not least of all because it feels like we have entered a new age of intolerance.

It is here, that for many, the only truth is their own and it makes them unequivocally right. Anyone or any idea that is different to what they believe, is absolutely wrong.

Being prickly or falling into well-intentioned conspiracy theory traps, isn’t the biggest problem that the increasing number of people who know that the establishment doesn’t work in their best interests now face.

The real problem is there is no alternative that this growing and sizable part of the population can trust or credibly believe in. Meanwhile, in every direction, we look upon the arriving storm clouds and the turbulent world that lies ahead.

People in this ‘outside of the mainstream’ group – which is only outside because the mainstream media narrative tells us that it is – are feeling paranoid for a very simple reason: We were brought up or conditioned to believe that the establishment and anyone who represents it can be trusted and that they would always have our best interests at heart.

So, when the moment comes that any one of us realises that isn’t the case, our whole understanding of the way the world works and the framework for life it is based upon begins to fall apart.

People are quite literally becoming so fearful and untrusting of so much that they read, hear and now see, that they are becoming paranoid about everything that is going on.

Sadly, of the many speakers and ‘influencers’ with platforms who are out there pursuing new public agendas which are most often all about their own interpretation of what is happening and therefore what they believe will be for the best, few – indeed, if any at all, are doing anything proactive or constructive to help, guide and support this growing audience that is desperate for leadership that is real, coming from the hands of people who are actually able and equipped to lead.

These ‘public voices’ are instead doubling down with stories that do nothing more than consolidate the existing fears with ‘I told you so’s’, rather than presenting anything positive or based on a direction of travel that will yield genuine change and outcomes that will be good and beneficial for everyone.

It is regrettably clear that very few of the people who have the opportunity to be leading change of the kind that might result in real change through the measured, considered and proactive steps that must be taken, are doing any of the things that they could or now should.

People don’t need yet another alternative to all that is happening already that will simply result in more of the same things.

We already have an entire political culture, filled up with people who are motivated by self-interest, and resistant to doing anything on behalf of the people who elect them, if it has even the remotest likelihood of putting their role, advancement, power, influence or anticipated future at risk.

Anyone championing or prioritising a specific group, cause or political ideology – as the solution or the way to solve the problems we face, is working for nobody other than themselves – no matter how credible or trustworthy they may appear or sound to be.

The solution to everything that is hurting people, devaluing people, creating inequality of any kind or driving the wedges that divide us all deeper and more deeply every day, can only begin and can only be successfully established by casting any form of ego or ‘my idea is the one that will save us’ kind of thinking aside.

In this sense, the ‘my DNA is in tact’, ‘they are all sheep’ and the ‘we will punish them for their ignorance’ mentality is just as damaging and out of place as those who worship wealth and money, that look down on everyone else, or who are happy with the idea of digitally enslaving the majority of the population, if it will maintain their position through removing our ability to think and keeping us all controlled.

The future is not about identifying others or ourselves as being the next ‘leaders’ in the sense of ‘top-down’ hierarchies and all that we already have that is so damaging to all of us and to humanity now.

Our future is about everyone being valued. Everyone’s experience being valued. Each person’s input being valued. So that we all play our part as a leader, but likewise feel neither any obligation nor any obstruction at any time, to speaking, to doing more or getting directly involved, as we meet the challenges of the Great Reset that greed and self interest combined to create, and we come together to define our own place in the new world that we must build that lies beyond.

The truth is that the people who will be leading us in perhaps just a few months time may not already be publicly known.

It will not be any form of discrimination – legal, sanctioned or otherwise – that this dying establishment has created and seeks to impose upon us all, that will be used to decide who they are.

People must be helped to remember and to find value in who they really are.

People have the right to believe and to trust in themselves before they are asked to believe or trust in anyone or in anything else.

Real, meaningful change can only be achieved by the creation of local forums. Gatherings of real people meeting face to face, that encourage the exchange of ideas, offering the freedom to debate, without fear of consequence, and with a willingness on the part of all to embrace openness and learn from the experiences of others in a respectful way.

All this must happen without those who participate allowing either themselves or anyone with a loud or apparently credible voice to monopolise everything and pay lip service to this genuine opportunity for real democracy, by pushing their own ideas and telling everyone else that it was their choice.

The voice of the most vulnerable must carry the same value of those who have presence or voice that shouts.

Grassroots Up is the only way that real democracy can be restored, that people furthest from decision making will be as involved and as valued as those making them. It is the only way that the opportunities we all need to improve life for everyone will come to exist.

Of all the points being missed by the political classes, probably the worst as well as the most troubling is the absence of any understanding or appreciation that life is now too expensive for anyone to pay for, working full time and on the minimum, basic or working wage.

Whilst it may be logical to believe that everyone is hardwired to work at and do whatever they can to earn money when they don’t have enough, the next of those points being missed is that if you cannot do the most basic of jobs and still not pay your own way without help, the rubicon has already been crossed when it comes to ‘helping ones self’.

For many, a lot of help or borrowing is the same thing as receiving just a little.

Why should anyone who doesn’t have enough even if they work a 50 hour week, struggle and destroy their life, if they cannot even then gain the benefit of being able to fully support themselves with the self-respect that it gives?

In a money obsessed society, where the politicians and elites are even more obsessed with what that means for them than most, it sadly stands to reason that government cannot think of any problem and therefore come up with any solution which isn’t itself derived in monetary terms.

On the face of it, focusing on getting people earning – and identifying that this can be achieved through the acquisition of new skills, does indeed sound like a genuinely good way to address a small element of truth that exists when answering the question of how to get more of the low paid back into work.

Yet many of the jobs that need to be filled don’t actually need or require people who are being treated like the adults they are to have any additional skills beyond common sense, being motivated and to be genuinely happy with who they are.

The problem here is very much the difference between what it is when you are required to live to work, instead of being able to simply work to live.

Politicians will continue coming up with diversionary schemes to help themselves, that just make more and more people feel disillusioned with a life where the system doesn’t legislate to allow anyone who so chooses, just to simply exist. They will continue doing so until they and The System that they are promoting, supporting and facilitating is called out for the life, community, country, planet, values and humanity destroying lie that it all is.

When the lowest wage for a working week can pay for all of the basics in life that any person genuinely needs, and the way that government and governance works is to promote and maintain that standard in all things and all it does, pretty much all of the societal problems that are plaguing life and dividing people will quickly cease to exist.

#TheBasicLivingStandard

No, this really isn’t an anti-technology blog. Quite the opposite. It is a blog focusing on the question of what drives technological advances and what purpose their implementation is really for.

Is all the technology that we already have, that we are being offered and that we are being promised: Making life easy? Making life reliable? Making life cheap?

The chances are that once you have stopped to think about it, your answer will be at least one of these, but probably all three.

But tech is easy, reliable and cheap for who exactly; is this really about the end result for you?

If we look subjectively at all the technological development there has ever been, right since the industrial age began, the general consensus would likely be that the rise of tech has only ever been good for us. That no part of it could possibly represent anything bad.

With the arrival of the internet and the smart technology age, as we dip our toes further and further towards a waterfall of AI, it really does seem that everything in life couldn’t be progressing faster or improving at an increasing or exponential pace.

But as the ease with which a fully-tech-orientated life seems to be taking shape, the upcoming generations are no longer fully familiar – if indeed familiar at all, with the process of traditional learning and remembering information and processes of thinking that will equip them in dealing with the future experiences that they cannot yet see. And why would they, when a search engine linked to their smart watch or phone, can instantly do it all for them instead?

This rate of so-called progress is coming at a massive price. It’s not just the dangerous lie that knowledge is the same thing as experience that is breaking the fabric of society and our humanity apart.

It is both the dependency and preference that we have for a tech-takeover of our lives in every sense that is supercharging the process of us all forgetting and proactively leaving behind the people, the individuals and the human beings that we really are.

We are told and conditioned to believe that technological advances have created an age where it is no longer possible for humanity to go backwards in any way. Why would we question this when every stream of accepted information or media narratives tell us that the flow and breadth of Information, pharmaceuticals, digital money and foods that even 100 years ago could never have been dreamed of, really do make us all, the unwitting participants in a game where we are actively being led to think and believe that we are all the new gods.

The technology that we already have is great, and it is mind boggling to visualise what is yet to come. But have you noticed how someone who we would probably only ever catch a glimpse of on social media or TV is always doing well out of it, whilst somewhere, someone and indeed many others are suffering as a result – usually in growing numbers and well outside of the media view.

Whether it’s the people who are no longer needed for the jobs that they were trained for relying on food banks or the billionaire tech moguls being able to declare that their latest inventions will mean nobody will really have to work again, technological development is being used as the tool of money-obsessed-age.

Technology and technological advances are not being used as the tools to improve and enhance life and humanity in the ways that each and every one of them genuinely could, in the right hands.

The uses for technology today and how we could be using them look very much the same. But man cannot have two masters.

For as long as tech development is driven by profit, the humanity and freedoms we so believe in are being sent back to the stone age at a like-for-like increasing pace.

The metaverse and the world of virtual reality may not have taken off in the ways that it has the potential to do so yet. But as we have seen with the drug-like hypnotic ability that computer and video games have on different people, we must surely be very close to turning point where people can step into a pretend world where they never again have to leave.

Again, the question must be asked, ‘What is this really all for?’ ‘Who really benefits from the general population losing touch with everything that matters?’

A growing population that has the resources and information available for everyone to think freely in a way that history has never allowed normal people to do so before is a problem for the people who abuse the power and responsibility they have gained at the top.

Like lambs to the slaughter, we willingly embrace the march of tech as it preaches the message that we are one step closer to a quality of life that we can’t even begin to imagine, each and every day.

We ignore the loss of jobs, the redundancy of our skills and talents. We are blinded to the dependency we are all building upon machines and processes that the wiping of history through the whims of the strangely all-powerful woke will quickly leave even the most educated of our younger generations unable to understand.

The nightmare story of life within a dystopia that we ridiculously still believe is restricted to the pages of great works such as 1984 is already unfolding around us all. But instead of rejecting it, we are embracing it like we are all the lead in some modern day parody of Oliver Twist, where we are falling over ourselves with the begging bowl and crying out for even more.

Tech would be even more beneficial and helpful to us all, if its overriding purpose were to improve life and its use were to be restricted by principles such as choosing restraint and consideration over its use, rather than the default setting today, which is always to do use it, not because it is morally right and healthy for everyone to do so, but simply because its profitable for someone, and they can.

It is both sad and very regrettable that technological advances have become yet another tool where those who already possess so much, are effectively unopposed by anything as they impose even more restrictions and choking controls on life and our ability to flourish, just so they can have even more of the power, money and influence that they will never use as they could and really should.

The harsh and uncomfortable truth is that none of those who are bought into and fuelling this specific kind of technical age and motivated this way will ever say, is that without care for humanity and what the basic tenets of life are and should always be about, the few can only become smaller in number.

Whilst the power, wealth, influence and control of the few continues to grow, all others will become the soulless slaves and bodies, drugged by a technologically engineered experience where they believe they have everything, but actually have nothing. All under the auspices of a repressive system harnessing tech for all the bad reasons we can imagine.

This is nothing less than a process of enslavement by tech. Not imposed on us voluntarily, but voluntarily imposed.

We are all playing a part in allowing this to happen. But the alternative needn’t look or feel like the rejection of tech in any way.

The freedom of us all hinges upon our readopting and repurposing tech for uses that are genuinely useful and important, so that it is used to benefit the many, rather than coming at cost to the many in ways that will only ever truly benefit the few.