Whenever I speak to somebody about the Equal Money System, the Living Income Guarantee or constructing a far more sane world where everyone has their needs met, I usually receive from the person I'm speaking a pair of raised eyebrows, a smirk or a facial expression that suggests something the recall of an unpleasant or contemptible memory. Then invariably comes the typical response:
"Well, that sounds nice, but people are too selfish. You can't undo millennia of an accumulated human nature that has at its core the survival of the fittest!"
While I concur that the current condition of human behavior prevents the possibility of granting a dignified life to everybody, we tend to forget (conveniently) that human behavior does not develop in a vacuum. It is taught and transmitted through agents of socialization (parents, education systems, peers, etc.) and is not some undeviating native default psychological state that people are born with. The real flaw with systems of thought like libertarianism or "freedom" or "liberty" is that people tend to believe the ideas they hold in their heads are real when ideas are merely illusions until they become manifested into reality through physical action.
"No, no, no, no, no, mo, no. Let people be responsible for their own actions!"
An assertion of this nature can only be made by someone who is so satisfied with their current life situation, that they cannot consider any possibility of people having little no options in their life. It is the justification for the abuse, inequality and the enslavement to systems to continue. It is impossible, currently, for some starving child in a Darfur refugee camp to become a Nobel Prize winning physicist. That child was born without any options to be responsible for - other than to instinctively cling onto life as long as possible. Do people really believe that everyone gets a fair shot at life? Of course they don't. So why are we pretending that equal shot exists for everyone? And why is it so hard for people who see all the inequality and inhumanity to come together and help provide a solution that is best for everyone? It's like we walk around with virtual fish bowls on our heads, and we view and judge the world through the prism of this bowl that is filled with a mental reality that has been transmitted to us and assured is as real as that the physical reality we exist in. We are not even aware of the massive disconnect between our reality and the thoughts, opinions and beliefs about that reality.
Maybe, just maybe this disconnect between reality and our thoughts about "freedom" (for instance) has been caused by the social programming of the citizenry into accepting without question the lies and distractions of the technological bread and circuses in exchange for authoritarian creep in our government systems and precipitous claw back of civil liberties. And although we have been programmed into living as isolationists within our homes, we also could stand having our sense of brotherhood reawakened as well. If we can conceive a Heaven on Earth, it is not impossible.
