Playing Musical Chairs

As Anand Giridharadas so aptly says in his book “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World":
    “You can inspire the rich to do more good, but never tell them to do less harm. You can inspire them to give back, but not to take less. You can inspire them to join the solution, but never accuse them of being part of the problem.”
    So true.

The crux of the matter is: The elite “...clings to a set of social arrangements that allow it to monopolize progress and then give symbolic scraps to the forsaken -many of whom wouldn't need the scraps if the society were working right.”

Give symbolic scraps to the forsaken... This cannot be emphasized enough.
-many of whom wouldn't need the scraps if the society were working right...
This cannot be emphasized enough either.

We really need some drastic changes. When I say drastic, I'm talking about radically different ways of thinking, not going on with the “already on the table, cold plates.” Those plates have long gone bad, they did not serve, and we live in a totally different world than when those solutions were served. I have some ground-breaking ideas that need implementation. Come up with yours. Let's start discussing them. Let's get the conversation going on a totally tangential route. It may seem erratic, but the route we are going on is the erratic one; it's time to change our approach, it's time to redefine our concepts regarding borders, nationality, money, profit, governments etc.

We need UBI for everyone. We need to establish free-market citizenships where governments woo for our loyalties and taxes instead of us being chained to them at birth, without consent.

Here are some quotes from “Winners Take All”:
“the connection between the extraordinary helping and the extraordinary hoarding, between the milking -and perhaps abetting- of an unjust status quo and the attempts by the milkers to repair a small part of it.”

“There are many ways to make sense of all this elite concern and predation. One is that the elites are doing the best they can. The world is what it is; the system is what it is; the forces of the age are bigger than anyone can resist; the most fortunate are helping. This view may allow that this helpfulness is just a drop in the bucket, but it is something. The slightly more critical view is that this elite-led change is well-meaning but inadequate. It treats symptoms, not root causes; it does not change the fundamentals of what ails us. According to this view, elites are shirking the duty of more meaningful reform.
    But there is still another, darker way of judging what goes on when elites put themselves in the vanguard of social change: that it not only fails to make things better, but also serves to keep things as they are. After all, it takes the edge off of some of the public's anger at being excluded from progress. It improves the image of the winners. With its private and voluntary half-measures, it crowds out public solutions that would solve problems for everyone, and do so with or without the elite's blessing.”
    “The only thing better than being a fox is being a fox asked to watch over hens.”
    Nice one!

My view is the more critical view, the place I've underlined. Even though the darker way of judging also has a substantial truth to it. The moral outrage is shushed and diverted and there can be no change without moral outrage. Because for change to happen, there has to be pressure. Where is the pressure going to come from if there is no outrage at the unjust status-quo?

Change must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” Frederick Douglas

The ironical part which no one notices is expressed by Kirkus Reviews: "Give a hungry man a fish, and you get to pat yourself on the back—and take a tax deduction."
     Yeah, that's what happens!

In Forbes, Jay Coen Gilbert comments:
    “Giridharadas speaks truth to power, calling elites to account for giving so much lip service to 'changing the world,' while mostly upholding an unacceptable status quo."
    Yes, the unacceptable status quo. Unfortunately, it's not only the elites who uphold it, it's a big part of the middle-class too. Nobody wants to give up their privileges. People are scared to lose their established status. They want their entitlements.

We're all playing a game of musical chairs. Who gets the chair?
    The ones who already have a chair do not want to give up their chairs for even a short time to anybody who might be in need. It's logical in a way. They know they might never be getting their chairs back ever again. In fact, the probability of their not getting their chair back is almost 100 %. So we stick to our chairs and the status-quo.
    Until somebody strong enough comes along to throw us off. Sometimes it happens, but not too often. The reason?
    1- People are blinded by the status-quo. After all, they are like kittens who grew up with goggles as in the Blackmore experiment . Even the discriminated against are not aware most of the time.
    2- Even when they are, “It is what it is” is a typical acceptance.
    3- It's so difficult to break inertia.

So how do we change this game? The Musical Chairs Game... We can even keep playing it, but we need to establish a rule that forbids some people occupying million chairs when so many are without a seat. Plus, absolutely no stealing other people's chairs. (Which is actually what big global corporations and politicians do all the time.) Those who do, will be severely punished.

More important than that, we should change the song. Or change the game altogether. Let's start the game of long spoons. Those who are not altruists cannot survive. Solution for the overpopulation problem too. One stone, two birds.

Important first rule! Nobody is getting up from their chair in our world, but we are still playing this game

Chairjacking is pretty common in our world. Reserving more than one chair for yourself is too.

That's what we all want at the end of the day...

Share it!