This article is an excerpt from a book written by me about twenty years ago called "Pragmatic Spirituality for a Progressive and Humane Society." A book (pages 250 in English) to help third world countries to put together a politico-cultural manifesto for progressive evolution.
A CULTURE THAT PROMOTES ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL EQUITIES
Concerns of Pragmatic Spirituality are not simply limited to the well-being of an individual, but also for the well-being of one’s community and society. Therefore, embracing Pragmatic Spirituality also implies working for the well-being of all, examining the political and governmental systems, helping to effect changes for the better. Whether a political system calls itself communism, egalitarianism, or democracy, it is an abject failure if it does not provide for the basic needs and well-being of a society and fails to continue to evolve positively, especially when the rich and powerful are getting richer and more powerful, and the poor are getting more powerless and pitiful. Honor within such a system is an empty and meaningless word. If the working people have to put up with such economic, social, and political injustices, it may be because they simply do not know how to make the requisite unified resolution to rid themselves of a corrupt or an incompetent government, or because they are ignorant of how they may organize, implement, and institute a much more caring, capable, and honest form of government, or they have a very weak sense of spirituality and of the intellect, or all of the above. The caliber and integrity of a leadership alternative to those in power will usually be of a lower standard if there is no meaningful improvement of that society's culture lacking a pragmatic and progressive national ideology.
People need to ask themselves the hard question of whether, without gaining the appropriate SAMADHI, they will truly be capable of getting a better form of government. In addition to knowing about various forms of ideology based political and governmental systems, they also need to know what pragmatic socioeconomic programs are immediately doable, and to direct the government down the straight and narrow unerringly to effect progress. This chapter is basically about how a society may realistically enforce distribution of its wealth among all its socioeconomic classes, without becoming like the proverbial communist who preaches taking away from the rich and giving to the poor, or like the proverbial capitalist who preaches hoarding all the wealth for the rich and powerful, leaving only trickle down crumbs for the rest.
For those unfamiliar with the term “egalitarian,” it broadly means having a good balance between equality and freedom for the brotherhood (fraternity). This is a somewhat abstract idea, but the bottom line is that there is a bond, or at least an implied contract, between the so called elites who can be earning significantly more than the workers, and the workers of a society. The workers are to cooperate fully with those who can lead and generate prosperity, and in return, the basic needs of the working people are to be adequately and equitably cared for, with no undue exploitation, or duress. They must have adequate food, clothing, housing, medical services, educational services, opportunities for reasonable savings from their wages, elimination of non-meaningful stress, and some might even add, the right to pursue happiness, and so on. They must be able to see that progress and modernization of the society are taking place, and that their children's generation of better educated workers will have a better life than themselves. Also, they should not be a burden to their children in their old age. In an egalitarian society, the freedom to form peaceful political action groups and the freedom to meet, debate, and discuss how a society's wealth may be fairly distributed are absolutely essential. The society has the right to demand an effective and accountable government so that they are able to sense whether or not they are evolving higher with each new generation.
Many political systems are somewhat broad and abstract in nature. However good their policies may sound, in many societies, when given the key to the vault full of the taxpayers' money, many politicians become either fuzzy-headed or highly corruptible. The politicians must be made accountable, meaning that they go to prison if found guilty of mismanaging or misappropriating the taxpayers' money. On the other hand, if they perform their duties well and honestly, special legitimate arrangements may be established for appropriately rewarding them.
In this chapter, we shall discuss the equity programs needed to help establish meaningful social and economic equity within a society, and effectively cut out the rhetoric of political promises that in many cases are unlikely to be honored.
In the United States of America, most people heard about equity for the first and only time when buying a family home. Usually, the new buyer has to initially come up with about a ten percent down payment, and a bank pays for and owns (holds the property ownership title paper) the remaining percentage of the house investment. The buyer is thus only a part owner and has to make monthly payments for several years until the house and the loan interest are fully paid off to the loaning bank, and in accordance with the terms of the loan contract. Failure of payments means the bank forecloses and takes away the property, imposing upon the buyer the associated financial penalties involved. During the years of payments, the percentage of the buyer’s ownership increases, and—assuming that the market value of the property also increases during that time—there results an increase in equity. Sometimes, for example during an economic downturn, the homeowner can lose on his investment if he resells it during unfavorable housing market times. This situation is regarded as a decrease in equity. In a society where inflation can be really bad, the purchase contract term regarding the interest rate on the outstanding loan, rather than being fixed, may be floated at the mercy of the prevailing value of the local currency compared to harder foreign currencies. In countries south of the USA border, when massive inflation and devaluation of the local currency happen, the buyers' monthly house payment can easily be three times that of the initial amounts, thereby resulting in failure of payment by many buyers and ending with foreclosures. Massive devaluation of currency for whatsoever reason usually (there are exceptions) corresponds to effective negative economic equity for the entire society. In the above example, a successful investment program is that which results in positive equity. Essentially, an equity growth program means pay-asyou-utilize for eventual full ownership. Equity programs may also be used for collective ownership. There are like many investment, risks, but if the programs are well thought out and managed many benefits may result with the minimum of risk.
From the above somewhat narrow example regarding equity, we may begin to generalize the concepts associated with equity and equity programs. The concept of accruing equity need not be narrowly limited to the buying of family homes like in the USA. The average person should be able to accrue socioeconomic and political equity predicated upon well thought out equity programs. That is, to provide him with the ability to buy into socioeconomic equity investment programs, in which some kind of ownership such as housing, higher advanced education opportunities, cooperative retail marketing, medical coverage, or portable pension programs, can be joined with payment programs that are well protected economically and politically within a state. Countries like Sweden, with a long social democratic political tradition, and Singapore, with strong free market economic policies, have very good equity programs with significant monetary matching contributions made by the state, via the redistribution of funds from taxes. Regardless of whether a country leans politically toward the right or left, or is a single- or multi-party system, these equity programs can be instituted and guaranteed by governments (with integrity) that have the socio-political Will to do so, assuming that they are supported by a people with the political Will to put such a government in power, and holding them to their commitments. The people should not tolerate a government that gives excuses of not being able to establish meaningful equity programs, nor should those not favoring equity programs or lacking socio-political Will be allowed to govern beyond their current terms in office. The reason why the above statement is made is because there are so-called democratic countries, very rich and powerful, and yet whose self-serving politicians will rob or leech the people of the state sponsored saving programs and will cause eventual bankruptcy of such programs.
Equity programs need to be well protected economically and politically within a state. The economic equity of a nation depends on factors such as inflation, productivity, income distribution indices, etc. For example, bad inflation usually means bad overall economic equity; common people may be paid in local currency with downward shifting real values, whereas those in positions of powers have the opportunities to accrue and to horde money in harder foreign currencies like EU dollars, yens or even gold. Underemployment is another factor that is a strong indication of negative economic equity. It often means there is an absence of a pragmatic economic policy to generate meaningful job programs within both the public and private sectors. Without steady jobs for the workers, equity programs become less meaningful. Negative economic equity threatens job security and may indicate a lack of meaningful representation for the workers’ interests by those whose job it is to effect laws and regulations to protect them. An economically vulnerable person has no effective legal or political rights, even if the Constitution of that state broadly proclaims that he theoretically does.
Political equity may depend to a large extent on the manner in which an existing party political system is set up. Some countries effectively have only a two-party political system, and they theoretically have greater political equity than one- or zero-party (such as military dictatorships) political systems. In reality, that is not much better, unless there is also effective separation of powers in terms of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches and the bureaucracies, and the existence of effective extra political parties. Extra political parties are politically influential action groups who do not themselves seek to be politically elected, but exert influence over those who aspire to do so. Examples of such entities are special interest groups, various think tanks, media, etc., that are to monitor and safeguard the rights of women, minorities, and so on.
Often, two-party political systems are leery of the multi-party political system possibility and tacitly agree between themselves not to contest on several important issues that could lead to the cessation of a two-party system. For them, it is most important to keep political power solely within the two parties. They usually offer very similar overall policies that are somewhat vague, like tax cuts for the wealthy, or spending (not equity) programs for the poor. They endeavor to retain as much political leverage as possible over the people and to keep as much pork barrel money as they can for such things can significantly supplement their income. Normally, equity programs are never mentioned whatsoever, and tacitly kept out of the political issues by both parties. The society usually is to be leached by lobbyists and cronies (hanger-on) who attached themselves to the parties.
Some countries, like Germany and Sweden, have multi-party political systems, and—in theory and to a certain extent in practice—offer the most regarding political equity. A lot depends on how well the implementation of the systems works in the real world. We will not go into the details regarding the theories of various political and related governmental systems here, but will be concerned with how to measure a government’s performance in the real world. One set of measures has to do with the successful implementation of equity programs and the systematic and successful accumulation or improvement of social justice, economic and political equity of a nation. Equity saving programs ideally should be saving and investment programs where reasonable profiteering is allowed but excessive exploitation prohibited, and genuinely protected by the state. Governments of progressive and humane societies are obligated to be guarantors for the fairness and viability of those programs. It is very important that the people have the right to vote a government out of office if it fails in its equity program obligations, or fails to increase the general equity of a nation. Equity programs help to increase the average asset for the people, and help to preserve their capital. To be robust, a nation needs to have a strong middle class, and equity programs help greatly in that direction.
Political and economic equities should be measured in real-world terms and not in theoretical terms. For example, Singapore in theory has a multi-party political system, but it is effectively a single party political system. However, it has an excellent track record in regard to socioeconomic improvements and higher education opportunities programs for its citizens. It has adequately sound economic policies and legislative procedures to globally attract modern banking and commerce. It is considered to have the best medical facilities in Southeast Asia. Public transportation, public housing programs, medical care programs, and portable pension plan programs are among the best in the region. Everybody knows that the People's Political Party, which has been in power in Singapore for decades, is very capitalistic, and no one can ever accuse them of being bleeding heart liberals. Yet it treats the people more equitably than many other nations with claims of greater democracy, or socialistic policies. Treating people equitably is the correct thing to do, and can be done as long as a government has a sociopolitical Will, regardless of whether it is capitalistic, socialistic, democratic, dynastic or dictatorial. The bottom line is that bad, uncaring governments treat their people unfairly, and good, caring governments treat their people fairly. So, although Singapore is not the best in terms of political equity—at least on paper—because its people lack the meaningful choice to vote in or out the head executive of the state every few election years, it nevertheless is strong in meaningful aspects of social and economic equities. Hopefully, the next generation of its citizens will, on the average, be better educated and better positioned than their parents to affect the positive sense of evolution of the political processes.
In contrast to Singapore, there are economically more powerful societies in which the average gross income may be generally higher, but that have few or no meaningful equity programs. The average person in those societies end up paying heavily for housing, insurance, transportation, medical coverage, higher education, and retirement plans. The average person living there is often accused of not being in the habit of saving, but the reality is that he is left with very little to save. In addition, there is a real risk of the pension savings plan (even those managed by the government) going belly-up before pay-back time or being quite worthless by the time of retirement due to inflation; or the politicians and so called union leaders dipping into such funds to supplement their incomes; or a worker may be fired from a job just before retirement and effectively losing his pension. Also, there is a greater possibility of having little or no effective medical coverage upon reaching old age. City hall and the business communities closely attached to it are provided with many racketeering opportunities to exploit the people. Even when an average citizen is willing to work for lower wages that will make him competitive with workers of foreign lands, the manner in which his society is set up may make him unable to afford to show up for work at the projected lowered competitive wages. The overall longer term effective income of people in those so called advanced societies can thus be significantly less, yet at the same time those people have a much more stressful lifestyle when compared to the Singaporeans.
We can do a SAMADHI check (like a reality check) of a nation. A nation cannot on the aggregate evolve higher unless it is also gaining greater overall SAMADHI in some manner. We know that in advanced societies, great progress is being made regularly in the field of science and technology, and in that sense the societies are indirectly gaining equities. Yet, in some of those nations, socioeconomic class stratification is getting severer due to less than caring governmental, community, and family systems. Knowledgeable people are not fooled by their government’s rhetorical claims for having the best democratic or free market or supply side economic policies, while the middle class gets weaker and weaker. We can do a SAMADHI check of the law makers, of the business leaders, and of those having the here-andnow powers, to determine whether they are losing the kind of SAMADHI that truly cares about their society, whether they are personally getting much wealthier than they should, and whether, as a result, the middle class is getting much weaker and the rest of the people generally are socio-economically sliding downwards.
As a nation's equity ebbs, a larger and larger percentage of the population becomes more and more insecure and disgruntled, and the new laws get more and more restrictive or confusing. But somehow, those same laws serve well the few in power and in the upper strata. That is why it is very important that essential and basic equity programs are part of the society and national cultures.
Politicians can be effective as middlemen between the upper strata and the working masses only if the elites and the workers are sincere in abiding by and upholding the principles of egalitarianism, and are able to keep the politicians honest. Only then can sincere negotiations for equitable distribution of wealth be realized. The upper strata people must refrain from contriving to avoid paying concomitantly larger taxes for their greater incomes, and accept an agreed-upon target income distribution index to realize an equitable income level for the workers. In return, the workers must refrain from demanding economically unsound, uncompetitive, and unrealistic entitlement programs.
A society's economic policy must be based upon realistic status of the production possibility curve based upon natural and human resources. Flawed economic ideas such as expecting the productivity indices to be increasing forever, year after year, must be avoided. Otherwise, sooner than later, a society will suffer from economic downsizing with bad consequences. Whenever a society makes economic gains, a certain portion must be invested back into the society for further progress and modernization, and for systematically and constantly improving the production possibility curve, especially those factors that relate to human resources. However, there are situations where major foreign powers are involved in deliberately destroying a country’s economy for not acknowledging them as the political overlords. In such a situation, a straightforward economic policy models no longer is advisable.
The predilections to minimize social, economic, and political injustices, and the promotion of fair-mindedness within a society, are the essential foundations for a humane progressive society. That in turn requires the culture of a society to promote functional education and advanced higher education, to promote a business and trading culture, to promote a just legal and political system, and to promote the greatest development opportunities and possibilities for individuals. This is quite different from the somewhat smug concept in which people of a society are considered so affluent that they are no longer required to do their share of work and contributes to society. Somehow, as such sentiments go, somebody else will do all the uninteresting tedious or dirty work for them. Meanwhile, their education is supposedly to help them happily occupy their leisure time and become adept at consuming the best available products that the rest of the world would be clamoring to offer them. In stark contrast, the culture that we are interested in demands that the people at least work adequately to the best of their talents and capabilities and in return they are rewarded according to the significance of their contributions. The organizations within which the people have to work will also cultivate a culture conducive to the interest of all those constructively applying themselves.
For a society with greater equities, the money the average citizen earns doing the same work for the same number of hours has more net value and permanence than those living in societies with lesser social, political, and economic equities do. For example, people in the society of today’s Germany can maintain high living standards, yet many workers may work not much more than four days a week.
A society with SAMADHI will never treat its own people in any shabby way. With the right kind of leadership and followership, a nation can start to build up its social, economic, and political equities in a fairly short time, with remarkable results within the span of a generation. Only in an enlightened society can people stand tall and have equal rights, where the Workers are "Kings," and the “Kings,” Workers.☼