Guy Baker is bitterly critical of democracy and capitalism but, like so many critics, he offers no alternatives to these three evils. From experience he has learned that “too much money brings bad luck”. And he feels sorry for people “who have too much money because it creates a ‘prison’ for them”.
What is too much money? Money, like all capital assets, needs managing. They become a burden and “too much” when people lack the ability to manage them. Then they are usually lost.
But it is Baker’s concluding gambit that spells out the self-contradiction, with his advice to young people to “shoot for average incomes and demand a good economy”. In other words, settle for mediocrity, but don’t accept a mediocre economy. How can that work unless some people rise above mediocrity to create a “good economy”?
Democracy came about when the divine right of kings met its demise, but capitalism is as old as mankind and in fact as old as nature itself. Life is a constant conflict, and fighting for territory and food is capitalism. It’s amassing wealth and gaining power and control. Even insects operate this way, and just about every animal species including human beings.
Democracy affords people their freedom to achieve their potential. That’s exactly the same right nature grants all animals, even plant life. There are winners and losers based on ability and, above all, on individual judgement. A simple study of the natural world illustrates this.
The reason Marxism failed is because it was an academic notion that failed to factor in human nature. Human nature is nature. Within nature there is no such thing as mediocrity. It is a constant conflict for achievement.
As Oscar Wilde said, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
JC Wilcox