In spite of our heady opinion of human invention our existence is still dependent on air, water, and earthly sustenance. The production of the conveniences of the industrial revolution depends on raw materials extracted from the earth. The majority of the population of the free world lives on the product of other people’s labor; they live in homes built by others and sit on furniture built by others; they drive cars built by others on highways built by others. Their food is produced, processed and packaged by others. They live in houses built with processed materials and eat processed foods. They view processed news and are entertained by processed stories and pictures. Their existence bears no more resemblance to the earth’s sole sustaining power than their job to the product their employer produces.
Artificial money, the product of labor, is used to purchase processed food. If they are not employed and are not able to earn money they are unable to buy food and their existence becomes similar to those stricken with famine. In our artificial society, control of the money is tantamount to control of the food supply and the food supply is the arbiter of life and death. Empty wallets and bare grocery shelves make the modern citizen worse off than the erstwhile Southern slave. The slave could find a bit of nourishment in the field but the artificial existence of the modern city dweller is more precarious.
As the meager wealth and savings of American citizens flow upward into the hands of the wealthy elite, power flows along with it. Trillions of dollars are being moved from the many to the few. Those who are receiving the wealth are already wealthy. They have plenty of money; what they seek is power over a larger and larger segment of a poorer and poorer world.
This process may force many of us back to the earth.
