Viet-Justice

The concept of a clan is something that many people have a hard time dealing with. Brother Grimm seems to think that the concept of society is exactly the same as a clan except on a larger scale. How can you shoot down the concept of subsidized health care while applying a shared agreement with a clan? All clans are in competition with each other for resources or in the case of the modern world, jobs which provide money which provide resources. Supporting all of society reduces the comparative advantage that you and your family have in competing for those resources. Since resources are limited it would be self defeating to follow such a course of action. If you were around in the 1990’s when the Internet boom hit you will remember that HTML “programmers” were making $300/hr easily because there were too few of them around to meet demand. As more people learned how to “program” in HTML and tools such as Front Page and Dreamweaver came along the value of this occupation dropped. The same is true with traditional occupations such as doctor or lawyer. The difficulty of obtaining the education and experience keeps the market rate high; however, if the survivability of others is enhanced it will drive down the value of all occupations due to dilution. Choosing to join together as a family unit is something you are not forced into, but it is to your advantage. Being forced into a societal family unit is not a choice and it does not benefit you directly. This is the difference between cooperation within small groups and a whole society. By keeping competition for resources at the forefront those who are the “have nots” will be enhanced by competing for those resources. We have seen this with countless categories of immigrants. Irish and Italians no longer wanted to work in factories so they made the decisions that lead to getting out of those jobs. Asians work in nail salons and dry cleaners until they earn enough money to go to college or send their kids to college. Latinos move from agriculture to prominent places in society in a very short amount of time. This is what white and black people have forgotten. Both races have a sense of entitlement and believe that pulling yourself up the ladder is not that important. I’ve known many white people who are angry at outsourcing jobs to India or Mexicans who lower the market price of lawn work. They ask, why can’t I make a decent living as a programmer or why can’t I charge $60/hr to cut grass and make a decent living? Well this is what happens when you have too many people on the planet. According to the UN there are over 200 million people that are unemployed across the globe. That says that the planet has 200 million people too many, just for starters.

This leads us to my second point. Society means global, not just the United States. To spread the wealth around means hugging trees and singing kumbaya with the whole human race. Does Al-Qaeda deserve the same consideration your clan does? In a black and white world the answer is no. Even in a world with infinite shades of grey the answer is still no. Both the USSR and the EU have dabbled in socialism with less than stellar results. Presently the United States through capitalism has shown the greatest level of success for its people. You can’t get off the boat in France and become a millionaire in less than 20 years through hard work. Keep in mind that millions aren’t a lot in a world where a starter condo in the city will cost you more than half a million in most markets. China and Vietnam are communist on paper, but there has always been a system of payoffs and tipping to assure proper service. Since these are the two largest and most powerful Asian economies it stands to reason that the quality of life is coming up through capitalism modeled after the United States. The key objective is to put yourself in a position to better your situation, rather than thinking you can ride through life cutting grass for a living. Asians have long understood that you need to first go after what will enable you to improve your life, then pursue what you really like later on. I would also like to point out that the concept of clan transcends national boundaries. It’s a global economy and Americans will be working everywhere, therefore those that work abroad will need all their resources rather than having them redistributed to people who don’t live in the same country where they are working. When working in Dubai should we spread the wealth around to them as well as Americans? When enlarging wealth redistribution on a global scale it makes even less sense than doing it in one country. It also lends opportunity to keep those excess 200 million people alive who will be competing with your children for resources. Some liberals may think that socialism will create a safer world for the children, but instead it will lead to a world where eventual poverty will arise because there are more people in the world than there is food. This may take many years to reach this point, but it will happen. This is why the family unit must be strengthened to weather economic and environmental forces at work. Some people will die from disease, crime, war, drunk driving, etc. but that is a fact of life. Not everyone wins the lottery, and when the grand prize is getting struck by lightning you should be hoping that you not in that 576000:1 odds of winning range. The objective everyone should be seeking is to make sure that other people are the ones to fall while your entire extended family can weather the storm. You can’t fix everything and fixing people you don’t know personally can’t be a factor when you have family and friends to worry about. Just remember when bad things happen to other people it’s to your benefit, especially when you take steps to reduce the risk of those things affecting your clan.