Evolution to an Altruistic Society

I am interested in an evolution of human societies to a place where people widely uphold the idea that it is not okay for people to hurt each other. I think it's remarkably phenomenal that we live in a society that is so far from, and in many ways the exact opposite of, the simple idea that it is wrong for people to do harm to one another. The modern economy is based in hurtful, divisive, derisive, destructive, exploitative and violent activities.

So I think the following passage, which comes to us from over 115 years ago, is striking in its relevance to the current situation of our modern day economy. People talk about progress. But we need a wake-up call, because in some very real ways, the economy is actually degenerating - and becoming more exploitative. When all is told, in many ways that are very real, the economy is getting worse and worse for common people, and for everyone—everywhere.

I believe that everyone deserves to be treated well. How about you? Do you agree? If you do, then I ask: where do we start changing this abusive and destructive socio-economic political system?

Mary Elizabeth Lease, "Wall Street Owns the Country" (Circa 1890)
from A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove

"This is a nation of inconsistencies. The Puritans fleeing from oppression became oppressors. We fought England for our liberty and put chains on four million of blacks. We wiped out slavery and our tariff laws and national banks began a system of white wage slavery worse than the first. Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. The West and South and bound and prostrate before the manufacturing East. Money rules, and our Vice-President [Levi Parsons Morton] is a London banker. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us. We were told two years ago to go to work and raise a big crop, that was all we needed. We went to work and plowed and planted; the rains fell, the sun shone, nature smiled, and we raised the big crop that they told us to; and what came of it? Eight-cent corn, ten-cent oats, two-cent beef and no price at all for butter and eggs—that's what came of it. The the politicians said we suffered from over-production. Over-production, when 10,000 little children, so statistics tell us, starve to death every year in the United States, and over 100,000 shop-girls in New York are forced to sell their virtue for the bread their niggardly wages deny them.... We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the Government. We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out.... We will stand by our homes and stay by our fireside by force if necessary, and we will ot pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the Government pays its debts to us. The people are at bay, [so] let the bloodhounds of money who dogged us thus far beware."

more information: Mary Elizabeth Lease, "Wall Street Owns the Country" (Circa 1890)

In other news, Fort Lewis Army Base and McChord Air Force Base have been merged into a join operations center. "Lewis-McChord: A giant military marriage"