Dawn of the Unthinkable Read Online Free PDF Page B

way off
welfare, or we’ll throw them off! He wondered how the people
that made these laws could live with themselves while things like
the social security remained sacred cows—untouchable. He knew once
again, it came down to money that the people who were affected the
most by Social Security had money, and voted, which caused their
benefits to remain the same (and usually increase every year). But
were poor people’s opinions as to how they should be treated any
less important because they were poor? They shouldn’t be, but there
was no doubt that they were.
    He thought for a while as to what to write
for the motivation segment, then began writing.
    Motivation
    No matter how much society
attempts to solve its problems, it will always be thwarted by
money. While I enjoy a decent standard of living, there appears to
be no guaranteeing my children a chance to enjoy a reasonable
lifestyle despite my hard work to put them through college. When a
parent senses that his best efforts are not going to result in a
reasonably happy lifestyle for his child, he becomes motivated to
try something to improve the situation.
    On a more global scale, it
is depressing to read the newspaper and watch television news
programs that endlessly detail the horrors that modern society can
inflict on itself. Many wish that they could do something to help,
but in today’s world, the only way to solve a problem is to devote
large amounts of funds to that problem. Though I do not have large
sums of money at my disposal, this is an attempt to begin thinking
about an idea that never seems to even be considered—let all of society determine
in a cooperative manner how finite resources are
allocated.
    Now that the motivation was out of the way
and he had the reader hooked emotionally, he needed to get to the
theory part of it. . In order for the idea to work, society would
have to refocus their production with the goal of first satisfying
the basic needs of everyone, and leaving their wants for anything
that was left. The problem with capitalism, he realized, was that
by having money and representatives in government that took
contributions from corporations, it was skewed toward rewarding the
wealthy. He thought, What if I combined several of these ideas,
like no money and socialism? For it to really work, both money
and a representative Congress would have to be eliminated. That
would be a major mind-set change as, right now, the powerful people
that controlled the majority of the assets steered the production
of goods and services toward their own excessive wants. This left a
disproportionate amount of the population unable to fulfil their
basic needs. Moreover, any time it appeared that the underclass was
making strides toward improving their lot in life, the rich made
changes to the system that would head them off with some type of
insurmountable obstacle. So , he thought, the current
system continued to exist indefinitely, and no well-meaning
president, congress, or other public figure had ever been able to
change it. Perhaps after 200 years of little success it was time
for something new.
    He started to write. His first sentence
should resemble something like the Declaration of Independence, the
Constitution, or any other famous document he could remember
(though that was about it…no, wait, he also remembered some of the
Gettysburg Address). They all had starting sentences that people
remembered; he would like his to do the same. It needed a good
title, too. He thought back to what words had come to him before
and decided on, “A Proposal to Reorder Society.” This was arrogant
sounding, but it was probably catchy enough to get people to try
the first paragraph. Now back to the first sentence. He wrote, “A
lasting society should eliminate hunger, crime, homelessness and
need. A just society should provide food, clothing, and shelter to
all it’s people for free, without cash, credit or debt. A
transcendent society should do this because it