I was cleaning out an old drawer while revamping the office/library space, and came across a bunch of oldish sticky notes with quasi-random thoughts. Where to put such things? Well, now that I have a blog, why not here?
1.The middle classes' aspirations of wealth will inevitably lead to the demise of the middle class. How? Take a look at the blotting of the landscape by Wal-Marts and their clones. Their primary customer are the middle class. But the Wal-Marts are an economic cancer to the middle class labour market, because its success depends largely on the increasing the impoverishment of labour. So, while the middle class aspires to the simulacrum of wealth by being schlock, they are contributing to their own demise. (I would love to see some statistics to show how the rise of Wal-Mart-nationhood corresponds with the shrinking of the middle class.)
I've always liked this analogy, because in of itself cancer is perfectly healthy, even as (or more precisely because) it is killing its host. The healthier is Wal-Mart's bottom line, the unhealthier it is for the middle class.
2. It is the responsibility of the truly wealthy to keep the middle class healthy if they want to continue to thrive. Why? Because a stable middle class maintains a healthy society. Unfortunately, greed is more stupefying than sex. The truly wealthy become wealthier with the success of Wal-Martizing a nation, for example, because they see their costs of labour being reduced. Furthermore, being wealthy is seen to be healthy, so the wealthy do not appreciate what history repeatedly tells us — the pooling of wealth, whether it is in the coffers of an aristocracy, the vestments of a priesthood, or in the portfolios of a business class — causes societies to fail, often with bloodletting and a great deal of exuberant melodramas.
3. From anonymous: when you find yourself in a deep hole, stop digging.
4. Malicious numbers and the fallacy of accountancy's social supremacy.
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