A lot of people around the world are becoming increasingly socialist. When you look around at the state of things, it’s pretty hard to blame them. Things are getting really tough for everyone. Even those in the top 1% of income earners are feeling the pinch. If you’re young it can be hard to be happy as an average person. Life is a grind, and it feels like everyone around you is getting farther than you. But I don’t think it’s wise to use this as an excuse to fall into socialism or redistributionism. As a matter of fact, I think the underclass needs to remain poor. I think this is an unfortunate fact, as I am young and poor by global standards. But it’s a fact, nonetheless. The global underclass is extremely unproductive. They should be shocked into productivity. If they can’t, we need to innovate in order to reach a point at which they can function in society.
The underclass consumes
It’s unfortunate to write an article that veers in the direction of calling people useless eaters, but here we are. The fact of the matter is those who are in the underclass need to consume. Everyone needs to consume. The problem with the underclass is that its members are often disabled, or know a bit less than the average person, or are supporting multiple people. So, the rate of consumption is high, mainly as a result of the amount of idle time members of the underclass have. This is a hard problem to solve. A lot of these people either can’t work or are in environments that make it difficult for their efforts to be fruitful. Oftentimes the only way to make things better overall is to allow them to suffer. This is my cold and dispassionate analysis. I don’t support human suffering. We’re all one step away from joining the underclass.
The underclass doesn’t produce
This is the biggest problem we have across of the world. A lot of the people at the bottom of society don’t produce. They have or create a lot of problems, but for some reason they’re out of the workforce. If they are in the workforce, they work jobs that are fairly low skill. The fact that these people don’t produce is pretty bad in a capitalistic world. It means that from a GDP perspective, they’re literally dead weight. They don’t advance our society in any way. It’s harsh, but it’s true.
Taxes compound
I realized this when I was considering which country I should live in. Some places incentivize you to be a digital nomad. They don’t charge you taxes if you move your online business there. This makes a huge difference for digital nomads and entrepreneurs. Less work = bigger gains. This means you can become far wealthier, far faster in some jurisdictions than in others. If you have a large tax base to support your underclass and you milk it, you hamper the progress of highly productive people.
Most of the productivity is with the top 1%
This is the reality of pretty much every representative work environment. Unless you’re at Harvard University, you’re going to find that productivity increases steeply when you reach the upper percentiles of human performance. The top 10% of people probably create about 60% of the world’s economic value nowadays. The top 1% probably create about 10% of all the global value. When it comes to who holds how much wealth, forget about it. If you don’t make the underclass work, you’re cutting your productive class off at the knees. This means that the world will likely favor the countries that keep their underclass relatively poor, like the USA.
The world is competitive
Wealth is not evenly distributed, because technology hasn’t equalized the situation for us totally. This means that generally speaking, things are incredibly competitive. Getting a job is competitive, starting a business is competitive, and so is implementing new technology. When it comes to competition between countries, things get really intense. People can’t really afford to slack off in today’s world. There’s far too much change afoot, and everybody wants to work a cushy office job. If you want to succeed, you’re going to have to work really, really hard. This applies at the national level too. Resources are scarce, and human population is growing. Generally speaking, we’re all in competition. Failing to maximize productivity can have devasting effects.
Bigger welfare state = more debt
This is the harsh reality of the world right now. The more we spend on a welfare state, the more wealth we accrue. The welfare state is a total money drain, and it incentivizes poor decision makers to to have children and reproduce. Keeping the underclass poor reduces the amount of debt your country takes on, and the taxpayers spend less money servicing interest payments. Helping the underclass has the opposite effect. You burden the average person.
The underclass isn’t the working poor
The working poor often live hard lives, but they aren’t members of the underclass. The working poor have families. They are able to maintain routines. They contribute to society. Being a member of the working poor simply means you make an average or below average income. In today’s world, a below average income means you’re a member of the lower-earning class, as most people (who don’t own their own business) are able to earn an average wage.
The wealthiest countries support their underclass while maintaining low debt to GDP ratios
This is great. It means we know it’s possible. Countries like Norway and Sweden have minimal poverty, and people are generally extremely well taken care of by the government, provided they make an effort. Unfortunately, a lot of the world hasn’t caught up. The average country has triple the debt and less than one fifth the output of places like Norway and Sweden. A functioning welfare is pretty much out of the question, but governments don’t want to be honest. So, growth is slow and people suffer. Which brings me to my next point.
Cutting debt matters more
The lower your debt is, the more you’re able to grow as a country. If your country isn’t focused on cutting debt, it’s highly likely that you and the rest of its people are going to fall behind in the global world order. Japan is a great example of this. It used to be one of the more powerful countries in the world. Now it’s just a normal place. You have to work your butt off to have a Western-style life now. The Japanese work long hours and were propped up by the United States. Their crushing debt is what did them in. The welfare state is both dysgenic and makes it hard to stay ahead. Japan didn’t even have a big one, but their refusal to bring in immigrants made life a lot harder.
Over the coming years, it’s important to avoid falling into the global underclass. Where you live has a massive impact on whether you end up in the global underclass. If you choose the wrong location and don’t work hard, you’re going to suffer. If you go to the right place, you can win. The fact of the matter is that the world is changing a lot. Places that once were easy to live in are becoming unbearable. Others are rapidly improving. I personally would look for a country that keeps debt low and embraces productivity. I think it can be a bit poorer than average, as long as debt stays low. This might be an unpopular opinion. I know a lot of people don’t believe in working harder than others, but the way the world is right now, I think we should all be aiming to produce as much as possible. Moving to low-debt, highly conservative areas is ideal. This way, you get swept up in the Rising Current as an able-bodied human being.
Thanks for paying attention.
