Imagine a gladiatorial contest between two sides, each armed with just one knife. The rules are simple. The fighting lasts for 30 minutes at most after which all contestants are killed if there’s no winner. One side wins by beheading any member of the other team. A gruesome spectacle, but imagine if one side had 50 members and the other just one. Which side do you think would win?
Obviously the 50. The single contestant might take some of the 50 with them, but it would all be over within a couple of minutes. The sheer weight of numbers would mean the individual has no real chance, even if they were built like a bull and the 50 were a random mix of average Joes and Joannas
Okay, game over. In the real world, the wealthiest 1% have hoarded 37% of the planet’s wealth. It sounds even worse when you learn that the poorest 50% share just 2% of the wealth.
The figures are slightly better in most Western countries with the poorest half of Americans sharing 2.5%, poor Europeans with about 4% and poorest Britons with almost 6%. In each case, the real life equivalent of 50 vs 1, but the 50 lose every time.
How have the wealthy managed to game the system in the real world? By dividing the rest of us. In the gladiator game, the 50 were all on one side, but in the real world, the wealthy have split the poorest 50% into all sorts of sides.
Men vs women. Christian vs Muslims. White vs black. Citizen vs immigrant. Young vs old. Homophobe vs gay. Blue collar vs white collar. Patriot vs traitor. Conservative vs liberal. Left vs right. I’m sure you could add to that list, but the last one is particularly interesting.
With politics, we’re taught that our opponents are to the side of us. Unless we’re at one of the extremes, there will always be people we don’t agree with to our left and our right.
But the wealthy know politics doesn’t split between left and right. Politics splits between top and bottom. And the wealthy know that they can only win by being being united at the top.
While the rest of us fragment ourselves into multiple sides. One side at the top and hundreds, perhaps thousands or more, at the bottom. Our advantage of strength in numbers carelessly diluted.
So, whose side are you on?
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