HOW THE WORLD WORKS

THE SYSTEMS AND FORMULAS OF THE WORLD

Have you ever thought about how the world works, that is, our world on the planet Earth? And did you ever think about how the world worked in the past, before telephones and airplanes, and before cars and trucks were invented? How did peoples and countries communicate with each other, if they did communicate with each other? What did they try to do to make their lives comfortable and how did they measure success in the world of ten thousand years ago and five thousand years ago? Who and how did what in the many different societies that existed over the millennia since mankind emerged from caves and started living in homes that they built on land that they owned and farmed, using tools that they made and materials that they pulled from the earth? And how were leaders chosen, if they were chosen? Who rose to the top and how did they rise to the top of their societies?

Our world generally operates within systems and uses formulas to achieve local successes. The systems are interconnected and the formulas are similar from nation to nation and from one international entity to another. The international connection enables trade for mutual benefit and the internal systems are designed to accommodate differences such as currency, language and cultures, economic level, and political establishments. Except in cases of rogue states or states that are in the process of violent change or collapsing, these statements hold true.

Natural resources like oil that are in huge universal demand and huge populations that provide low cost labor, skew the systems and formulas as much as internal warfare, regime change, and major natural disasters do over shorter time periods. The drive for power and wealth acquisition brings a measure of tranquility to international exchanges that benefit the elites in whatever combination of nations are engaged.

Internal systems and formulas are based on how wealth and allegiance are achieved. Variations between and within the systems reflect the nature of a nation’s wealth, history, government, culture, people, and often, religion. The history, language, natural resources, and geography of a nation are key determinants of wealth acquisition. A typical formula has multi-generational power continuation that regardless of huge disparities in wealth distribution, auger for economic stability. That power can be embedded in government or in royal symbolism or in religious unity within a country. Governments as a matter of course represent power elites that invest the money to obtain government sinecures for their lackeys. “What is good for General Motors is good for the country,” used to be considered instructions for government functioning. With General Motors teetering on bankruptcy at the end of 2008, the slogan requires a name change, perhaps to the more truthful and realistic, “What’s good for the wealthy and powerful, is good for the country.”

Success is measured in accumulation of wealth just as failure is measured in loss of wealth.