The Weapon of Class Destruction is Merit

 

If any power resides in the royalty and nobility of old it is far less than that which resides in our Intermediary classes. It is the managers and elected officials that rule most of the modern world. They neither own nor do they create the wealth that makes us all stronger healthier and more likely to live beyond our sixth decade. They do manage it for the rest of us though.

 

Those who bear the burdens of our civilization are far more likely than the kings and queens of old to have come from Africa, India or Asia. Merit is the duty and the value that allows this nation to rise above all others in history thus far in wealth and power. It is also the value that propels individuals toward success more surely than raw intellect or physical presence.

 

There are ample examples of how it is possible to go from class to crass in one generation. There are also plenty of cases in which the son or daughter of humble parents distinguishes themselves in one or another stupendous manner.

 

Vast numbers of people have grown accustomed to the trappings of life in the Middle Class in this nation. Even some of our poorest citizens make more money scavenging for bottles and cans in one day than a lot of the people in the world ever see in a week. Money is not a certain measure of value or of class any more than birth in a noble family.

 

The proposition that merit will be rewarded is an important one. It is the foundation of the striving that creates the wealth we all enjoy to one degree or another. So the closer we adhere to those values that we use to judge individual merit the more likely we are to succeed in building a better world.

 

Motivation is important, and if the core motivator in our system is greed then we lose our way. In particular if that is the sole motivator for those we trust to be our Financial Intermediaries we are in deep doo-doo. Bernie Madoff, need I say more?

 

If we allow too much greed into our financial institutions, which are intermediaries in our economic system, we lose. If we allow too little we might also lose but we will be safer than if too much is the order of the day.

 

Disintermediation, the process of removing the intermediary wherever possible, is moving forward. The new Intermediary is technology, a rather neutral actor on the stage thus far. The computer and then the Internet empowered new Intermediaries and disenfranchised some others.

 

Michelle and the Queen met at the time of a meeting of the most important Intermediaries on the globe. The Group of twenty nations is groping for a solution to this problem. The answer is the education of all classes toward a goal of meritorious achievement in life. I only hope that the world’s most powerful Intermediaries take that away from the meeting they just attended.