Day 4- The Game of Taxes

If you have any experience in playing computer games, where you have to construct and maintain a civilisation with taxes and food and so on, then you will easily be able to see what I am talking about, otherwise I will try to explain this as best as I can.

In the game I am currently playing (when I have free time) I have to build a small city with people and fulfil their needs and desire to keep them happy otherwise they go on riots and I lose the mission. For each level of civilisation I have to fulfil different needs, for example – the first level of civilisation requires food and community, the second level requires the same as the previous level plus cloth and a chapel, the third level requires the same as the previous level plus alcohol, tobacco and education, and so on – you get the idea.

Apart from keeping the people happy through fulfilling their needs and desires (which takes money), these are the responsibilities you have as the ‘ruler’ of the game:

• Building houses for the people (which takes money)
• Build ships (which takes money)
• Build harbours, shipyards (which takes money)
• Build roads (which takes money)
• Build lumberjack facilities (which takes money)
• Build warehouses (which takes money)
• Set up food supply infrastructure (which takes money)
• Set up mining facilities to supply you with resource (which takes money)
• Maintain infrastructure, ships and soldiers (which takes money)

The best way to get money is through raising taxes that people have to pay. The trick is to keep the tax rate high enough so that you have sufficient money to cover all your costs yet keeping it low enough to not anger the people and prevent a revolt. So – to get more money, get more people – but more people means higher costs. As the ‘ruler’ of the game you’re thus constantly having to find a balance in making sure everyone is happy and you have enough money to fulfil your responsibilities and complete your mission. 

The thing that is so interesting about this game and games like this (and there are many) is the fact that the people revolt if their needs are not met and the tax rate goes too high. If, as I assume, the game designers are trying to imitate the world as it is now, they failed, badly. If you look at the world today all the government does is raise taxes and ignore about 90% of the people in this world’s needs, meaning that most of the world is suffering from either starvation or just really disgusting living conditions where they are forced to work shit jobs for almost no money and the price of basic living goes ever higher while the wages stay low, or in some cases get lower or become non-existent. 

In a game the people would have revolted and slaughtered everyone that stands in a position of power that allowed this world to turn into the shithole that it currently exists as, but in the real world do people actually do anything at all? The answer for the most part is no, people talk about changing the world but almost nothing ever happens. The reasons why people don’t stand up and say no are out of fear, for example – the fear of failure, the fear of not getting paid or losing their job and therefore not being able to survive, the fear of losing whatever wealth they had accumulated in their lives, the fear of insubordination and so-on. Then you also have the idea of not being able to change anything anyway, the idea of being too insignificant and weak to change anything – and if people do overcome their fears and ideas and gather on the streets, the police/military would be waiting for them with guns and water-cannons.

If you really look at it – who turned the world into this? Who allowed the rich and the powerful to do whatever they want so as to maintain their power and wealth? Guess. Ask yourself how it is that the rich and the powerful consist of about 1% of the population and the ones who give them their power is us, the ones who suffer in the trenches or in the office cubicle or in the desert or in the barren fields that have been stripped clean. We give them the ability to do all this because we are scared of saying no.

Ask yourself if this is the world you would like to leave to your children.

Ask yourself if this is the world you want to live in.

If the answer is no then support the people pushing for an equal money system as that is the last and only true answer available to correct what we have allowed to be created around us.

There are billions of people in this world and when enough of them stand together and say no the world will change. There is nothing the minuscule 1% can do if the 99% stand together.

Standing together doesn’t mean that you have to gather on the streets and start a revolt by force, real change comes through re-education and a joint understanding. What we propose will take time but what you have to decide is whether or not you are willing to stand together and turn this world into a place we actually want to live in and are proud to leave to our children.

Make your choice.

Here are the links of the websites dedicated to an equal money system and where the people who have made a choice are busy working on how to implement it no matter how long it takes.

http://equalmoney.org/