Everyone cannot win the Race

In every race, There is one who comes in first and one who comes in last and the remainder follow a bell curve in finishing. But there can be no race if only one person is running. The point of this post is to make it clear that success is not the prize of everyone who works hard to be a winner. That is the nature of competition. The prize does not go to those who try but fall short.

There is another side to people who belong to the human community. It is cooperation. There are no winners or losers or personal trophies.There is just mutual sharing. Almost no single person is all one or the other. Both are useful attributes in the preservation of life. Both have a place in producing those things that are needed as essentials and those things that are exceptional and furnish the rewards for creating the competition that leads to efficient productive effort.

There are many stories of achievement by people who start from nearly impossible conditions. There are far more stories of people with "silver spoons" who achieved great personal success.  The overwhelming number of stories I know is about failure to achieve by those who worked as hard or harder than you and I and still never rose to any level of success.

The simple fact is that where one starts in the competition of life has a much higher correlation to where one finishes the Race than does how hard you work. The story of Rags to Riches is the exception that proves the rule of the advantage of privilege over poverty in the competition for exceptional-ism  .

That is why I am a progressive. I believe that Society has an obligation to every single individual to give them the essentials of life [food, shelter, medical care and all the skills the individual is willing and able to learn] that are necessary for a level playing field. That is where the cooperative nature of man becomes essential to the purpose of Community.

The business of Life is not exceptional-ism. Exceptional-ism is a tool to achieve efficiency in the task of Society preserving the opportunity of protecting each and every life. This is the reason that we live and cooperate in communities. It is the reason we institute Governance to compel all member of our community to do their fair share of providing for the needs of the Commonshare. Too often achievers prefer to expand their gratification of the competitive need of exceptional reward and defend greed by calling it personal freedom . 

True Freedom is to know that you will not be hungry and homeless or ill without care. It is knowing you have teachers to equip you with skills to achieve according to your best abilities. It is the right to escape from those who have the power to let you starve if you refuse to work at their command for their profit at their price.  It is the freedom not to be a wage-slave.  Only democratic governance of sufficient size and strength to protect you right to share the essential of life that have their source in the Commonshare of land, air and water can give you true freedom. Anyone trying to convince you that your Government is always your enemy is the person that seeks to be your master.

 Copyright © William Hodge 2013