Opinion

An Unjust Western World: A Wake-Up Call

Carl HD Steinmetz*

Psychology and Cultural Victimology, Expats & Immigrants, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Submission: February 14, 2022; Published: February 21, 2022

*Corresponding author: Carl HD Steinmetz, Psychology and Cultural Victimology, Expats & Immigrants, KNSMlaan 50, 1019 LL, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Injustice has become the yardstick in our society in the year 2022. Solutions to this are desperately needed.

How to cite this article:Carl HD Steinmetz. An Unjust Western World: A Wake-Up Call. Ann Soc Sci Manage Stud. 2022; 7(2): 555706. DOI: 10.19080/ASM.2022.07.555706

Comments

The rich - the big corporations and the billionaires - are pitted against the poor and the very small, one religion disagrees with another, and people feel superior to others and see others as slaves.

“Billionaires¹ play a key role in helping influence the world, from political decisions to social and economic reforms. Forbes puts the list of billionaires in the world at 2,755. However, only a handful—10 to be exact—currently have $100 billion or more in net worth each. Many of these billionaires are founders of technology companies, with much of their wealth wrapped up in the companies they started.

Note that many billionaires are taxed differently or not at all on their wealth given that much of their gains are unrealized meaning they haven’t sold any stock or equity, and thus, haven’t had to pay taxes yet. As well, while some billionaires hold several billion dollars in cash, many also have investments in private assets, such as private companies, real estate, or other public companies.”

Moreover, the Western world is pitted against the non-Western world. Countries like the United States and Russia claim the role of policeman of the world at the cost of many human lives. Asked and unasked, they intervene with countries that do not behave. These countries are accused of terrorism, disruption of society, hosting “bandits” or even not complying with the “old” borders (Russia and the Ukraine) (Figure 1).

Polarization also seems to have become the norm. Heavily polarized is the one between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. It is worth noting that many of Earth’s inhabitants do not even have access to vaccines. Many places on earth are further unsafe for women and girls, as if they have done something to men. Further, these men and boys seem to have forgotten that without a mother they would not even have existed. On top of all this, there is the climate crisis. Large parts of the world suffer from cloudbursts with flooding, snowstorms that leave citizens completely isolated from their surroundings, and drought. The price of this is enormous. Many people, many animals and also nature suffer and perish. The consequences are huge numbers of people trying to flee these areas only to find that they are stopped at the rich western borders risking a lifetime of refugee life.

“New report³: Extreme weather driven by climate change cost the world billions in 2021

i. Study identifies ten extreme events, influenced by climate change, that each caused $1.5 billion damage or more.

ii. Hurricane Ida which struck the US in August cost $65 billion while floods which ravaged Europe in July racked up $43 billion in losses.

iii. Floods, cyclones and drought also killed and displaced millions across the globe in places which have done little to cause climate change.

iv. New Savanta ComRes poll shows UK public think climate change should be top priority for Government in 2022 above healthcare and the economy.”

Finally, national governments are at risk. This is true of democratically and authoritatively led countries. Many countries have a dictator formally or informally, although some of them hold free elections. Fundamentally, there are the following governance models of countries:

¹https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/012715/5-richest-people-world.asp

²https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html

³https://reliefweb.int/report/world/counting-cost-2021-year-climate-breakdown-december-2021

i. “Government is the means by which state policy is enforced, as well as the mechanism for determining the policy of the state. States are served by a continuous succession of different governments.

ii. Governments with Aristarchy attributes are traditionally ruled by the “best” people. Examples include aristocracy, technocracy and meritocracy.

iii. Governments with autocratic attributes are ruled by one person who has all the power over the people in a country. Examples include authoritarian, totalitarian and fascist governments.

iv. Governments with democratic attributes are most common in the Western world and in some countries of the east. In democracies, all of the people in a country can vote during elections for representatives or political parties that they prefer.

v. Governments with monarchic attributes are ruled by a king or a queen who inherits their position from their family, which is often called the royal family.

vi. Governments with oligarchic attributes are ruled by a small group of powerful and/or influential people. These people may spread power equally or not equally.

vii. Plutocracy defines a society, or a system ruled and dominated by the small minority of the wealthiest citizens. Unlike systems such as democracy, capitalism, socialism or anarchism, plutocracy is not rooted in an established political philosophy and has no formal advocates.

Possible Solutions to this International Malfunction

Solutions to the problems outlined earlier is a many-headed monster. First, global income will have to be redistributed firmly. This can be done in many ways. One typically Western way is to impose wealth taxes on money, assets, real estate and land [1].

Furthermore, international and local agreements will need to be made on the all-important priorities. These are addressing the climate crisis, encouraging group selection [2] as the antithesis of individual selection by organizing themselves soundly and promoting cooperation (combined with learning to listen to each other from a possible outcome also known as “agree to disagree”), encouraging critical citizen initiatives to improve governance, such as the many Western citizen panels, break up neoliberalism, after all, life is not just about making profits and money, very important is human bonding in the extended family, clan and tribe, and neighborhoods of cities and “reining in” the boundaries of “nation-states” so that every person has the opportunity to live and prosper on a “safe” piece of land.

However, practice will show resistance from the owning and established. To tackle this resistance, a roadmap will need to be developed. Important steps are explanation and clarification.

This will only succeed if the other feels heard. Only then will the other person listen. The second step could consist of setting up random citizens’ panels that together devise local solutions to the problems that have arisen, such as nuclear energy versus solar energy. This method only works if the local government takes the recommendations seriously. A possible third step is experimenting with innovative solutions to the energy problem, for example. Finally, a strong government is needed that is willing to set up an infrastructure for these changes and offers space for innovative networks of ordinary citizens and experts. This will only work if any citizen understands what is about to happen. It is not inconceivable that with all these steps the changes will stagnate. After that we will only have peaceful resistance left, such as demonstrations and ‘disruption’. Many predecessors such as Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, the Archbishop Tutu, the Dalai Lama etc. have given us models for this.

References

1. Piketty Thomas (2019) Capital and Ideology. The Geus BV Amsterdam, 2020.
2. Haidt Jonathan (2012) The Sense of Justice. Why we don't all think the same about politics and morality. Publisher Ten Have, Netherlands.