The Journey: The Start of a Conversation and a Guide Toward Our Future Prosperity

By Mark Anderson

This book is the beginning of a conversation that has been delayed too long and a guide to helping get our society on the track to future prosperity. In reading this you will better understand our world from an economic, social, and historical perspective and be able to help move us toward solutions to our present problems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ethan Greene
• Release date: Feb 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9780997314205

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The Journey: The Start of a Conversation and a Guide Toward Our Future Prosperity

The Journey

The Start of a Conversation and Guide Toward Our Future Prosperity

Mark Anderson

Copyright

Copyright © 2013 by Mark Anderson

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing 2016

ISBN 978-0-9973142-0-5

Published by Mark Anderson

Dedication

I would first and foremost like to dedicate the contents of this tome to the people of the world. I have always had the strongest desire to make the world a better place in whatever little way I can. My hope for this book is to start a conversation and that even if unheeded the knowledge contained within may in some way provide some understanding, guidance, and direction to our species and the civilizations we have created.

I would also like to thank those dearest to me personally. I am a product of our world, but more proximately of those nearest me. My views and ideals, my knowledge and any wisdom I have is owed to their effects upon me and the foundations they have instilled in me. Out of these individuals my immediate family deserves the most consideration. Their direction and love have shaped me in ways I cannot describe and have been so unconditionally that they cannot be repaid by such measly tribute. That they know that their effect on me has led me to try and improve this world’s condition is the least I can do.

I would at last like to extend a special thank you to those of you who read this. You have taken the first step in improving our world. You have showed interest. Interest in what is in this vast world around you, of what it means, of how it interacts and why. You have also showed an earnest desire to see it bettered. This trait is rare amongst our species. It is however what moves us forward, what sees us advance, and what will one day see us through the darkest of days and into the light once again. I thank you and dedicate this work to all of you who believe we can be better within yourself and the world. You are my hope and my continued dedication forever goes to you.

Introduction

In long intervals I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to me so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.

- Einstein, 1954

I am a private citizen of the United States of America. I hold this title as having all the meaning which it is given by the Constitution of this nation. I have given my consent to be governed. In being governed, I dually exercise my right as written within that document to affect control of the society to which I belong. To this end, I do not belong to any one political party and in my life have voted for members of several of the parties in our political system. The only defining principle which I allow to control my thoughts on such decisions is that which will bring the greatest positive affect to my fellow citizens and me.

I am a firm believer in small government. I believe controls need be no more restrictive than is needed to control those people or groups, foreign or domestic, who would try to subvert the greater wellbeing of our citizens - no more, no less. I am also a firm believer that at times the only means of the citizenry to correct imbalances, affect national security, and confront national emergencies is to use our collective power of government as a tool of our will and need.

I am finally, a firm believer in the personal notion of enlightened self-interest. This is not short term oriented or greed based. It is based on a larger understanding of the interconnectedness and full impact that each of our individual decisions have upon ourselves and others, and what is truly in our individual best interest in that respect.

I am not a member of government, beyond my citizenry. I am not a member of the media, save some minor social networking. I am not aligned with any lobbying body or special cause entity, except some minor volunteering. I am again, as I have said, a singular citizen of this nation who is seeking by the best means at my disposal to help inform my fellow citizens – my only motive being my own self-interest in the perseverance of our nation.

I am self publishing this to keep costs down and reduce any influence over this book’s content so that it may express only my own perspective and not that of external enterprise or passions.  A far greater issue for me is that you have a greater opportunity to access it, in particular financially.  As working class Americans, we have been limited by many media formats to provide vital information to each other.  Papers, television, and even the internet are owned and controlled by private industry and moderated by the government.  We the people have little access to freely communicate with one another. The only places easily available are our social networking sites where our viewing is tailored and 140 character tweets of which only the most social media mavens are followed.

I. My Promise

I often find myself looking back to history and historical figures to define and divine where we are, where we are to go, and what means may convey us forward properly. I am predisposed to quote from such sources, as I feel that the words they left behind are the best way to understand their thoughts and provide insight into our future. I will try to resist this as much as possible for I realize such quoting may be received poorly by some. To that end I will spare quotes for marking transitions and for those areas where they provide unsurpassed aid to understanding.

I may at times have a tendency to explain things in too technical a manner. This too I promise to resist in the hopes of saving my fellow citizens such boredom. The technical aspects of most of the information and ideas involved are largely an artificial barrier to non-professionals understanding these field(s). Where I am accustomed to dealing with such people and subjects within their rule structures, I promise to try to cut through the jargon for those who are not.

Lastly, I promise to keep this book as short as I reasonably can. What is important is that the content is delivered so that everyone may access it and suitable discussion and actions may begin.

II. Problems to Solutions

The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems — the problems of life and of human relations, of creation, and behavior, and religion.

- John Maynard Keynes, 1945

I have found myself recently looking over the state of our society and I am appalled by what I have seen from those at the top of the public and private sectors. The complete inability of those we have helped to elevate to power, through our labor or by our blessing to act as servants in governance, to discuss with any real level of clarity what we need to do for our future prosperity is near inexcusable. I believe this nation’s people to be the best possible repository and demonstration of democratic representation, and worthy of that inheritance which we have been left. It is time again that we prove that worth and call our fellow citizens and our government to account.

We stand at a major junction in our history and we the people are not being given the facts we need to suitably decide our future course. We are instead being bombarded by rhetoric and inaccuracies. We are not being trusted with that information which we must have to properly govern ourselves as a representative democracy. We are left out of deciding major questions regarding our economic future by being told many economic lies. We are instead asked to vote on moral quandaries that divide us and asked to hope that those we put in office are more intelligent than our collective understanding and have our best interest at heart on other serious matters. We are fed lines to inflame our passions rather than information to unite our reasoning. It is possible that once we as a nation have universally agreed upon solutions to those problems of most immediate need, we may put them behind us and take on these social issues as the primacy of public discourse. Unfortunately we are not at that time just yet.

The short sighted nature of current discussion at the highest levels of business and government regarding the path toward our future prosperity has reached a level of such corrosiveness that it may soon lead to the complete deterioration of the structures needed to support any future at all. I am not someone who would normally write on such controversial topics. I have however