Thoughts on the world and its future

6min. .

I don’t discuss online that often, but the other day I found myself inspired. I wound up writing some thoughts on the world and its future.

What sparked my raptus was reading a certain someone’s hot take on LinkedIn, on the trouble that has befallen Europe. To summarize, they argue that firstly the EU is spending too little on their military, secondly that the EU has handled mass-immigration poorly, thirdly that entrepreneurship in Europe languishes. Finally, they conclude that it’s definitely possible for the EU to strenghten itself and forge a bright future.

This conclusion I can totally get behind, but the preceding analysis rubbed me the wrong way, and I wanted to give a slightly different take. My two comments got some good traction, and since I don’t know how long I’ll stick around on LinkedIn I thought I better re-post them on my blog, just in case I’ll revisit these thoughts in the future.

Wealth inequality vs. immigration #

The US was and is built on immigration, moreso than EU perhaps.

Isn’t it a red herring to focus on immigration, to have people argue amongst themselves, instead of focusing on the perverse wealth accumulation of a few “geniuses”?

And by genius I mean the myth of the lone bosses who have all the answers and the vision, while in truth the rich mostly solved the puzzle of how to underpay vendors and workers.

The purported innovation by some of our largest tech companies, boils down to tax optimization poured into buying out the competition, and doing stock buybacks.

I agree with you that the time of Europe is now. Entrepreneurship is also a form of rebellion, like what economists call creative destruction. I hope we can see more of that now, and humble some of the companies that act like they’re to big too care about taxation, users’ privacy, or basic human rights.

Lastly, on the topic of military spending I would like to note that both Eisenhower and Biden has warned against the military industrial complex. Off course weapons are needed, but weaponry is also big business with an agenda of its own. The US’s demands to “arm up” is going to make some US companies very rich.

After sharing my thoughts above, a commenter asked what policy changes or culture changes I’d like to see. To which I replied:

Society needs vibrant communities #

It’s a good question! If I could wave a magic wand… Disclaimer: I’m not an expert.

Multinational companies must be forced to pay their fair share of taxes, in order to level the playing field with SMBs. We might need to split the largest companies, and block mergers to foster more healthy competition.

Taxes can be used to experiment with universal basic income (UBI). With UBI people can have part-time jobs and still make ends meet. People who are doing okay financially, become less inclined to indulge in far-right ideology (I think).

With UBI and thus more free time, people can volunteer and strengthen local communities. Money can be invested in youth centers and art programs.

It’s a travesty of modern society, that people keep falling through the cracks and become radicalized. So, we need a culture shift where it gets easier to feel belonging to your local community.

Many migrants seek happiness in Europe, just like Europeans did the same by migrating to the US back in the day.

Climate change, war and poverty forces people to migrate. In other words, peace, fairer trade agreements, better rule of law in migrant origin countries, and more local entrepreneurship would lessen the pressure to migrate abroad.

Sources #

My thoughts above comes from various sources, some of which are: