My comment was an invitation. I’ve thought it through, and it’s surprisingly promising. Certainly in contrast to our current circumstances and the prospects that our money-driven system presents, a world without money is quite attractive.

Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” I’ll humbly offer that we can’t solve our problems using the same *system* that we used to create them. Since the system influences our thinking, it’s that much more of a challenge to step outside in order to see the possibilities.

I’ll renew my invitation to you and others: step outside the money system and look at the world. How does it function? What myths are we caught up in only because we’ve lived our lives entirely within this system? What concepts do we take as truth? What behaviors that seem to be human nature are really due to the context we live in? What would happen to those things (not to mention the financial services industry) in a world without money?

Our education, learning, and knowledge are all nested within this system. Can we set it all aside and think and ask of each thought that comes to mind, “Is that true?”

All I do know is that the squirrels in my neighborhood seem pretty happy, and while they might not be sending rockets to Mars or painting fine pictures, nobody’s blaming global warming on them either.

You noted in a comment the other day the lack of greed among animals, well don’t mess with that squirrel’s nuts is all I can say. Acquisitiveness is a universal I think, but like I said, I don’t suggest that I personally have a clue to a solution, but balance may be a good direction. Education is another, not rote learning but unalloyed knowledge instead.

I would suggest that those who have seen an actual decrease totals a lot more than 1%. Some real figures would be of more benefit here than bromides and catchphrases, but I am not knocking the message or the messenger.

Truly the 1% versus 99% is a problem of greed plus a failure of democracy, and a triumph of ignorance; but our real problems globally are larger and more complex, population and technology have grown at cross purposes — we breed prolifically, but invent machines to replace people, and befoul the planet in the process. What we need most is an economic Einstein who can figure out what it will take to make our species viable into the future, and less selfish and murderous.

My early experience with Dr. King, watching him speak on a grainy black-and-white television in my parent’s home, transformed my thinking on many things. It is good to know that he can still reach out across the decades to prick our consciences.