Intellectual apartheid.doc

Intellectual apartheid

In Huxley’s Brave New World, class was predetermined by the needs of society and based upon the genetically engineered intellect of the population. Alphas ruled the world, Betas managed it, and Epsilons operated the elevators. Today’s technology driven society has created a similar, yet even more sinister class structure. The work performed by the less than intellectually gifted is increasingly devalued, and the workers are reduced to the status of the populations of third world nations.

Historically, a worker in the United States could earn a living based solely on his willingness to perform a hard day’s work. Plow the fields, work in the factories, clean the streets, generally, the worker earned living wages. Not that the intellectually blessed worker did not fare better. The best jobs and most responsible positions generally went to the most qualified individuals. These higher status, and higher demand jobs also provided higher pay for the intellectually superior worker. Although a premium was placed upon these exceptional workers, the creation of a strong manufacturing base created a huge and relatively affluent middle class unlike any other in the world. Now our advancing technology is about to demote at least half of America’s workforce to third world status.

The technocrats needed to run our increasingly advanced society are not coming from the left half of the intelligence bell curve. In fact, our advancing technology is becoming beyond the reach of an increasing larger percentage of the population. If it takes a person with an IQ of 110 to perform the average technology based job today, then it may require a person with an IQ of 120 to take this technology to the next level. The higher the IQ required, the smaller the pool of perspective employees. By way of example note how our country’s immigration policy favors foreigners with special skills (intellectual skill) such as engineering and computer science. Our increased focus on education may enlarge our intellectual pool slightly, but the best of schooling can only make people less ignorant, not smarter. In fact, performance based testing in the schools has lead to an increased dropout rate among the less gifted.

Meanwhile, thanks to a globalized economy, the manufacturing base which created America’s vast and affluent middle class is slipping away, and being replaced by a technology based economy in which, for reasons stated above, the majority of our citizens will not be able to participate. We have seen average real wages decline in this country over the last 30 years. Increased affluence has come only to the intellectual elite. As this trend continues, our economy will not evolve to the “service economy” espoused by former president George H. Bush. Instead, our economy will devolve to a servant economy preferred by our current leaders. Under this economy, the intellectually underprivileged will compete for fewer and fewer available menial jobs at what will become increasingly third world wages.

Unfortunately the intellectual “masters of the Universe” don’t for the most part, seem to give a whit what happens to their intellectually inferior country men. They can hire out the making of their shoes, towels, shirts, TV’s, and almost every other consumer item to some third world peasant who does not have enough clout to demand a decent wage. Then they can use their own domestic peasants to flip their burgers, mow their grass, and park their cars. And, if their fellow citizens are not willing to do their fetch and carry at bargain basement wages, then there are over a hundred million Latin Americans waiting just over the border to do their bidding.

The catch 22 in all of this is that the half of the population that is becoming obsolete is not smart enough to even know what’s happening to them. The ones that still have decent jobs are taken in by the availability of cheap consumer goods, and even cheaper political rhetoric. They hear that America has the best health care system in the world. They don’t realize that more and more people can’t afford to participate in it. They hear the politicians espouse changing welfare to workfare, but how well will they be when there is no work. They hear tax cuts for economic stimulus, but whose economy is stimulated.