dividends, appears like a human ego. The prime concern of most enterprises is profit. Every little perk is accounted for with maximum profit, and every competitor is treated as an enemy. But if all competition is annihilated, who can offer a hand or make a contribution?
Competition is the buzz word taking us to the motives of economic self-delusion. It’s as with egotism—a healthy measure of competition keeps us all alive. Without competition all of the conveyor belts would come to a halt, and life would fail to evolve: A species will live longer the better it is in harmony with its environment. This concept fits natural selection far better than short-sighted formulas like “survival of the fittest” or “better adapted species will survive”. Life is not about showing strength, nor is it about adjusting: What matters far more than anything else is to live in harmony with cosmos. We will expand upon the meaning of this powerful theme together in this book.
But competition will always become a dangerous threat when it mates with greed. Its breeding ground is capitalism. The common practice to increase prices on rising demand demonstrates pure greed. Why does a cozy accommodation cost more in peak season than in any other season of the year? The service offered remains unchanged. I have never been a friend of capitalism—it is robbing our humaneness day by day. I am well aware of the achievements of industrial progress, but the rabid open markets and the unbridled accumulation of private property make me angry. They both are excesses of our striving for individuality. Too few people care enough to give something in return to their society if the economy is slowing down.
So, social rules are what we urgently need now. Social market economy is much fairer than free markets as long as the social component doesn’t fade away. But I’m sorry to say that politicians increasingly shirk their duty to regulate enterprises and markets. The result is disastrous: The gulf between poor and rich has become wider and wider. Whoever is rich becomes even richer; whoever is poor becomes even poorer. Excessive top-level salaries and harsh wage dumping threaten to break humanity apart. It will only be a matter of time before the dam collapses.
Political Self-Delusion
There is another form of greed which is even more threatening to humanity: greed for power. Politics has one primary purpose—make sure that too much power does not fall into the hands of a privileged few. Concentration of power leads to monotony and standstill. But unfortunately, many politicians focus on their own re-election instead of taking effective actions against any people, companies and nations that abuse their powers. Both world wars were fueled by human greed for power. In the First World War, 40 nations took part and 17 million people were killed.8 It caused the homelessness and dislocation of countless orphans and widows who were forced to face a shattered wartime economy. More than 60 nations were involved in the Second World War and over 60 million human beings died.9 A third world war would most likely be a nuclear war that is fought on all continents. It could bring about the end of humanity.
Our doctor from a distant galaxy would flip out and shout: “What a delusion!” Of course, we are assuming that he has a voice in the first place. He would hit the nail on the head in spite of his galactic distance. What happened during the years 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 came from a fixed idea: the delusion of a nation’s need to impose its political power thereby threatening the life of others. Political self-delusion is very short-sighted because life flourishes only in peace when all forces are balanced.
Political self-delusion also spreads domestically, especially in dictatorships. There is no separation of powers in them: Legislative, executive and the judiciary are united in one, that is, a dictator or a party. Dictatorships pursue ideologies that are not allowed to be questioned. Their delusion makes them fearless to suppress their own people. The largest dictatorship is presently in China in spite of the fact that it calls itself “the peoples republic”. Chinese people have very little to say about their government: Whoever criticizes the regime is locked away. It’s shameful to trade with a country that tramples on human rights so blatantly. By doing this we alienate the basic rights of humanity.
Political self-delusion infects rulers as well as political parties and entire peoples. The threat is just as great for humanity. Politics is always concerned with protecting own interests. That makes good sense as long as equal rights are preserved. Decisions have to be made in case there is any conflict of interest. Political self-delusion thrives whenever human rights are disregarded during this process—if, for example, a government suppresses its own people or a nation wages war against others. In either case, human beings identify themselves with their own nation and masquerade personal interests for the “good of the nation”. The breeding ground for this behavior is nationalism.
Thank God that the atrocities of the German Nazis are over. But nationalism is still part of the political landscape. Populists are very much part of this landscape because they promise their people the things they want to hear. The political dialogue has become harsher—not only in the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany. It is in vogue again to be against anyone who’s not part of “your group”. With regard to Russia, I completely understand that—since the fall of the Soviet Union—it feels increasingly threatened by a West that grows stronger and stronger. If a political foe becomes weaker, it is always up to humanity to meet him eye-to-eye and uplift him so that he won’t lose face. Deescalation and keen foresight as during the days of Mikhail Gorbachev are history, unfortunately. We need politicians who keep an eye on both their peoples and all of mankind including this planet—politicians who think and implement democracy globally.
Today when humanity is becoming more and more compressed and interlinked because of the population explosion and globalization, political self-delusion is finding new victims: Hatred of foreigners is active. Many people reject the idea of sharing their belongings and their alleged “own country” with others whose lives are being threatened. The most recent wave of immigrants into Europe illustrates this missing compassion. Some people are ready to help, but many countries shut themselves off against immigrants even though they agreed to the Geneva Refugee Convention. Of course, every human being knows from experience what all people need in order to live: something to eat, something to drink and a roof over their heads. Whoever is not prepared to grant even these basic needs to “foreigners”, doesn’t deserve living on earth that is home to all of humanity.
A wall between the United States and Mexico? This would be a serious setback for humanity. Europeans have felt and had to endure for more than 40 years a wall that gashed their continent. They know what it means literally and symbolically: If you shut yourself off, you are going to fall! The fall of the Soviet Union and the fall of the German Democratic Republic serve as evidence. Barbed wire (see figure 5) has never been a solution. Shutting yourself off is destructive and against our nature. Separation always comes from ignorance, greed or envy, and fear. It is greed and fear in the United States today; it was envy and fear in Eastern Europe. As we will conceive soon, nature takes the opposite direction: It seeks understanding and love.
Fig. 5: Political self-delusion
Political and economic self-delusion often go hand-inhand as can be seen in Great Britain. A close majority voted for the “BRitish EXIT” (BREXIT)10 to break away from the European Union. Catalysts for the split were not only political issues, but also economic issues. Many British citizens had grave concerns about their supposed independence, and the refugee crisis increased the number of BREXIT supporters even more. We see a dark specter of poverty where human beings and entire nations think about themselves first. They forget that the European Union was conceived primarily to be a community of shared values. Now, instead of taking these shared values to heart, they demand “special terms”. If these are not granted, nations move apart.
War, dictators
