The Ownership Wars: Who Owns You?

The world is ruled by the rich elite, the 1%, the Ownership Class. How do these people manage to make the 99% do their bidding? That is the greatest magic trick of all.

The German philosopher Hegel gave the best explanation. When the 99% submit to the 1%, it's a reflection of what Hegel called the "master-slave dialectic". Hegel imagined the occasion of the first encounter of two self-conscious beings. Given the savagery of Nature, he imagined they would engage in a struggle to the death. However, it would not play out all the way to the end … one would submit to the other. The one who surrendered would become the slave of the other, who would be the master.

The key to the nature of the master is that he is willing to risk it all - including his very life - to win, to seize power. He does not fear death, or he fears it less than he fears submitting to the other and losing power. Life is not worth living in those circumstances. The other, by contrast, fears death more than anything, and does what he has to do to preserve his life, to survive.

Nietzsche, who spoke of master morality versus slave morality, wrote, "The wish to preserve oneself is the result of a condition of distress, of the limitation of the fundamental instinct of life which aims at the expansion of power and frequently runs risks and even sacrifices self-preservation."

The slave is the person who values will to life more than will to power. The master is the opposite. He could not endure his life as someone else's slave. Slaves have low to will to power, masters high will to power.

The 1% are where they are because they are willing to take much greater risks, to use much greater force, than everyone else. Most of the 1% are psychopaths. Psychopaths relish the fight, the struggle. They love defeating others, making others bow to them. They savor the power they exercise over others, and are prepared to go to any lengths to acquire that power. It's their primary objective in life. It's what they live for.

Nevertheless, the 1% are so much more numerous than the 1% that they could crush them at any time, and take everything they have. Why don't they? Sadly, it's because they are natural-born slaves. They want masters. They want to be dominated, to be told what to do. They want others to control their lives, to shape their destiny. They seek to get on with living, with laughter, with relationships. They can't be bothered putting in all of the effort to get to the top. They don't have the stomach for trampling over the bodies of others on the way up. They don't have the will, they don't have the ambition, they don't have the force. They lack the life spark. They are the Last Men whom Nietzsche hated, not the Supermen whom Nietzsche loved.

If the 99% weren't weaklings and cowards, there wouldn't be a 1%. The 99% actively want psychopaths to rule them. Many of the 99% are Abrahamists - Jews, Christians and Muslims - who worship an archetypal psychopathic dominant who threatens them at all times with eternal hell. Why would anyone kneel and pray to someone constantly intimidating them, and demanding their absolute obedience, to the extent that Abraham agreed to murder his own son simply because "God" commanded it? It's the nature of these people. They are natural submissives. They want the strongest, the most psychopathic, to rule over them. That's why the 1% are in charge, despite all the odds. That's why tens of millions of poor Americans voted for a billionaire plutocrat to be their President and rule over them.

The poor love being ruled by the rich. They believe the rich are on their side. They couldn't be more wrong. The only side the rich are on is their own. That's the First Law of the Human Race.