Fixing society isn't that difficult if you really think about it

Vinz will fix it...

Are you tired of living in this dog-eat-dog, push the opposition in front of a moving bus, “panacea” that we’ve created? Because I sure as hell don’t see how we can keep this clown-car going. Here’s a nice statistic fer ya: if the whole planet lived like the French (who are far from being the worst polluters in the world), we’d need 2,7 planets to cover all our needs in resources and energy. Lovely, innit?

However, if there’s something that makes me madder than polluting with reckless abandon, it’s the silly discourse bien-pensant that rears its ugly little head when talking about these kinds of issues: “we need better education”, “we have to change how we live”, says the savant while pinching his chin, like he’s discovered something really profound.

The “education” canard is the cure-all remedy for our social and political maladies. Why did people vote for such a terrible candidate? They’re uneducated. Why do they throw trash on the street? Family education and values. Why do they eat all that sugar? They just don’t know better…

The truth is, we live in a capitalistic society where people follow monetary incentives. And you don’t have to be a genius to look around and figure out where the money is concentrating: speculative finance that produces nothing. Bear with me; I’ve long abandoned Marxism (not that I ever was a full-blown Che Guevara doppelgänger or something), but I have a hard time reading Adam Smith or even Hayek or Ayn Rand and finding the part that says it’s a great idea to fuel a country’s economy with the grifter model you find in Wall Street.

Let me give you some concrete ideas to illustrate my point. Both my parents were high-level University professors, a line of work I fancied myself in some time ago. I wasn’t too concerned with the financial aspects of the profession, until it started getting really difficult to be a professor in Venezuela. That’s why after finishing my PhD I got stuck: going back to Caracas to teach for the 20$/month salary (at the time, now it’s LESS) and then having to open an Only Fans page or sell coke or something to survive, seemed like a very unfashionable option.

Ergo, I became a teacher (of sorts) in France. I taught classes at a private business school and had a humongous workload for little pay. It was alright, though: I got by and managed to fend for myself in the concrete jungle.

Nevertheless, Sarkozy’s reform on work hit, pushing all us teachers into freelance contracts. We went from being employed, with a stable contract and some compensation for holidays, to a pay-by-the-hour, rent-a-teacher, kind of system. A stampede of excellent professors left immediately, I followed suit some years later when, exhausted and broke, it just became too difficult.

Now, about 5 years removed from my teaching experience, I find myself in the midst of a “Consulting” Cabinet. What’s a “Consulting Cabinet”, you say? It’s the place souls come to when they want to die. It’s the place where money is funneled down our throats like a goose being fattened to make foie gras. It’s the place where the word “Ethics” means nothing. As an anecdote, when I joined, they suggested I watch “The Wolf of Wall Street” (I kid you not) to see what great selling skills Di Caprio had. I meekly pointed out that I thought they weren’t getting the moral of the movie: don’t be an asshole investor who robs people with penny stocks. They looked at me like I was mad.

Fast-forward to last week, when I talked my kid’s primary school teacher after the annual school play. We didn’t get into salary considerations, but I have other friends teaching in the school system, so I’ve got the figures. Here goes:

One of my friends, a middle-school teacher of literature, makes about 1,800 € per month. He’s in charge of a class of 15-year-olds he has to motivate to get them to read Rimbaud, Molière, François Villon and all the other classics, while also writing and grading exams.

(Picture of Arthur Rimbaud during his rare and unknown “Trap Rap” period).

He had to do a 5-year course in University and a very complicated exam to get accepted to that retched post.

Compare that to ANY of my former students in Business School: they only did a 2-year course (which frankly wasn’t difficult at all), including a 6-month internship, and would get offered a minimum of 2,200 € on their first contract.

Let’s not even mention the money-hungry piranhas who work at my current company: any of these mediocre specimens makes over 3K € a month, sometimes raking in 4 or 5K with commissions. They also studied for only 2 years and come from private business schools (cost: about 10K a year).

On the other hand, nurses and doctors (sorely needed in France) have to study for 7 or even 10 years, but they make good money after obtaining their degree. Maybe.

So back to my question, before: if you establish an incentive-based system running on money, where do you think the smartest people in society are going to flock to? If you’re smart and talented, you won’t bat an eyelid: you’ll pick finance something-something and probably wind up in a hedge fund. You’re not going to pick nurse, or teacher at 1,800 € a month, over trader (of course some people do; I’m not saying everyone is corrupt or lacking morals).

Let me rephrase that: Why are we mobilizing our best talents and social resources towards vampire-capitalism ventures? Because, let’s get something straight: Wall Street, the LSE, the French CAC 40, the Tokyo Exchange and all the others aren’t in the business of creating jobs or developing the economy. The biggest joke is calling that “capitalism”. Last I checked, Adam Smith’s examples in The Wealth of the Nations were about Portugal selling wine and England selling cloth; he never said a hostile corporate takeover, followed by downsizing in order to chop the company into bits and sell it for as much value possible, was a great model to follow. If we update his example, it would have to be something like, “Portugal buys all of England’s cloth, damages them to get the insurance to pay, sues England, makes them go broke and then turns around and sells the damaged cloth on the African Continent at a 500% increase”.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, will change until this broken system of incentives is corrected. In my book, my kid’s teachers are the ones making 4K a month, living lavishly and taking long vacations, as well as the nurses and doctors. Traders, on the other hand, are regarded as what they are: bottom feeders who create no jobs, are addicted to money (and blow in 99% of the cases) and should only make 1,800 €/month while being greeted with the utmost social scorn and opprobrium.

Then and only then, will things start to change. Heed my warning, because when the “proletariat” gets wind of what’s going on, they’re going to come with pitchforks, and I wouldn’t blame them…