Knowledge
and the Future of Freedom
"Education gifts knowledge, knowledge gifts capabilities,
capabilities gifts freedom"
- SOC
If the smartest of us only employs around 15% of their
brain, and the simplest uses say 6%, then the difference between the smartest
and simplest is only 9%.
If we can increase the simplest person's brain capacity by
9% we would all have relatively astoundingly capabilities.
Capabilities, which reflect the application of knowledge, can create
produce. Produce generally enhances standards of living.
Knowledge in agriculture gave people the capability to no
longer depend on scavenging or hunting for often scarce food sources.
Agricultural knowledge gave the gift of freedom from food sources we often had little
control over, and provided a substantially more dependable food source.
For centuries landlords employed the access to food to enslave people, to keep them
subservient.
Free Market Agrarian Systems provide competitive forces to
ensure that food always remains cheap and readily available. Almost all people
now have the knowledge of how to grow food, regardless, anyone who personally
does not have this basic knowledge can easily obtain it.
By ensuring an Open
Free Market without monopolistic control of agriculture, the scarcity of food
and the possibility of food being employed to enslave society is now gone.
Knowledge in industry gave people the capability to no
longer be subservient to those who owned the land. Industrial knowledge was the
gift of freedom from slavery to those who controlled agriculture. Today
many are now enslaved to obesity! However, we can only blame the
individual for eating too much.
Expert Societies
A person who is able to apply knowledge more effectively
than others is referred to as an expert. Fields and ranges of expertise
vary significantly. Some of us are good at some things other are not as capable in,
this leads to a specializes expert society.
If a person learns how to accomplish something ten times
faster than others are able to accomplish the same task, then it generally makes
sense for that person to barter their skill for other services or goods, just as
a farmer barters their produce.
Expert societies are economical and competitive. Everyone
can in some way benefit from an expert society. The key is to provide people
with education to gain expertise that is in demand.
As societies advance in their
relative levels of expertise, the level or standards of living elevates with the
rest of that society. For example, what is considered the poverty level in the
U.S.A., around $12,000 per year, is at the top of the income level in many other
countries. Survival in some countries still means having enough food to live
and perhaps a complete set of simple clothes and a room to live in. In the U.S.A. the
question of owning a vehicle or having plentiful access to entertainment can
enter the 'survival' question.
Specialization and expert societies work. Education is the
foundation of such societies.
Education the Foundation of Expert Societies
My good friend and business associate, Sumi Takaichi,
tells of a time when he was around five years old. It was the end of the second
world war, and Sumi’s family had just moved to Tokio. Most of us think of
Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the cities wiped out by atomic bombs, when we think of
Japan at the end of the second world war. However, as Sumi points out, Tokio
was the number one target, it was not worth dropping another bomb on Tokio, the
city was devastated. Sumi recalls how may days during that time, his family
would go without food. Japan was devastated and brought low in defeat, the
countries infrastructure wiped out. Without any significant natural resources,
other than people, the future of Japan looked bleak.
Sumi recalls what happened
in those years after the war. The people and government focused on the only
natural resource they had, people. Japan embarked on an intensive education
program. Out of the ashes of destruction, through education, this devastated
poor nation devoid of natural resources was able to raise the standards of living of their people to one of
the highest standards in the world. Japans people were saved by knowledge,
wisdom and understanding through education.
It is also valuable to understand form the example of
Japan, that the roll of government was primarily orientated around ensuring the
availability of decent education. The focus in Japan after the war was also to
eliminate monopolistic control and institute free-market principles. After the
war, agricultural land in Japan, was taken from a minority of large land owners
and distributed amongst the people who farmed the land. With owner-farmers, the
incentive to increase agricultural output significantly improved the quality and
quantity of food being produced.
People properly express concern with respect to maintaining
separation between church and State. Throughout history we have
repeatedly seen underlying corruption in the church ganging up with
State to form the most evil of empires. There should however, be a
greater concern for separation of school and State since the ratio is
one hour per week for church verses eight or more hours per day for
school.
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