The Age of Aquarius and the Body Politic

If we were to make a list of Aquarian values, love and compassion would rank highly. Concern for the common good is considered simple common sense. Greed, on the other hand, is looked upon as an unenlightened perspective responsible for global poverty and strife.

The pervasiveness of human greed, however, suggests that it is an integral part of our nature. Indeed, many philosophers look upon humankind as inherently "evil" because we so often look out for Number One.

As Aquarians, we also have great respect for Mother Nature. If she gave us greed, she must have had a good reason. Perhaps if we understood her purpose better, we could make greed work for the common good.

Obviously, our greed sometimes contributes to our bodily survival. If we can stockpile food, clothing, medicine and access to shelter, we give ourselves a better chance of surviving upheaval. Societies can also produce more life-sustaining items than each individual could separately. If individual sharing and service sustains the group, each individual would likely benefit as well. Thus, enlightened self-interest would balance greed with giving.

How do we find this balance in our society? Actually, we are all familiar with some good operating models in everyday life. For example, most of us patronize our favorite restaurants and avoid those we don't like. Our favorite restaurants give us better food, better prices, better service or a combination of these positive attributes. When we are free to choose, our business and the associated profit goes to the restaurants that serve best. Good karma follows good service -- in this lifetime!

But wait! Do the people at the restaurant serve us out of the goodness of their heart? Not exactly. They too are greedy -- they want to make a profit. They've discovered that when we are free to choose, they only get our money if they give us the best value in town. Their own selfishness drives them to serve us better than anyone else will. Individual greed becomes a vehicle for teaching service. Maybe Mother Nature was not so dumb after all!

The restaurant exchange is win-win, a great karmic balance. If the restaurant owners gave you their food for free, they'd soon run out of money and be out of business. They would lose -- and so would we when we had to go to a less desirable competitor when we wanted to eat out. Karmic balance would be lost.

Instinctively, our own greed tells us what works in karmic alignment. For example, imagine your reaction if the local heavyweight asked you to pay him to put all the restaurants except your favorite out of business. "I'll run them out of town at gunpoint, if I have to," your would-be employee claims.

"That's crazy!" you'd probably respond. "Why pay you anything? I just won't go to restaurants I don't like. I don't need to pay you money to 'protect' me from other restaurants. Each person reaps as they sow. If those other restaurants don't please customers, they'll go out of business. Besides, I don't hire gunslingers."

"But think of the waste from duplication!" the hopeful thug continues. "Instead of a single restaurant with one dishwasher, you've got more than a dozen running -- to the detriment of the environment! If you had only one restaurant, it wouldn't have to advertise! All those commercials and billboards would be gone! Prices could be lowered without all this waste. In the end, you'd save money!"

"How could prices be lower?" you ask. "As soon as my favorite restaurant had a monopoly, they'd probably charge monopoly prices. After all, they're greedy, just like everyone else."

"No problem!" claims the heavyweight. "For a small extra charge, I'll police their monopoly. They'll only be allowed the same margin of profit they have now. You can have all this for just a few bucks!"

I doubt any readers of this column would want to take the heavyweight up on his offer and incur the karma that hiring a gunslinger would entail. Yet, once upon a time, I'd go to the polls and vote for something very similar -- without any awareness of what I was really doing. Just to be sure you haven't fallen into the same trap, let me run through a historical example that has probably affected your life directly.

Do you remember the early history of the telephone industry? Prior to 1894, Bell Telephone's patents gave it a monopoly on telephones. When the patents expired, however, independent phone companies started up. They were smaller and gave their customers a more limited calling area, but they were cheaper, too. By 1907, half of the phone installations were made by the 20,000 smaller phone services. Evidently, many customers felt that they were served well by the independents.

Naturally, duplication, and the expense of duplication, eventually became a problem. The independent phone companies realized that could lower their prices substantially if they cooperated with each other and interconnected their lines. Lower prices would mean more customers and more profit. By serving their customers better than Bell Telephone, they would win and their customers would win. The independents began to work to make their dream a reality.

Bell Telephone had two choices. It could have lowered its prices and profits to match the independents so that it would serve its customers better. However, Bell took the other path. It lobbied to pass regulations which would allow only one telephone company (i.e., Bell) to provide service.

People went along with this because of the promises that less duplication would mean lower prices. In essence, the people of the United States hired their government as a gunslinger to put the other phone companies out of business. If another phone company attempted to solicit customers, its owners were stopped, at gunpoint if necessary.

The karma of hiring a gunslinger was visited upon the U.S. citizenry. With profits guaranteed, Bell, which became AT&T, kept costs high. Unlike other companies, AT&T could do as much research as it pleased, and charge its captive customers costs plus profit. The U.S. public found out just how much they had been overcharged when the regulations were relaxed in 1984 to allow competition in long distance service. (For more details on the AT&T monopoly, see Chapter 7 in my book, Healing Our World, which can be downloaded for free (instructions at end of article).)

In the AT&T example, greed was not used as Mother Nature intended. Individual greed worked towards the common good as long as aggression (first-strike force, fraud, or theft) did not enter into the picture. Although most of us would never dream of using aggression against our neighbors by personally hiring a gunslinger, collectively, without full awareness, we often hire our government to be the aggressor .

When we direct our government to aggress against our neighbors, we reap as we sow. In trying to control others, we find ourselves controlled. We rail against the tyranny of large corporations, seldom realizing that our desire to use government regulations as aggressive tactics is largely responsible for creating and sustaining them. The world we see is so often a reflection of what we do!

When we combine greed with aggression, its destructive impact is released upon society. When we refrain from aggression, our greed acts as Mother Nature intended--in harmony with the whole.

Mary J. Ruwart, Ph.D. (MaryRuwart@aol.com) would love to hear your comments and questions. She is the author of HEALING OUR WORLD: THE OTHER PIECE OF THE PUZZLE, which expands upon the concepts discussed in this column. HEALING can be downloaded for free (http://cyberpop.com/ebooks/mruwart/ruwartintro.html). Print orders may be purchased from the publisher for $14.95 plus $2 shipping and handling (SunStar Press, PO BOX 50342-MA, Kalamazoo, MI 49005) or by phone (1-800-356-9315). Mention The Monthly Aspectarian when you order!