INDEPENDENCE



The issue of independence becomes more complicated in an overpopulated world with diminishing resources. The individual's capacity to live independently is becoming more and more unlikely. The days of mountain men and remote independent farmers have passed in most areas of the planet.

 

The current U.S. obsession with entrepreneurial independence is somewhat delusional. Small business loans come from big business banks. The goal of entrepreneurs is often to go public and make a fortune on the stock market. Entrepreneurs often turn to government assistance in the form of tax deductions and grants.

 

While touting financial independence, capitalists devise more and more ways to get wealthy off the masses in the form of corporate welfare or selling less for more. July 4th is a celebration of the Declaration of Independence in the U.S.. That declaration has sustained its popularity because of its assertion of a human rights agenda, not just because it avowed freedom from unfair taxation by aristocratic power.

 

If all citizens were secure in their equality and basic human rights in the U.S., the issue of the day would not be isolated self-determination. The issue of the day would be how to best serve the individual needs of the people through enlightened governance and social activism.