Fight and Struggle for Economic Freedom

    By the time most of us hit our teen years we understand the concepts or notions of making money, having financial freedom, or power, to purchase things. Or, so that we profit even to control and influence a lot of other people and things.

    Many of us never arrive at achieving those goals of self-made or self-accomplished achievement, monetarily or financially. Many? Most? Many people do accomplish their goals, and that is a testament to them and the system that they have operated in and managed to succeed in.

    Some people are needful of the greater systems to help and assist them, like the government programs and initiatives that give them opportunities to work, or save, or be assisted to meet their dreams of ownership, financial independence, or control of their own destiny.

    In the United States and the Western world, many have done this. In non-Western or non-capitalist systems and regimes, some "oligarchs" have achieved their power and stability, i.e. wealth, through power politics, or corruption, fortuitous positioning or networking. Some of it is through murder and treachery, as Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, or Pol Pot proved. Check any number of third world dictators and usurpers, to include Agusto Pinochet of Chile, or any number from Guatemala to Argentina and Brazil, across the continents of Africa and Asia.

    Who provides ways for us to get ahead? The monarchs or ideologues of the oil rich Middle East?

    Which parties in our country help us achieve these places of ability and opportunity, and freedom? The Democrats, the Republicans, the Libertarians? The Socialists or even Communists? Conservative or liberal, moderate or extreme radical or reactionary approaches.

    What of deeper faith and religion, or should we maintain secular pursuits and empirically scientific methods of elucidating our ways to success?

    Is there an answer in all of the above? Is the plurality of the modern world the right fit? It must be for now. That is where we find ourselves. Each of us swimming and pushing in our own milieus and environments.