The

REAL  

Truth

Behind

Wealth

Creation

Perry C. Douglas Oct 23, 2020

Many People talk about the need for Black populations to close the economic “Wealth Gap.”  But when pressed, most don’t have any real idea as to how.  Why?  Lack of real knowledge and critical thinking on the subject matter.

Getting to the real story of wealth creation before one seeks solutions would enhance the probability of future successful outcomes.

In 2020, the killing of George Floyd coupled with the activism of the Black Lives Matter movement, saw Black populations around the world become more conscious towards achieving racial equity.  Economic growth is now seen as the most critical factor in socioeconomic progress; the most logical path forward towards closing the racial wealth gap.

However, a defined strategy for effective execution must be the forerunner. Politicians, policymakers, community activists, corporate executives, entrepreneurs and more, all have gotten into the solutions discussions. However, ideas not backed by data and relentless iteration are at a higher risk of failure. Therefore, scientifically formulated strategies for the most optimal results to very complex problems must be prioritized.

 

The challenges of the day didn’t just appear out of anywhere, it was created over time through entangled decision making and actions in an ever-evolving universe.  Too often, however, when examining complex socio-economic problems, careful examinations of the related history is pushed aside for ill-considered and hastily prepared agendas and solutions. Nevertheless, the critical quantitative examination of the historical evidence still stands as the most prudent and reliable way forward.

 

In psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s Nobel prize-winning book, Thinking, Fast and Slow; two modes of thought are analyzed: “System 1” which is fast, instinctive and emotional; and “System 2” which is slow, deliberative, and logical.  Strategically, let’s just avoid "System 1" and move directly to "System 2," and let the reliability of science and historical evidence shape our future decisioning. 

  

The challenge in front of us today is two-fold.  First, we need to adjust our mindset and understanding of the formidable mountain of 400 years of entrenched white supremacy culture, which has forged inequality and social injustice into the very fabric of our universe. Second, recognize that rigorous fact-based non-intuitive decisioning should be the most logical, proven and viable way forward, for effective, sustainable, and executable solutions. 

 

 

History Tells the Real Story

 

The fallacy that continues to be pushed in relation to entrepreneurship and wealth creation, is that, the origins of wealth in the modern sense is a Western phenomenon, created by really smart, hard-working and enterprising  white men.  These men, based on intellect are seen as greatly advancing Western civilization...celebrated for their brilliance, innovative and risk-taking in the advancement of free enterprise.  The narrative goes on the say that these men introduced new ideas, products, and services into the marketplace, which led to trade and commerce in the creation of industry and wealth over time. 

 

This false narrative goes something like this:

 

“Once upon a time, the world was full of unused resources. Clever businesspeople came along and found ways to add value to these resources by extracting them for use in industrial processes. Thanks to the invisible hand of unfettered markets (keep governments small enough to drown in a bathtub and only allow regulations that support the hoarding of wealth by holders of financial capital), this “value add” creates wealth in the form of rising GDP and the creation of jobs. All you have to do is let the wealth “trickle-down” from the super-rich as they pile up increasingly huge masses of money.”  Joe Brewer, The REAL Story of Wealth Creation 

 

None of this is true of course!  It didn’t even remotely happen that way.

  

Instead, the real story is one of a developed dominating white supremacy culture...lies, deceit, stolen economics in the development of a rigged hierarchical white supremacy system and culture. A system purposely built that kept certain groups of people at the top, in control of the natural and human resources from production to profit. While others remained at the bottom.  

 

 

How Poverty is Created

 

The process of wealth creation came through the leveraging of land and scarce resources, but the flip side of wealth creation, however, is poverty. Wealth is created through the control of the production ecosystem, hoarding of profits and the exclusion of others, through exclusionary class and culture.

 

It can be described the following way according to Brewer:

 

“Poverty is created when the political expression of an economic system (for production and allocation of material information) takes sources of wealth away from some people and transfers it into the hands of other people, often changing forms (like the conversion of mass to energy) along the way.”

 

The most concrete example of this can be found in 17^th Century Britain.  

 

The King had all the power, and along with all the other members of the aristocracy, the noble class owned most of the prime lands, the most important natural resource, containing an abundance of sustainable commodity-based resources, including fishing, hunting, gathering, and shelter.  The land was the single most important source of wealth and prosperity; therefore, who controlled the land, controlled the wealth and access to it. 

 

During that time, peasant farmers were forcibly removed from their land by the state, which they had previously existed on subsistence farming for generations.  The aristocratic system directed wealth through this privileged hierarchical system.  It had nothing to do with merit, hard work, or brilliance.  Instead, it was through the complete power of the state/king that wealthy aristocrats and merchants thrived on. This group systematically began to privatize the land-based commons, kicking peasants off, or forcing them to rent the land in order to maintain their existence.  This is of course how cities like London formed…as peasants with no land and resources moved into urban dwellings looking for work, forming the basis of modern poverty from an urban perspective.  

 

The aristocracy created an impenetrable wealth creation engine and ecosystem, by privatizing land ownership—keeping equity in the hands of the very few while passing down wealth and privilege inter-generationally.  Even after democracy finally shunted aside hereditary lords, they still found new means to protect their extravagant riches.  Of course, they believed that the hereditary principle meant entitlement, and of course, the parliamentary system of government still secured the system in several ways.

 

“Behind the beauty of the British aristocracy’s stately homes and the sometimes romantic and eventful lives they led, lies a darker story: a legacy of theft, violence, and unrepentant greed.” Chris Bryant, The Guardian

 

From a historical perspective, the British aristocracy’s defining feature, as characterised by Bryant, was not of any noble aspirations to serve the common good, but a desperate singular desire for self-advancement and stolen riches.  They stole land under the pretense of religion or reverence, in the early middle ages, they seized it by conquest, they expropriated, and they enclosed it for their private use under the pretense of efficiency and society.  They then corruptly carved out industries, commerce, and trade for further self-enrichment.

 

The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade then was an extension of the aristocracy system in Britain. Slaves were simply seen as another economic resource of production, with the extraordinary production value, as a super-asset...via free labour.  Slaves were in fact more valuable than gold because of their long-term economic production value. The white supremacy system developed to further expand and put the aristocratic class at the pinnacle of all society, and they “held on to it with a vice-like grip.” They continued to endlessly reinforce their own system…enforcing deference on others through ostentatious and exorbitant spending on palaces, clothing, and jewellery—great plantation houses in the Caribbean.  They laid down a strict set of restrictive mobility traditions, rules, and laws for the rest of societies to follow, providing cover while they lived corruptly and immorally within the system they created.

 

Such a sense of entitlement allowed them to dominate land, natural resources, and human labour for industrial activity.  With that hierarchical society system firmly in place, it unassailably allowed the system to continue, with the reinforcement of the church of course.  It was able to   convince people that this was not only moral and right, but sanctioned by God!

 

 

“The secret to the survival of the old aristocracy through the centuries was the mystique of grandeur they cultivated. They dressed, decorated, and built to impress so that nobody dared question their right to rule. The secret of their modern existence is their sheer invisibility.”    Chris Bryant

 

 

Therefore, in lifting the vial on the origins of wealth creation over the last 500 years or so, it also allows us to see, that the only thing truly special about the British aristocracy, was thievery, and its ability to pull off the big white supremacy lie, successfully, and for so very long. 

 

      The Duke (second left) and Duchess of Marlborough (right), with Alexander and Scarlett Spencer-Churchill, Goodwood. Photograph: Dave Benett/Getty Images

Understanding the Organic Playbook

 

The fundamental laws of quantum mechanics in physics can be borrowed for a moment or two, for illustration, and applied to our understanding of economic ecosystem dynamics. In its most innate dimensions.  The natural environment of matter, including human matter, functions with natural frequencies and movements in relation to the environment.  Within this natural ecosystem, energy is manifested towards extracting values from the surrounding natural resources.  These energy forces begin to organize, creating various power structures that combine forces in the universe, organized to achieve certain favourable outcomes.  This power then identifies other resources and objectives in relation to creating value from it.  Eventually, those with the most powerful accumulation of productive energy and capacity begin to send out more frequencies into the universe. Attracting other like-minded power sources.  The power dynamics begin to form...expand, pretty soon this concentrated power creates an ecosystem.  One that converges for the expressed and exclusive control of the most important information matrix, and knowledge systems of production.  Barriers then begin to go up to protect their value.  Divides between those with dynamic power and those without, take state, position or place and status in society, now begin to be framed.  Opportunity and mobility now become a direct function of 'birth-right.' 

 

Information and knowledge systems are also privatized too, shifting the productivity curve way out of the reach of those not in the system.  In time, this power group’s core function is to forward and maintain this socioeconomic construct. Maintain the order and exclusion by keeping others out of the productivity and profit loop.    

 

Wealth essentially derives from productivity gains through leveraging of the natural world—the land, natural resources, human labour…into becoming commodities to be utilized toward value creation, along the supply chain.  The entire process develops a foundation to leverage wealth creation for the controlling group.  In other words, the origin of wealth is nature itself; monetized through the precise control of industrial activity and commercialized application.  

 

 

 

The Black Experience

 

 

The ‘Great’ British Empire expanded through the continuation of the institutionalized aristocratic system, now being applied extraordinarily, and aggressively, void of any semblance of morality to African people.  The Slavery production model drove exponential growth for Britain, beginning with the Transatlantic Slave Trade, continually evolving right through to post-colonial times.

 

People of African descent became the new economic engine for European expansion and multi-generational wealth creation. Systematically transitioning over the centuries.  Continually being reinforced under the white supremacy lie and the duplicity of Christianity.  Religion, can't be denied, as one of the greatest instruments of white supremacy manipulation and control in the history of civilization. Religion remains one of the greatest pillar architects of inequality structures and systems of injustice, that has become the enduring experience for Black people in the universe.

 

Consequently, economics remains at the core of this 400+years experience.  The entire wealth creation system, in the context of the Caribbean Slave Plantation system and colonialism, was created to leverage and maximize land wealth. By systematically extracting natural and human resources from plantation-based economies in the Caribbean to facilitate global commerce for the enrichment of Europeans. 

 

Barbados, for example, was the first society anywhere in the world to be built and sustained entirely upon the enslavement of Africans. There were no alternative systems of economic development in Barbados during that period in history, the system was ruthlessly enforced by the ‘The Barbados Slave Code.’  The hierarchical slave code was authored and enforced by plantation owners (aristocrats), firmly backed and facilitated through legislation and policy by the British state.  Therefore, imperialism, the slave trade, plantation slave economy, and colonialism, the entire construct, could never have been successful without the express support and facilitation of the state.

 

The system of “Triangular Trade” as it was known -- between Africa (slaves’ resource), Caribbean, US, and Brazil (plantations…raw resources), Europe (industrial activity, trade, and commerce, wealth creation), was the economic engine of European expansion around the world.   

 

“The West is rich because it took resources from other parts of the world. And the top earners in all nations accumulated their fortunes by extracting it from the productive labor of workers within their own countries (and by forcing “free trade” agreements that used the market competition to suppress wages on increasingly global labor markets).”  Brewer

 

 

The mass divergence between wealth and poverty in relation to Black populations experiences, is over 400-years in the making!  The history and understanding of the awesomeness of that, requires a knowledgeable weaponized mindset to begin overriding that reality, overcoming, and moving forward with confidence  toward closing the Black wealth gap.  

 

It’s time to flip the script…write our own story!

 

 

 

The Proven Path Forward

 

 

Now that we know the true story; how can that knowledge be used to influence our mindset and change our future economic and social experiences, in the context of Black (Caribbean) economic growth? 

 

How we organize, manage, and control the socioeconomic forces in our space and time, bending the region's opportunity and prosperity curve upwards, will be a determining factor.  How we organize, leverage, produce and execute in the quantum, will contribute to the trajectory!   And how we maximize the utility of advanced technologies to leapfrog onto the global production scene, will determine our prosperity curve experience in the future!

 

If we can create and control our own economics...from resource extraction, processing, manufacturing…sales/marketing, digital commerce, entrenching ourselves into the global supply chain?  We can achieve a long-term sustainable export economy and increase our wealth?  As demonstrated by the British aristocrats, control, skilled and efficient management of economic ecosystems allows for enormous socioeconomic achievement.

 

Economics is not a morality play, so, we must not get emotionally caught up when thinking about the complete lack of morality in the British system/model.  We just take what we need to help in building our own engineered model, to our own benefit.  As we  do not have to behave like the British, for example, to become successful ourselves.  

 

Focus instead on the key take-ways—power, control, execution of your own resources and leveraging them to prosperity for your own people!   

 

 

 

Riding the Wealth Curve

   

Wealth is derived from productive capacity in any natural ecosystem and rises or falls based on the arranged forces of those in control of it.  The levering and weaponizing of the productivity information complex, also allows for the maximization of technology for efficiency, utilization, for higher profitability.  Those who can position themselves effectively, utilizing resources, particularly technology, can continuously transfer production capacity within their own ecosystem.  Conversely, poverty is simultaneously created for those systematically shut-out of that same system. 

 

The disadvantaged people must figure out how to create advantages for themselves.  The system is not just going to hand it over.  It must be taken.  If we scientifically understand how wealth is created in a historical context...can we not build concrete intelligent economic information systems and business models to successfully engineer and execute through?  Science must remain at the forefront of effective and sustainable solutions, recognizing the inherent value of being in full control of ones' own economics.

 

For Caribbean populations, the future of a sustained economic development existence will come from the effective utility of leveraged resources.  Underwritten by complex information systems and Artificial Intelligence technologies, more specifically.   

 

The newly emerging playbook is applying intelligence to create exponential value to advance a society. 

 

Wealth creation is first driven by mindset, which is a choice, and so too is the chosen growth trajectory a society decides upon; none of which is an inevitability nor predetermined.   

 

Historically, the future wealth of any nation is directly correlated to its productivity gains, derived through technology investments that drive efficiency and innovation.  

 

 

Therefore, decisions matter, and the critical decision facing the Caribbean today, is one of acceptance and adaptation to the prevailing new economy reality.  A reality whereby the more resilient economies of the world are the ones that have become strategic and increasingly diverse and digital.  

 

 

"Since slavery until now, black people have been engineered into a political and social underclass, which is worsening decade by decade."

                                                                                     John Thomas  

 

 

It is time to engineer ourselves out and into prosperity.  We, therefore, need to build that road map with attainable milestones and the necessary measurement tools to help determine whether we are making the necessary progress.