Deep in the Desert under the flowing lava of a red hot sun, people work. They labour in a blazing oven slapped around by abrasive winds, where a sandy terrain caves in as if to swallow you into its jaws like furnace.
It was Vikid’s pleasure or curse depending on however you looked at it, to lead these men, to motivate them and to ensure their good health while getting maximum productivity out of their every drop of sweat.
It was something that took him years to come to terms with.
You see, Vikid grew up in the idillic green pastures of English countryside. Steeped himself in liberal studies and theories about what was good and just. He studied the works of Jeremy Bentham and John Locke. He found himself agreeing with Marx, and later Ludwig von Mises. Then he studied engineering, math and computer science.
All wonderful, but it never quite got you ready for the desert, or to men who have cut steel with plasma torches or dip it into 200 tonnes of molten zinc at 430 degrees Celsius to save it from corrosion.
It didn’t get you ready for the clients that scream at you, threaten your existence for not getting things done on time. Or squeeze you so tight, you’re not sure how to make ends meet.
It took time to figure out that most of the time theory doesn’t match up with reality. That Taxes actually hurt the poor, not help them. The people sitting in air conditioned offices, spouting do good policies have no business running an economy let alone a roadside coffee stop.
Taxes always hurt the poor. The final cost is always, and I mean always, passed down to them. No matter where you strike. Fine sand always finds its way to the bottom of the jug where it finally hits the consumer. The poor are primarily consumers. They are not investors. The rich consume far less in proportion.
Most of the time it was small to medium sized business owners to had to deal with the real economy.
The labor were too close to the baking sand. Fortunately or not, they did not have a wide enough spectrum. Digging holes for 10 hours a day is honest work but hardly a vantage point to survey the desert.
The Masters of the Universe who dealt in the billions and trillions were too far away. They looked at the galactic scale and our solar system was their hole to dig. War for them was just collateral damage. They never got close enough to see the trauma.
They controlled the levers of justice, tax and regulations.
The white lab coats never really saw anything directly either. If they did it was narrow study, a requirement for any proper science. They spent 5 years studying some pulse of a neutron star, or unfolding mechanism of string of RNA. Looking down a microscope was just another form of digging a hole, albeit better paid and with prestige.
Theory pushers sat in libraries and had all their funds provided to them for towing the line. These people dug theoretic holes but would lose tenure and grant funds if their sorry pit ever fell in the wrong place or questioned the dogma de jour.
Students were still idiots, unexposed and easily diverted to any cause.
The spiritual. God help them. Vikid had been there too. They dug holes in other dimensions, pontificated about matters of the soul and of the heart. They were mostly good people but blind to the banality of evil. They were easily misled on matters of reality because their business was dogma by definition.
Ah it was the regular business man or woman. Who had to make payroll every month. Who had to buy equipment and stock (on interest baring loans) at the risk of bankruptcy. It was he, who had to understand the lay off the land, who had to plan where the holes went and understand the mechanics of digging. How much it would cost to dig each one. How much he could charge for it and then find the guy to dig it, pay him on time. It was he or she who had to jump through every rule and regulation, then finally pay tax on it, so some other guy could tell him he wasn’t paying enough. It was he who knew how any tax or regulation finally ended up being paid by the consumer!
That was the person facing reality, daily.
It was also the person no one ever listened to. Not the employee who resented digging holes, nor the stuck-up lab coat who knew best and had a certificate to prove it, nor the galactic hero who controlled the media and was squeezing him while smiling with a flute full of champagne on a mega yacht.
And that’s,
Change of pace. I like it. Thank you. 🙏