The Definition Of Success

Many years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte scoffed at the English as a 'nation of shopkeepers'. He could not understand how a country whose main activity was commerce, and whose people were not directed by a Pre-Fascist regime like his own, could possibly defy him.
Throughout England there were still many small farmers, plus a myriad of small local traders.
If anything scars England and marks our twenty-first century Post Fascist society, it is the disappearance of these individual traders.
There are still a host of electricians and plumbers, glazers and decorators and mechanics to fill the gaps in the domestic services market, but the vast majority of shops and businesses belong to chains.
Though some of these businesses are owned by rich individuals, many more are owned by pension funds, insurance funds and the like.
Whether it be your food or your car or your clothes or your shoes, the chances are that they are produced by a large company, and that they are not produced in your locality.
Independent producers are an endangered species.
Instead of working independently most of us now work for the company or the government.
All these organizations are hierarchies. All of them contain people at the top of the pyramid and an ever widening base towards the bottom.
To get more money, and to gain prestige, a person has to make their way up the pyramid.
This is the daily reality for countless millions.
They are in competition with their fellows.
Like in the army, their rank is what defines them.
If they have power over others, their arrogance grows.
To have power to dispose of the fortunes and the lives of others is seen as the mark of success.
The whole world is a gang, not a brotherhood. The whole world bows the knee to the master or the mistress.
These psychologically damaged people, who seek power over others, cannot comprehend those who simply wish to enjoy a quiet life and to do a good job.
So inadequate are they, so lost to human feeling, so devoted to selfishness and servility they proclaim their sickness as a virtue.
In a sick society Success is not defined by giving, skill, family, but by our rung on the ladder of the military bureaucratic hierarchy. Our power in controlling others is what gives us prestige.