This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “How would you design a society where everyone has the opportunity to succeed?”
Until Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, humanity was well on its way to perfecting that democratic society in which everyone had a reasonable opportunity to achieve class mobility and a basic form of success that permitted a life of dignity with what was characterized as the “American Dream.”
A mortgage on a house with a surrounding picket fence, a vehicle, a family with 2.5 kids and an annual vacation wasn’t only possible but virtually guaranteed to anyone who made the effort to earn it.
They betrayed the entire middle class around the world to curry favour from the wealthy who have long desired a return to a barbaric age of kingdoms with rulers and disposable serfs.
We failed to modernize the one institution that has proven itself the greatest threat to the goal of an egalitarian society, industry.
Almost every other entity in society is a democratic body. Corporations, however, are holdovers from a medieval structure of rigid hierarchy fraudulently appointing members to an inner circle of power, allegedly based on merit, while elevating those who support their corrupt application of power.
We can repair this mess of corruption with only a few fixes, but one of the most important and most easily overlooked solutions will be a difficult challenge to implement. It will (and has been) meet(ing) massive resistance by those who most adamantly refuse to give up their power, as it involves restructuring how corporations exist and do business in society.
We can quickly implement numerous initiatives today, such as UBI, Universal Healthcare, and Universal access to education, that will have long-term implications leading toward much more stable societies that can guard against corruption.
Other initiatives, such as a global cap on personal net worth and restructuring industry into democratic institutions, are potentially much more disruptive to society. We are, however, fortunate to find ourselves amidst a radical transformation into full automation throughout every level of society. This transformation will allow us to restructure political systems while increasingly democratizing society and flattening global power structures.
The only way to ensure society can facilitate opportunities for everyone to succeed is to flatten power and spread it across the globe to the people. At this stage in our history, our existence faces an existential threat due to the corruption of disproportionate power running rampant throughout society. It may be the case that we will have to rely on historical inspirations to repair the damage the wealthy class has done to society and make reparations for their betrayal of the social contract.
thotbag 
There’s a lot here I agree with—especially the idea that corporations are feudal relics in a world that pretends to be democratic. We elect our officials, but spend most of our lives in systems where power is inherited, insulated, and rarely earned.
I also think your take on Reagan and Thatcher is on point. They didn’t just shift policy—they rewrote the social contract. The “American Dream” wasn’t killed overnight, but it was mortgaged to the highest bidder.
That said, I think we have to ask: what kind of success are we really promising? If it’s still defined by wealth, property, and productivity, we’re just polishing the same pyramid. But if success means agency, dignity, and time to pursue what matters—that opens the door to something truly human.
Democratizing power—political and economic—isn’t idealistic. It’s necessary. And maybe the first step isn’t a revolution, but a quiet revolt in how we define value, purpose, and the future we’re actually trying to build.
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Thanks for your comment. I think part of the problem is a presumption that success needs to be defined for the people rather than allowing the people to define success for themselves.
We live in a post-scarcity world. The people suffering today are victims of artificial scarcity and the politics of power. My view is that power needs to be flattened and spread around like peanut butter. The flatter our power structures are, the more democratic our societies, and the more freedom people have to define their own successes.
The only caveat is that we need to address issues of education and mental health while I believe UBI goes a long way toward addressing the latter and making education free at the point of access addresses the former. I believe our problems are easy to resolve while overcoming the barriers placed on the solutions by concentrated power to be the threat we must address.
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