Life for the Many, or Money for the Few?

A common reaction to this question is, “how about more money for everyone?”

And that response alone should already be telling us something important about what we all need to recognise.

A Grim Outlook as 2026 Begins

As we roll into 2026, it’s difficult to picture anyone feeling genuinely happy or hopeful about the year ahead. Few would disagree that the road in front of us looks bleak.

That feeling alone would be reason enough for concern. But when we look ahead from the wide range of perspectives, backgrounds and political standpoints that even the quietest or least informed among us hold, very few believe there is an obvious solution that will make life feel good again in the months and years to come.

The only exception might be those who believe that gaining power for themselves will somehow deliver positive change for everyone – simply because they assume their own improved circumstances would be mirrored across society.

What We’re Told… and What We’re Not

Through the lens of the mainstream media (including many who insist they are anything but), the picture is stark.

Tax rises from every direction. Food prices climbing while we’re told inflation is falling. Thousands crossing the Channel seeking a better life that the state can no longer afford to provide. Digital ID policies creeping in through every possible back door. A government full of incompetents who barely bother to hide their ambitions for power. And now, even they openly appear to admit – just as the recently ousted Tories have done so – that civil servants don’t listen to them anyway.

Then there’s what isn’t being discussed openly, yet sits in plain sight the moment you look behind the sofa and chairs of this same living room.

The price of silver has surged. The current US administration’s approach to global policy resembles an economic war on everyone else. Iran may be on the verge of a revolution that many elsewhere may soon find themselves wishing for. And behind all of this lies the deeper reality: the harm caused by the West’s obsession with a money‑centric system that ignores the human cost, and the understandable desire of the rest of the world to have their own moment – once the West falls and they believe their time has come.

Hope in the Wrong Places

Yes, there is hope. But for most people, that hope is pinned on the idea that the same system and the same tools that brought us here will somehow save us – just as long as they are placed in different hands.

And this is where the dose of reality must come in.

Why Changing Politicians Won’t Change the System

There is a hard truth that many people are still trying to avoid: changing the politicians will not change the system.

Even the newest parties, even the ones that claim to be different, even the ones people are now pinning their hopes on – such as Reform – are still trying to work with the same broken tools.

They are still operating within a framework built around money, competition, corruption, centralisation and control. And no matter how sincere their intentions, no matter how fresh their faces, they cannot escape the reality that a system designed around money will always produce outcomes that serve money first.

Even if a party like Reform managed to sort out its recruitment problems, its leadership problems, its internal contradictions – it would still be trapped. Because the problem isn’t the personnel. It’s the operating system they are all trying to ‘win’ within.

And you cannot fix a failing operating system by installing new users.

You have to replace the system itself.

Money Can No Longer Solve the Problems Money Created

Because money – and more specifically the value of money – sits at the heart of everything we say, think and do, it feels natural to assume that money is also where the solutions lie.

Be honest with yourself, as so many now need to be: if you simply had more money -enough to pay for everything you want as well as everything you need – you believe that you’d feel happier about life, and it wouldn’t matter who was in charge, would it?

That’s how it feels to many of us. The solution appears simple, the outcomes easy to imagine. And that is precisely why we have become addicted to an unsustainable way of living that destroys everyone and everything to make a very small number of people very wealthy, while pushing aside everything that once held real value to humankind.

Money – and this money‑centric system of Moneyocracy – is responsible for almost every practical problem the world faces. Yet our so‑called leaders and elites, obsessed with it, continue trying to use it to create solutions when solutions that help all of us no longer exist within that framework.

The Illusion of Progress

As long as the system continues to function, we will still be able to earn, borrow or obtain more money. But because the deck is stacked and the flow of money is rigged, the numbers may rise while the value stays the same – or more likely, falls.

This paradox allows politicians to use doublespeak and gaslighting to convince us that things are, or will be better than ever.

In monetary terms – figures on a page – there will always be a way to manipulate statistics or analysis to argue that point with a straight face. But a system that can only succeed by impoverishing the many to benefit the few can only ever produce outcomes measured in money.

The real, non‑financial cost to humanity is beyond calculation, and it is spiralling out of control.

Everything about humanity and the human experience has been trashed so that money can rule, and those who benefit from the system can consolidate their control and keep making more.

A System That Has Reached Its End

The problem is that there is no “more” left for them to make. They already own everything that once had real value.

Now they are using that ownership to box everyone else into a corner through laws and regulations crafted for this very purpose – laws created by usefulidiot politicians like too many of those we have today, replacing the protections that once existed to prevent exactly this kind of tyranny being inflicted upon us, as they are now under the Moneyocracy.

This is not happiness.

Lack is not happiness.

Always feeling pressure to better ourselves is not happiness.

Mental health crises are not happiness.

Joblessness is not happiness.

Division is not happiness.

Financial servitude is not happiness.

Poverty is not happiness.

Yet we are expected to believe these things don’t matter – so long as we aren’t experiencing them personally.

What LEGS and BLS Offer That the Old System Never Can

This is where the Basic Living Standard and the Local Economy & Governance System stand apart.

They are not about swapping one set of politicians for another. They are not about trying to make a money‑centric system behave like a people‑centric one.

They are about building a foundation where people, community and environment come first – not as slogans, but as the structural basis of how life works.

LEGS and BLS don’t pretend that everyone is the same.

They make everyone the same in the only way that matters:

by ensuring that every person has the freedom, resources and security to meet their needs without fear, without servitude, and without dependence on the whims of markets or the ambitions of politicians.

This is personal sovereignty in the truest sense. Not the fantasy version sold by the money centric system. But the lived reality of having enough to live, enough to contribute, and enough to participate fully in the decisions that shape your community.

It is a contribution culture rather than a consumption culture.

A participatory democracy rather than a spectator democracy.

A system where value is measured in human terms, not monetary ones.

A Kind of Freedom Nobody Alive Today Has Truly Experienced

Because this system puts people first, not money, it offers something that almost nobody alive today has ever naturally experienced:

the feeling of being free simply because your needs are met, your community is strong, and your life is not defined by debt, scarcity or competition.

Most of us have only ever had a false version of that feeling – a temporary illusion created by credit, convenience or consumption.

But real freedom, the kind that comes from security, dignity and shared purpose, is something entirely different. And it is only possible when the foundations of society are built around people rather than profit.

We Still Have a Choice

The truth beneath all of this is that we do have a choice.

None of this would have been possible without generations of us blindly going along with it and playing our part.

We have already chosen money – and money as we know it is coming to its end.

If we do not choose life instead, life in any sense that has meaning will end with it.

Further Reading: Expanding the Conversation

The challenges outlined above – rising inequality, political stagnation, and the dominance of a money-centric system – are not isolated issues. They are deeply interconnected, shaping every aspect of our lives and the choices available to us.

To truly understand the roots of these problems and explore meaningful alternatives, it’s essential to look beyond headlines and political soundbites, and engage with broader perspectives and deeper analysis.

The following selection of articles and essays offers a structured journey through the wider context: from the origins and consequences of our current system, through the political and social dynamics that sustain it, to the human cost and the possibilities for genuine change.

Each piece is accompanied by a short summary to help you navigate the themes and insights they provide.

Whether you’re seeking to understand how we arrived at this crossroads or looking for practical ideas to help build a better future, these readings will help illuminate the path ahead.

1. Understanding the Core Problem: The Money-Centric System

2. The Consequences: Collapse, Exploitation, and Social Harm

3. Political Dynamics and the Illusion of Change

4. The Human and Social Cost

5. Alternatives and Solutions: Building a People-Centric Future

Minimum Wage, Maximum Exploitation: A Collapsing System Propped Up by Rising Taxes

Introduction

As the cost of living continues to climb across the United Kingdom, many households find themselves struggling to maintain even the most basic standards of financial independence.

With impending tax rises on the horizon, the pressure on those already living near the edge is set to intensify, pushing even greater numbers below the threshold of self-sufficiency.

This is not a temporary crisis, but a symptom of a deeper, systemic failure—a collapsing economic model that now survives only by extracting more from those who can afford it least.

The money-centric economic system that we have – The “Moneyocracy” – perpetuates itself by shifting the burden onto workers and taxpayers, while the promise of prosperity grows ever more distant for the majority.

Against this backdrop, it is essential to confront a fundamental question – one that exposes the uncomfortable realities at the heart of our economy.

A Question:

Do you believe the minimum wage is enough for a full-time worker to live on – and if so, why?

The answer to this question, which varies depending on one’s relationship with the minimum wage, reveals uncomfortable truths about the foundations of our economy and the way work is valued in this country.

What is not surprising is that those who already have financial security often agree in principle that low-paid workers should earn more. Yet when confronted with the implications of paying every worker enough to live independently, many recoil. Why? Because such a change would disrupt their own relationship with the economy.

The Minimum Wage Reality

Let us be clear: the national minimum wage in the UK is not enough for anyone working a full-time 40-hour week to live independently—free from reliance on benefits, charity, or debt.

The widespread acceptance of this wage stems from government and establishment narratives.

What is legally mandated is presented as morally and practically sufficient.

Yet, in truth, the minimum wage is a carefully placed rock covering a pit of myths and lies.

Those who benefit from the system prefer not to lift that rock, because doing so would expose their complicity in maintaining the illusion.

The Employee

A worker earning the minimum wage – currently £12.21 per hour, equating to £488.40 per week or £25,396.80 annually – cannot afford the basic essentials required for independent living.

The gap between what they earn and what they need is effectively the amount by which they are underpaid.

Employers exploit workers by failing to cover the true cost of living.

Regardless of how the deficit is filled—through benefits, charity, or debt—someone else is subsidising both the employee and the employer.

The Employer (Small Business)

Small business owners often insist they pay fairly because they comply with the law. Yet compliance does not equate to fairness.

Paying the legal minimum is not the same as paying enough for employees to live independently.

Common justifications include:

• “They can top up with benefits.”

• “I can’t pay more or I’ll go out of business.”

But these arguments miss the point. The government—and by extension, taxpayers—should not subsidise businesses that cannot afford to pay workers a living wage.

In reality, small businesses are also exploited: they cannot operate independently within the current economic system, because they too are constrained by models that undervalue their work.

The Employer (Big Business)

Large corporations differ because they can afford to pay more.

Supermarkets and other major employers of minimum-wage staff generate enormous profits – even during a cost-of-living crisis, like the one we are experiencing now.

They could easily pay wages that allow workers financial independence, if boards and shareholders accepted smaller returns.

Instead, big businesses exploit both employees and taxpayers. Workers are underpaid, while the government subsidises wages through benefits.

This allows corporations to maximise profits while keeping the mechanics of exploitation hidden from public debate.

The Government

Why does the government subsidise wages so small businesses can survive and big businesses can thrive? Why not simply set a minimum wage that reflects the true cost of living?

The answer is stark: doing so would collapse the system.

The economy functions by undervaluing the majority of jobs deemed “low-skilled” or of “little value.”

If wages reflected reality, the house of cards would fall.

The Taxpayer

The system is a con. The complex machinery of what can be called a Moneyocracy manipulates trust and deference so effectively that taxpayers rarely ask basic questions.

Why, in an economy where corporations make billions annually, must taxpayers top up their employees’ wages through taxes?

Why are we threatened with price hikes whenever government policy shifts, while corporate profits remain largely unscrutinised?

Following the money reveals the truth: wealth is funnelled in one direction, made possible only by exploiting workers, taxpayers, and weak governments.

Corporations profit by underpaying staff, then spin narratives that justify charging consumers more.

Reality Bites

Exploitation of normal people has gone too far. The system enriches the few by exploiting the many – sometimes multiple times over – so profits can grow while wages stagnate or reduce in real terms.

The Moneyocracy survives by perpetuating the myth that it is acceptable for many to grow poorer while a few grow disproportionately rich.

The promise dangled before workers – that if they play the game long enough, they too might “live the dream” – is false.

Humanity is destroying itself chasing a dream that continually recedes, because playing the game requires forgetting our true worth.

The basic equation of the Moneyocracy is simple: for some to be rich, most must be poor.

This is neither humane nor true.

The Alternative

There is another way. A system built on real values – where people, communities, and the environment come first – can replace the current money-centric model.

This alternative requires transparency, local systems, and a commitment to prioritising human worth over profit. Instead of hiding self-interest behind complex structures, society must embrace a model where business and life are conducted openly, sustainably, and with fairness at the core.

The choice is absolute: continue with a Moneyocracy that exploits us all or build a future centred on people.

Path Forward

The Local Economy & Governance System provides the foundational framework for a truly people‑centric future – one where People, Community, and Environment sit at the heart of every decision.

At its core lies a new benchmark: The Basic Living Standard, a guarantee that every individual receives a weekly wage sufficient to cover all essential needs.

This principle of equity and equality is not an optional add‑on, but the priority that guides every part of the system.

By shifting away from exploitation and toward fairness, transparency, and sustainability, this model offers a pathway to rebuild trust and resilience in our economic and social structures.

To explore how this vision can be realised and what it means for the future, please follow these links:

AI won’t make life cheaper for those who cannot work and the mega rich would be using their money to help others right now if they were going to do it for everyone in the future

You may have noticed that there is a growing trend for people to generate clicks on social media by creating long threads that tell interesting stories – many of which have already been told before.

One of them has popped up on my feed several times recently and outlines the predictions of some great contemporary sage of future tech who has apparently been proven right several times before.

The next prediction tells us that in no more than a few years, AI will have made everything so cheap that nobody will work and everything we pay for will cost just a few pennies and no more.

This prediction is popular. Because in today’s world everything relates to money.

Therefore, when people are handed the suggestion that everything they want will cost next to nothing, and there will also be no need to work, the immediate response and logic for just about anyone is to frame that in the way that we see, feel and experience our lives today or right now. Rather than considering what the pathway to that place will have changed in our lives and what our life experience will have then become.

The Moneyocracy or money-centric way of living that we are all experiencing today isn’t one where anything we need and certainly nothing that we want comes to us for free or without there being some financial-related cost of some kind.

Whilst the narrative that the establishment, big tech and big business would have us believe is that AI is here to make life much cheaper and easier for us all, the financial growth that the establishment’s pet politicians are so obsessed with and the picture of unfettered abundance for everyone that they want us to buy into, don’t go hand in hand.

Yes, there is of course the chance that the money hoarding elites are doing what they do today and that they have done everything that they’ve done in the past so that once they have optimal control of everything that we know, they will then benevolently give every one of us the perfect life experience that was always the aim. Which of course only ridiculous amounts of cash would allow them to do.

However, before we run away with that idea and think more about living our best material lives for free, there are perhaps just a few alternative truths that we all need to consider.

Money has made money by riding off the backs of the masses. First by making many hands do the work that enriched the few, through industrialisation and everything that came with it. Then by turning the mass population into debtors, exploiting the unwitting who have bought into the money myth themselves, so that the elites can continue to make ridiculous profits, just the same.

The system is very clever. And it is clever because it preys on the darker attributes of the human condition that make too many of us overlook common sense and basic logic when we are in receipt of money, wealth, position and shiny things. Everything that makes us live for a constant flow of temporary yet momentary hits that we have foolishly mistaken for what makes life and living feel good.

Addiction hides truths that are big, small and cover the multitude that sit between.

No matter our level or position within this carefully constructed top-down pyramid, the truth swirls all around us. But we remain blind to it for as long as we continue to be bought in.

So, in the sense of this coming ‘nirvana’ that AI is supposedly now promising us all, perhaps we should consider some of the more serious and consequential truths that we are almost certainly missing whilst we remain within:

The wealthy are only wealthy because of where their wealth sits within the hierarchy of the way that money and the wealth divide works against the rest of us today.

If the masses stop working, there will be billions of mouths around the world to feed and as many people to support with all the basics and essentials for life, just for people to continue to exist.

Even if machines are creating food, creating entertainment, providing transport, building houses and doing just about everything else we can imagine that has historically been done by hand up until now, there will always be a cost of some kind to pay.

The running, energy production, maintenance and replacement of the systems that would be required to enable such a massive workless population not only to survive, but to be sustained at what we would surely expect to be a good standard or experience of life, would remain very high.

Indeed, the cost of supporting billions of people around the world would still be much greater than many would imagine and would not be a cost that could be covered by playing with money and the way that people who are earning money today believe in the power of money right now.

In this sense playing with money means the way that the entire monetary, financial and economic system as we know works.

The ‘money’ and currencies we have today are part of the biggest confidence trick that has ever been played on humanity.

The whole economic system and the way money is created and managed within it is well and truly rigged.

The creation of the wealth, and the levels and scope of the asset ownership that the elites enjoy today would not have been remotely possible without them having and retaining the ability to constantly game the system.

Those running, managing and ‘in’ on the system use money that doesn’t exist to buy up everything that has real, non-monetary value to people.

This ‘ownership’ means that they will control our future and everything within it.

This has all been achieved under a system that they have created and manipulated using the establishment and the political and legislative processes within it to allow them to carry out what amounts to nothing less than legalised theft.

The wealth that has been created to enable this world take over by the wealthy can and will only achieve the aims of creating a utopian world if that world is inhabited by few enough to make the absence of money creation sustainable.

It will not be sustainable in any way, if the few have to manage and provide for a world population tomorrow, where the masses do nothing productive, become professional users and behave or act like farm animals or caged pets that exist in every direction and live all over the place.

Many baulk at even the merest hint or suggestion of there being some kind of plan for depopulation.

But anyone who understands how the money, financial and economic system we have today really works and where it is going, will see that depopulation of some kind is the unavoidable answer that bridges what is otherwise an unbridgeable void on the pathway to the outcome which has always been this Moneyocracy’s aim.

The only challenge they face is how to achieve this on a big enough scale without the masses ever awakening to the idea that national and worldwide crises can be planned and implemented by design. Just as easily as an entire monetary, financial and economic system that has led the majority of us to believe that those who don’t have enough of what they need to live today are the only ones who are at fault.

The Moneyocracy

The one true religion of the West and therefore by default, the entire (Old) World as we know it is Money and the accumulation of the wealth, power and influence, that are inextricably linked to it.

Many still disagree with the suggestion that every part of life is coin operated.

Think about it carefully and you will soon see that monetary value for now, for tomorrow, for the long-term future and how the impact of money or the lack of it will effect us, governs our lives in every conceivable way.

Once you can see this, you may appreciate that money is the driver of everything; that money is the basis of our entire broken value system, and that as such, we are all citizens or constituent parts of a Moneyocracy – whether we like it or not.