Getting to the Bottom of Things With 7 Why’s

By Shlomo Maital  

    There is a method for getting to the bottom of sticky problems.  It’s called the method of the seven why’s.  It is discovered and rediscovered by six-year-olds – many parents don’t have the patience to get beyond the first four!

     Ask why?  Get an answer.  The answer raises questions.  Ask why again, digging deeper.  Answer.  Why?  Answer….    Few sticky problems can endure the seventh why? Without revealing an insightful answer.

      Why is the world in such a horrendous mess?  Seven why’s.  Here goes.  That was the first. 

        Because – of globalization.

         Why?  Because globalization generated massive wealth, 2,781 billionaires, to be precise. 

         Why did globalization create billionaires? (#3) By freeing the flow of capital, goods and information, it became possible to scale up (blitzscale, it is called) globally.

         Why is this a problem? (#4).  Because countries competed for capital by slashing taxes, luring billionaires’ money.  Ireland: prime example. 

         Why are low taxes a problem?  (#5)  The huge wealth created by globalization could have been shared with the billions of people left behind, through the tax system. But—tax cuts and the billionaires’ purchase of political influence stymied it. (cf. Elon Musk’s massive gift to Trump’s PAC). 

         Why is the billionaires’ support of far-right politicians and their promised tax cuts such a problem – and such a conundrum? (#6)  Because those whom this mess hurts most, low-wage working people, are precisely the ones voting for the far-right politicians and their billionaire backers. (cf. Zuckerberg’s pilgrimate to Mara Lago!).

      Why do the low-wage working class people vote for those who harm them? (#7)  Because the elitist centre-left, Harvard grads, ignored and denigrated them, impoverished them by exporting factories to China; their votes are protests, and the psychic benefit they gain from bashing the elite Ivy grads is what really matters most.

       Every step in this seven-step chain of reasoning could be wrong.  Any one wrong answer invalidates the whole syllogism.

        So – where did I get it wrong?