Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching; ‘...To have harmony in the kingdom, keep the people’s belly full and bed warm.’ He was speaking of how to keep the country running peacefully through accepting the reality that if people are in want, they will react violently, even if that is self-defeating.

What can we learn from this in regards to the current economic crisis in relation to the riots that are spreading globally. It is good to know what is going on in the world from the point of seeing how humans respond to difficulties and create their own trouble.

Using Greece as the example for this discussion, if the government does not cut costs, they will run out of money to pay the government employee salaries and no one will have a job. The other cuts will hurt hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people financially. But the people are rioting because they do not want the government to make those cuts.

This article on CNBC says it all Greek State Workers Take to Streets to Fight Cuts The first paragraph reads; “Police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths in central Athens on Wednesday, where thousands of striking state sector workers marched against cuts the government says are needed to save the nation from bankruptcy.”

Somehow the people do not realise that if the cuts are not made, the country will go bankrupt and they will suffer far more.

Here we can see that the herd instinct rules humans and totally destroys logic. Taking the recent protests in New York, the police warned the protestors that they should use the pedestrian level of the bridge instead of the roadway or they would be arrested for blocking the roads. That is reasonable enough, but instead the protestors responded with a rebellion and took the road. Then they complained that they were arrested.

If everyone was pacified and dumb, or sedated,we wouldn’t have the current riots, people would just accept whatever is going on. That of course is not good, to just take whatever you get. On the other hand, humans are showing that they do not have the ability to use reason and work together to solve the problems, rather they are making the problems worse and creating more trouble through the disruptions of society and damage they do that needs more money to be repaired.

If your house is on fire, you get water, not a lighter. Why are people massing with violence instead of peaceful protests? Why are they bringing lighters to a house on fire?

This lack of logic and respect makes people a dangerous creature and justifies the governments efforts in keeping people under control by misinformation through the media and lowering the standards of eduction so people are dumber and do not learn to think. In many cases force, if they cannot push, the use of drugs such as Ritalin and Prozac to basically sedate the youth and adults to dull their minds.

People on Prozac, the antidepressant, say that they may not feel as depressed, but they do not feel happy either. they are just dull. This is what the psychological drugs do, they just dull a persons mind and feelings. If a bull is wild, castrating him makes him tame. We can see the rules and regulations that are ever increasing, especially the Political Correctness of not being able to speak freely or openly about your thoughts, as a way of castrating a persons emotions.

"One in every 10 people in the US took antidepressants in 2005, and since then, the rate of use has risen by 43 percent. Antidepressants are the most commonly prescribed medication in the US... At least 30 million people in the USA alone take antidepressants, and antidepressants bring in over $11 billion annually in sales worldwide."

ADD is a relatively new disease. When I was a child, kids were called; curious, intelligent, interested, active, energetic. Now they are deemed; hyperactive, cannot focus, aggressive and in need of medication. I think the kids today are just bored with the way the school system is limiting their ability to learn new things and expand their minds, so the mind demands more information which parents and teachers are not willing to give them. Rather, the easy way is to give them a pill, or a video game, and let them sit quietly in their room.

Objectively looking at the world situation and the responses of rioting that can do no good at all, even though I totally disagree with the way the governments are guiding humanity with a lower level of education and increased sedation through the forced use of mood altering drugs, I can understand it.

When people mature enough to work together to solve their problems instead of responding with violence, only then will we be ready as a species to be free of the over control of our governments. Until then, the child needs to be controlled so it does not burn down its own house. The freedom we seek is on our own hands.

Author's Bio: 

David is The Entrepreneur Monk, a rag to riches story by understanding the mind and emotions.
Retiring at 29, he resolved the riddle of why we do what is bad for us yet do not do what we know is beneficial and teaches that very effectively.
David designed an iPhone app to build Intuition called ForeSight visit MindDevelopments.com More about David EntrepreneurMonk.com