penalty of failure

Cities will devour your population

One is on the lookout for investment

Whilst the other can‘t apply for social housing

He was late to many meetings

Now became the urban poor

Who will never fit in places anymore

When science becomes flexible, like jobs

You may choose between instruction and command

Some promotion as an adequate incentive

They corrected you more than they had to

Unlike the insecurity of peasants

At the mercy of catastrophe and drought

Security is something you can buy

Unless your liberty is virtually restrained

And the penalty of failure is ambition

with delusion of unprecedented scale

You will never be the envy of your neighbours

They are poor, but they have children, so they smile

And they’ll promise you what nothing can provide

Inequality was built into the system

And misery is stoically expected

When the flower of your life has bloomed in youth

Lower quality for self-respecting work

I scoff at would-be entrants from below

Of all the discontented and oppressed

That I‘ll always be determined to exclude

Poverty and squalor

be my burden, be my guide

And pain will only hurt you if you let it