What kind of world is it, anyway?

What kind of world is it, anyway?

Poverty marked my earliest days. My parents survived the war, but that was all. There were no good jobs, they had only basic education and no one to provide any help. All our friends were about the same. We saw some people who had much more, even talked with them, but the only hope we had was to  move to America where “the streets are paved with gold.” 

My earliest memories include stories about aliens coming to destroy us. Some were fierce creatures from another world while others were uniformed people under a red flag, depending on the comic book. At the age of six, I was sure that the dreaded atomic bomb would destroy us. To us, humans were destined to live in poverty and watch those who had it all. It was “Romantic.” Stories about princes and heroes were popular.

When I was a teenager, my parents stumbled upon the opportunity to emigrate to Canada. My dreams were to make my riches very quick and join the upper class.  Like most of the people reading this, we know that coming to America or Canada was just the beginning. Thankfully, there was an opportunity to work hard, study, and have the most basic needs met. Very few made it higher, mostly the second or third generation.

To my mind, the world could be heaven if people use what is provided by nature and our work, equally. It seems to make sense.  We are born with nothing, buried with nothing, and should be able to live life. After all, we use the earth and its bounty by working. People always did. However,  we work extra hard to make life easier. Funny isn’t it. Work harder to make it easier? YES.

In my lifetime, the amount of labor required to obtain what we need shrank significantly. We no longer have to cut strips of newspaper and crumple them to make toilet paper, for example.

It would be nice if all people could share things equally, but it’s not in our nature. Some people make greater efforts and should reap better rewards, while others should enjoy mediocre lives and be happy. The problem starts when we introduce inheritance. That is when people who don’t make extra efforts or take higher risks get ahead of those who do. We all try to help our children without considering those who don’t have help from parents. They may work harder yet stay down.

This injustice is evident with families or even nations. A German person, for example, naturally will have better prospects in life that a Nigerian child. A white child in the US will do better than an aboriginal or African American child. Ability or determination will not make much difference. If we continue that way perhaps we should consider punishing kids for the sins of their parents, but we don’t, so let’s not reward them for the parent’s success. 

I think that the rules of the free market, based on effort and fair competition, should apply. What we should aim towards is building a social structure that will offer humankind the best chance of surviving into the future.

Now we are facing a new situation and we don’t have lessons from our past to teach us what to do. A few people own mostly everything and a large portion of humans are living hand to mouth. Some can still borrow, but it’s coming to an end. It is true for individuals as well as countries. It took a virus to expose the situation.

While we were waiting for “someone” to do something, we failed to notice the sad reality. Out of seven and a half billion people, about six billion lack much hope. They don’t even have an escape route. The streets anywhere are not paved with gold and the world reached its credit limits. Now with mass fear of death people quit working and the importance of the little workers became self-evident. The next step is scary.

The whole economic system currently in place is centered around oil, which lost its dominance. Docile large countries became a threat both economically and militarily. People are waking up and realizing that everyone need not work most of their waking hours just to fulfill the basic needs while also understanding that life is possible without consuming and throwing away so much. Life can be a blessing just by spending it with your family and neighbors, hardly wasting anything.

If the people who are not inheriting or otherwise hoarding all available wealth magically disappeared, society could function. If the workers/consumers would be gone, there wouldn’t be the “world as we know it.” If the poor people who don’t possess most of the world’s wealth march against those who do, they will not even notice when they trample them under. The brainless killer virus is a better teacher than the most sophisticated computer.

I fantasize about a world where all human beings are valued but we reward those who make an extra effort, up to a point. Humanity is not better off if Jeff Bezos owns 140 billion dollars. He would live the same and work the same if he had one billion-plus some after heavy tax. We can use the other 139 billion for everyone’s benefits. I would make it illegal to have any money or other wealth dormant. Money must work for people and be taxed for society.

If we restricted the high limits of personal wealth the richest people wouldn’t clamor to get tax cuts and sway politicians towards doing things that will destroy the world in the long run. The Earth which is God’s gift to all its creatures will continue its natural function until we are ready for the next step in our evolution. The transition to spiritual existence.  Some believe it and others don’t.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.