My mother lives in a nice condo in an exclusive community. She and my dad bought it over forty years ago for less than $100,000 and its now worth over $2 million. I visit her frequently and on every visit I’m overwhelmed by the incredible wealth on display in the enormous mansions, which are hidden behind gates and large walls. But it’s not just that one community and its mansions. The evidence of excessive wealth is everywhere. Unfortunately, so is the evidence of hopeless poverty and suffering.
My father made a very good living as a company man. We didn’t lack for anything – nice houses, cars, and college without student loans. So I can’t complain. But we never lived in excess. When he retired from the company (as CEO) he made less than $1 million a year. Not ten years later, his successor – a baby boomer – was pulling in over $10 million annually. Why? Greed – pure and simple. And a few years after that the company collapsed under the weight of its own greed.
The negative impacts of the dominance of greed in our economy, in our psyche, are everywhere – the cover-up of the health risks in new a drug, predatory mortgages that collapsed the banking industry, the millions of children who go hungry every day. The drive for excessive wealth has weakened the foundation of our society.
No one needs to earn more than $500,000 a year. Especially when their employees are barely able to put food on the table, can’t afford health care, can’t send their kids to a decent school.
Socialism is the only answer. A modern version of socialism where there are levels of income based on ability and responsibility. For example, if someone supervises others, then they should make more than those they supervise – just not 100 times or a 100 thousand times more. There should be ample rewards that come from hard work and success and innovation and creativity – rewards enough to encourage extra effort and initiative – just not greed.
We have to re-distribute and re-prioritize wealth to ensure a living wage, universal health care, and quality education for everyone. If everyone’s income was reasonable then prices/costs would follow. Eventually, and quickly I believe, it would all balance out. And we could afford a real safety-net for those who are unable to help themselves.
There would still be wealthy people – just not the disproportionate, excessive, obscene wealth we have today.
If we don’t learn to share and be considerate, temperate, those who suffer in abject poverty will eventually realize that they have nothing to lose by storming the gates of those mansions.