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| International Money Pile in Cash and Coins (Photo credit: epSos.de) |
An odd question, or one you think should be considered? I suspect your
view will be influenced by your basic attitude to the place of money in
society.
Why would I even ask the question? I look at the world around me and view
the priorities cited by government, commerce and those with a real interest in
environment. What I see is a society slewed toward the making of money as a
primary purpose. But isn’t money supposed to be the tool, the helpmate of
humanity? Isn’t trade, and all those services involved with manufacturing,
production and delivery, intended to serve mankind?
When I look at the world, I see that the production of wealth is actually
the prime purpose of most commerce. Now, I fully understand that we can’t live
in a society where barter takes the place of currency, but I do question the
value we place on the process involved in increasing wealth. Businesses appear
to exist primarily for the benefit of their shareholders, so that their
customers are, in fact, at best a secondary consideration rather than the
primary cause of activity.
Banks are probably the best illustration of what I mean: Banks were set
up to provide a service that would allow the lending, borrowing and security of
the funds of their customers to operate to the benefit of those customers. But
the current system benefits primarily the bankers and those institutions and
individuals who hold equity in the business itself. The customer who wishes to
take advantage of the lending system is now seen more as a threat than a
natural client. Customers are viewed as a source of extra income, often by the
employment of questionable schemes to extract more money from them to be placed
into the banks’ coffers. (There are many examples of this, the recent scandal
of mis-sold PPI is simply the most obvious).
Sport is another area where money has become the prime purpose of
participation. Football, in particular, has fallen victim of the money men.
What used to be local clubs, with locally trained and selected teams, and whose
object was the raising of local pride in association with the clubs’ successes,
have now become simple businesses. They no longer have any real connection with
the locality in which they reside. The teams are made up of international
‘stars’ of questionable value who are paid obscene amounts of money in order to
progress their teams to gain more money for the club owners. In the rush to
make more and more money from sport, all ideas of sportsmanship have receded to
be overtaken by cynical gamesmanship. And this change is so pervasive that many
of the fans and players aren’t even aware that cheating, play-acting and tricks
are damaging both the sport and society in general. And all this because huge
sums of money are on offer from the various media companies who distribute the
product to the masses.
Religion has joined the rush for money, in spite of the injunction to the
faithful that they should eschew material riches in favour of spiritual
rewards. The Roman Catholic church is an obscenely rich organisation that begs
for more income from its impoverished congregations whilst keeping its leaders
in ostentatious luxury. The Church of England cries out for public funds to
repair and support its many crumbling buildings, whilst remaining one of the
richest landowners in the country. I
don’t know much about the Jewish and Islamic institutions, but I’m willing to
bet they are similarly wealthy whilst many of their adherents remain in
poverty.
I could go on with examples, but that would be pointless. My concern is
with the way in which we have allowed money to become our master and, in the
process, allowed those who own the most money to have power over the vast
majority who have little or none. What was intended as a tool to aid
interaction and prevent chaos in a growing population has become a weapon in
the hands of a very few powerful institutions and individuals. A weapon of
control, which promises to become eternally self-perpetuating unless we do
something radical to overturn the supremacy of money in the use and abuse of
power and return governance to the mass of people.
It is demonstrably unjust that there are individuals who have personal
incomes and wealth greater than the GDP of some small nations. It is
demonstrably absurd that some individuals have colossal wealth when there are
many who have none. We have been sold the idea that those with wealth have
somehow deserved it, that they are solely responsible for the good fortune that
has happened their way. Please don’t spout the old chestnuts about ‘getting what you deserve’ and ‘work hard and you’ll succeed’ at me. I touched on those
two lies a while back and the links (one below) will take you to my arguments.
The simple fact is that no individual ever has been or ever will be
deserving of wealth disproportionate to their efforts. The tycoon who claims to
be a ‘self-made man’ conveniently forgets that he could not even have risen
from his bed in the morning without the help and input of a multitude of other
people. For those who find this concept difficult to grasp I feel I must give an example. We all need food to survive. Let’s take the basic loaf of
bread, without which our tycoon could not perform, due to hunger. Someone has
first to plough and till the ground so that it can be seeded with grain. The
crop has to be gathered and transported along roads, made by many more individuals
using the tools and machines made by other individuals. At the bakery, more
people are involved in turning the raw material into a food product, using
machinery and electricity that depends on other individuals for manufacture.
Once baked, using power derived from sources mined or generated by yet more
people, the product is transported, using fuel and materials produced by other
individuals. Eventually, the loaf arrives in the shop to be sold and is there
dispensed by even more people. Along the way, we have also to consider the road
sweeper who keeps the highway clear to permit the transport to move, the
rubbish collector who disposes of the waste that would otherwise clog up the
works, the teacher who educates all the people involved in the various process,
the nurse who cares for those who fall sick along the way, the unpaid parents
who ensure the children get to school…do I need to go on? The reality is
obvious. But we seem to have fallen into the trap of believing that certain individuals
somehow contribute a great deal more than the rest of us. It simply isn’t true.
The only real difference between the wealthy and the poor is often due to
luck, preferential birth circumstances, the possession of a peculiar talent or
the wicked selfishness and greed that allows some to ignore the needs of those
over whom they wield their power.
Of course we need to reward those who initiate those ideas that are of
benefit to the mass of humanity. Of course we must recognise those who possess
rare and valuable talent. Of course we should ensure justice for those who
accept high levels of responsibility. But none of these people is worth the
huge difference in value that is ascribed to them.
In the UK, and I suspect, elsewhere in the world, there is a minimum
wage, set so that unscrupulous businessmen cannot exploit too heavily those who
produce their wealth for them. If a minimum wage is a sensible barrier to
excessive poverty, then a maximum wage can easily be made a similar barrier to
excessive wealth. It requires only political will. But, as long as we have a
system of government that depends only on the value falsely accorded to money,
we will have a control system that prefers the wealthy over the vast majority
of hard-working people. Is that what you want?
