Power and Responsibility

On Al Jazeera yesterday morning, there was a news story about the protests in Thailand. The source of unrest was over the king’s wealth. His personal worth, is said to be over 40 billion dollars. Up until a few months ago, this was legally in ‘trust’ for the people, but he’s since transferred the money into his own coffers.

Where did that wealth in both monetary and land assets come from, do you suppose?

He was born into wealth- royalty is. He inherited much and as such, had the capacity to access more wealth as the wealthy can- the maxim is true- money begats money. It’s a simple fact that you need money to make money- investing, buying up property that appreciates etc.

This situation is the foundation for most of the wealthy across the globe- they just keep getting richer and richer. And that’s great for them. It’s part of the beauty of Capitalism- you can accrue wealth and improve your position. But the simple fact is, that it really only works for the already rich. Of course some can break through the glass ceiling due to their own ingenuity; Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk… And that’s the myth that most people cling to to justify the wonder of Capitalism; it’s possible to make it rich in this economic system.

Some time ago, I also saw another program on Al Jazeera- the Slum- about the horrendous living conditions for those in the Tondo in the Philippines. The series followed the beautiful people, born into poverty who were desperately just trying to feed and shelter their families. One man worked day and night in the rubbish tip to find items to sell. It would take him 2 days to accumulate enough to feed the family. He was also trying to find the money to keep his bright daughter in school. She was the family’s way out of poverty. If she could graduate, she might find a good job that would improve their conditions. But then a cooking fire went wrong and tore through the Tondo and they lost everything- the meagre possessions of families in poverty, gone… and so the story goes.

Many do not think about the capacity of the poor to overcome unexpected expenses. My fridge breaks down, I am blessed enough to actually be able to fairly quickly replace it. For Tondo residents, there is no such economic safety net of savings, not when you live hand to mouth. If your child gets sick (which one of his did) he had no choice but to wade through the woefully inadequate public system to try and save her precious life. This meant he had to be at the hospital with her and so couldn’t work to feed the family. Do you see the horror here?

It’s a vicious cycle that is no fault of the children born into it, but doomed by a failed system in pretty much all countries that leave the poor unable to climb out of the abyss of constant debt. Our Tondo resident had to borrow what he could just to survive the next few days. This happens often enough and you are soon drowning. You become a captive slave to your debtor who must recoup his loss by way of your actual body. And you don’t have a hope in Hades of ever repaying it, so your children are then trapped in indebted bondage as well; generational slavery.

It’s not their fault.

But we all bleat on about Human Rights don’t we? Particularly if you’re talking about me. I want to make sure I have my rights! We all generously agree that every human on the planet has the right to food and water, to live in freedom, to have some form of shelter… Yes. Of course.

But for most of the world’s population, the small, inconsequential, unknown, impoverished people of our planet, this just doesn’t happen.

Whose fault is it? Bad luck? Their own stupidity?

So here we come to my questions. What is it that the human being needs? Well, the United Nation’s Human Rights Declaration just about covers it all. There are 30 of them. In a nutshell, every single one of us has the inalienable right to have enough food to more than survive, clean water, a home or living space that entails some form of privacy for yourself, safety, freedom of movement… The reality is that for most of the planet, this simply isn’t the case.

Next question: Just how much money do you need? How many houses do you need? Or shoes, or cars, or clothes…? When is it enough? Can it be too much?

Surely if you’ve accumulated more wealth than you can spend in one lifetime there’s an issue of surplus? Whose money is it anyway? Yes, you’ve ‘earned it’ but how? Was privilege involved? Then what obligations do you have to those whose rights were infringed by your making money?

If you’ve made money on the back of your country, your employees, First Nations People (ie. stole their land in the first place) do you have an obligation to share your wealth after your own needs are met?

It’s an ethical question.

To me it’s quite clear in the case of the king of Thailand. Your job, your sole responsibility, is the people of your nation. If even one of your children is living in dire poverty, you are responsible to ensure their life becomes bearable. This is a moral obligation. How can you live a lavish and privileged lifestyle (essentially given to you by the people) and have no responsibility to them? It is immensely dishonourable. I suggest he keep $1 billion for his own play fund and return the other 39 billion to the people to ensure their wellbeing- each and every one of the 69.9 million of them.

If under the capitalist system profit becomes all, then the lives that your company impacts are inconsequential. The recent Royal Commission Inquiry into aged care showed that chasing profits resulted in many corners cut in order to appease the shareholders. Under this system, the shareholders become your society to whom you’re beholden. Shareholders and Profit.

How can you take a trip to the Bahamas and luxuriate on the beach with carefree disregard to what is happening in order to ensure your annual holiday? At the home that funds your respite, there are retirees, old, alone and intensely vulnerable, forced to eat swill in order to cut corners on meals, suffer in health due to inadequate care because overworked and immorally underpaid staff are struggling to keep up with those in their care. People are left in dirty nappies, remain unbathed, unfed and their wounds untended. These, the people who are our fathers and mothers and grandparents.

Privatisation is a disaster. In the prison system, aged care, water, even childcare. These aspects of society should be under the aegis of the government- in the hands of the people because it’s our mothers and fathers in those homes, our children in those care centres, our water, our brothers and sisters in prison and it is only care that will ensure justice not profit driven avarice.

Much study has been done around empathy and the rich. It’s been found that the higher the wealth, the lower the empathy. I also read an interesting article that suggested that the wealthy are empathetic to those closest to their own socio economic group and then it drastically declines the further down the social scale those ‘others’ are- I guess that’s the theory of the ‘great unwashed’ in action.

When will the super wealthy be held accountable? When will Capitalism be seen for what it is- an unmitigated disaster for the poor? When will each of us take responsibility for our actions, not just within our own elite circles, but in our society and in our world?

We must come to realise that within this world, this universe, we are all connected. It is a magnificent ecosystem on which each creature is impacted by the other. When working to its optimum, it is a finely balanced miracle. This profit driven frenzy of the post Industrial age is what is causing climate change and the massive destruction of our globe. We could all live in peace and harmony, as trite as that sounds, if we’d all take responsibility for our sphere of influence- your general population recycle, re-use etc, companies actively work to reduce carbon emissions and engage in ethically sustainable processes, governments criminalise forest destruction, and the super wealthy spread the love to those desperately in need.

We could all live happy lives if we learned to accept the realities of where our wealth came from and share it around. We need to learn about the concept of we and not just me. As David Hall (Professor at ACU and Marist brother) says, we need to stop the nonsense about ‘I am more special than you’- and the idea that I can only be more special, at your expense.

Ubuntu is an African concept; I am because we are. Social cohesion is a simple matter of reframing our current mindset of scarcity and hoarding to one of share the love around so we can all live happy lives. We really won’t miss out on much and gain a whole world of peace.