If we were to encapsulate the source of anguish or the root of what seems to upset society today as a whole it is the idea of income inequality or the unfair distribution of wealth and everything that is associated with the eternal failure of society to correct what ails itself.
If we were to distill what makes up the landscape over which the battles are fought, figuratively speaking, it is about wealth and circumstance.
Wealth is that one physical manifestation of one's ability to satisfy a basic need on one hand and all that one aspires to reach and savor the highest rung, or as high as anyone can attain, in the hierarchy of human needs. A $200,000 luxury car and a 10,000 square-foot home are clearly too many rungs above the ground where most ladders begin. Wealth therefore is what separates those with it, or excesses of it, from those only able to satisfy their basic ability to prevail over hunger and thirst for a day, under the most basic of shelters.
Circumstance is the condition of where one is, based on events or actions and more primarily where one is situated relative to where others are. In other words being at the right place at the right time is the fundamental function of circumstance.
Put simply, the cattle herder on the plains of Tanzania and the sidewalk vendor deep in the bowels of Tondo, Manila, in north central Philippines, are hostages to circumstance and clearly their path to wealth is inherently pothole-riddled compared to the smooth pavement for anyone whose early education began at grade schools preparatory to Eton, or Cambridge or Harvard or Yale. When it comes to guarantees for success or failure, the odds are determined by mere circumstance from the start. But success looks differently when viewed from different prisms. And defining what success is makes for a more profound introspection.
It may not be so simple.
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is deemed to become the first ever trillionaire. I had to italicize it since Microsoft Word has red lined the word, perhaps because before now such a description of a very wealthy man does not exist. It used to rest at billionaires when millionaires no longer cut it to the highest firmament of wealth. Anyway, Jeff Bezos is a very wealthy man. A lot of people had become wealthy in the wake of Amazon's success. But should we begrudge him and others like him? No.
Since the days of the Rockefeller fortune, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and later the Walton family and many others in that circle, even as that circle keeps getting bigger, the wealth scale had gotten lopsidedly unbalanced and deemed disruptive to what used to be the "normal "equilibrium between the haves and the have-not. Let's have a look.
First let us consider viewing it from the rearview mirror of history. Centuries prior to the Dark Ages, long before the Renaissance Era, the Period of Enlightenment, when kingdoms, fiefdoms and empires where how populations were organized and lorded over by kings and royal courts, wealth distribution was much more severely concentrated and controlled. The hierarchy of wealth and privilege were so steep that bloodlines were the only ticket to the top. The ladder was clearly on the shoulders of the masses whose fates were determined by the very few.
Fortunes, however, did change hands time and time again, often through violent upheaval, either from within or without. Kingdoms weakened on their own or were overwhelmed from without through revolt or conquest. That was very much the history of how wealth were amassed and turned over. Today's corporate fortunes and personal wealth go through the same upheaval and turnover, albeit absent the violence and with a lot less malice.
Fortunes changed hands over many times but every carat of gold, every parcel of land, every droplet of water is still around, earth-bound still, and will remain so until such time when interplanetary investments become feasible. Yes, until such time real estate investments are available in Mars or on the moon, or in Alpha Centauri futures. The Jeff Bezos and the Bill Gates and the Waltons of the world and everyone else cannot take it with them anywhere but here. In other words wealth will remain in circulation and wealth will swirl among individuals and people over generations of changing circumstances.
The debate has always been about whether high tide lifts all boats or do high tides rise over the heads of the less fortunate and who are without boats? Ideally, the idea of lifting all boats seems simple enough but what we are forgetting to account for is that no matter where the tide is, it is always about the fact that some folks were just able to build bigger boats. Should we begrudge those who did? Today empires, business empires that is, are built not from force or violent conquest, but by working harder, toiling under almost impossible odds, harnessing technology, unfettered determination and stick-to-itiveness (it may not be a word but y'all know what I mean) and always discovering new ways to do things that others did not see before. That is where the bigger boats come from.
One thing to remember though is that bigger boats can only be built where the water is deep. Elon Musk, had he remained in his country of birth - South Africa - he would not have had the opportunity to create and make a success of Tesla and Space X. The right circumstances which are the fertile ground for innovation and sufficiency of capital are what the U.S. had become to anyone with a vision and drive and willingness to take risks.
Wealth and circumstance are what powers the wheel of fortune but both cannot escape or ignore the gravitational pull that society demands if civilization were to continue to survive and flourish.
It is, of course, considered and expected that the human character today has evolved from centuries past so that it is proper to expect that those who have are able to share their good fortunes with those who have less. If it were only that simple.
The needy needs to be helped. The wealthy can be expected to help. Even if we all can agree on that simple balancing formula, it will always be contentious when we change the verb and adverbs from "needs to be" to "deserves to be" on the part of the needy and "can be" is changed to "should be" - and every degree of severity in between. The plea for help becomes a demand for entitlement and since the principle of zero-sum always apply in wealth distribution, friction is always created between the have and the have not. That is the essence of the debate on income inequality.
So, do we really have it so bad today? That cattle herder in Tanzania and the young sidewalk vendor in Manila have today a hundred fold better chance of breaking the mold of their circumstance than the child of a peasant family indentured to eternal servitude, or those enslaved through conquest or purchase during the dark chapters of history. This is not to make light of today's suffering by the under privilege but I and a host of many others have a personal story of overcoming the circumstance of birth and took advantage of what chances there were, no matter how meager the odds, to better our lives. For all whose lives had gotten better from hard work and determination, timing in history made all the difference. Circumstance may have a lot to do for the wealth distribution but that is not all there is.
If the object of having wealth is ultimately the attainment of happiness, society was wrong all along for looking at the wrong places.
Forbes recent survey on the happiest countries in the world, the top ten are not economic giants and the U.S. is ranked no. 18. All of the Top 20, except for Costa Rica, no. 15), are all from developed regions of the world, topped by Finland and Denmark, while the unhappiest countries all come from third world countries, where Afghanistan and South Sudan are the two most unhappy countries.
Happiness is a state of mind, wealth is just a status of some kind. Happiness is therefore self-measured while wealth is measured by others. A bank account is a financial measure that can be determined by external audit, while happiness is a personal appraisal no one else can claim to measure nor covet. While physical assets and titles to property are transferable, often by mere signatures, happiness can neither be assigned or mortgaged, nor can it be devalued by decree or by crisis. Currency can be confiscated or lost. On the other hand the capacity and desire to be happy are the two qualities that cannot be determined by wealth and circumstance. It is possible, in fact, that happiness is independent of wealth and circumstance.
King Arthur and Guinevere from the musical "Camelot" pondered why simple folks seemed happy and content than they were - both who occupied the throne and therefore the top rung in the hierarchy of privilege and wealth. Guinevere pondered, "What Do The Simple Folks Do? Two of several stanzas are below:
Guinevere:
"What else do the simple folk do?
They must have a system or two
They obviously outshine us at turning tears to mirth
And tricks a royal highness is minus from birth
What, then, I wonder, do they
To chase all the goblins away?
They have some tribal sorcery you haven't mentioned yet
Oh, what do simple folk do to forget?"
King Arthur:
It may not be so simple.
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is deemed to become the first ever trillionaire. I had to italicize it since Microsoft Word has red lined the word, perhaps because before now such a description of a very wealthy man does not exist. It used to rest at billionaires when millionaires no longer cut it to the highest firmament of wealth. Anyway, Jeff Bezos is a very wealthy man. A lot of people had become wealthy in the wake of Amazon's success. But should we begrudge him and others like him? No.
Since the days of the Rockefeller fortune, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and later the Walton family and many others in that circle, even as that circle keeps getting bigger, the wealth scale had gotten lopsidedly unbalanced and deemed disruptive to what used to be the "normal "equilibrium between the haves and the have-not. Let's have a look.
First let us consider viewing it from the rearview mirror of history. Centuries prior to the Dark Ages, long before the Renaissance Era, the Period of Enlightenment, when kingdoms, fiefdoms and empires where how populations were organized and lorded over by kings and royal courts, wealth distribution was much more severely concentrated and controlled. The hierarchy of wealth and privilege were so steep that bloodlines were the only ticket to the top. The ladder was clearly on the shoulders of the masses whose fates were determined by the very few.
Fortunes, however, did change hands time and time again, often through violent upheaval, either from within or without. Kingdoms weakened on their own or were overwhelmed from without through revolt or conquest. That was very much the history of how wealth were amassed and turned over. Today's corporate fortunes and personal wealth go through the same upheaval and turnover, albeit absent the violence and with a lot less malice.
Fortunes changed hands over many times but every carat of gold, every parcel of land, every droplet of water is still around, earth-bound still, and will remain so until such time when interplanetary investments become feasible. Yes, until such time real estate investments are available in Mars or on the moon, or in Alpha Centauri futures. The Jeff Bezos and the Bill Gates and the Waltons of the world and everyone else cannot take it with them anywhere but here. In other words wealth will remain in circulation and wealth will swirl among individuals and people over generations of changing circumstances.
The debate has always been about whether high tide lifts all boats or do high tides rise over the heads of the less fortunate and who are without boats? Ideally, the idea of lifting all boats seems simple enough but what we are forgetting to account for is that no matter where the tide is, it is always about the fact that some folks were just able to build bigger boats. Should we begrudge those who did? Today empires, business empires that is, are built not from force or violent conquest, but by working harder, toiling under almost impossible odds, harnessing technology, unfettered determination and stick-to-itiveness (it may not be a word but y'all know what I mean) and always discovering new ways to do things that others did not see before. That is where the bigger boats come from.
One thing to remember though is that bigger boats can only be built where the water is deep. Elon Musk, had he remained in his country of birth - South Africa - he would not have had the opportunity to create and make a success of Tesla and Space X. The right circumstances which are the fertile ground for innovation and sufficiency of capital are what the U.S. had become to anyone with a vision and drive and willingness to take risks.
Wealth and circumstance are what powers the wheel of fortune but both cannot escape or ignore the gravitational pull that society demands if civilization were to continue to survive and flourish.
It is, of course, considered and expected that the human character today has evolved from centuries past so that it is proper to expect that those who have are able to share their good fortunes with those who have less. If it were only that simple.
The needy needs to be helped. The wealthy can be expected to help. Even if we all can agree on that simple balancing formula, it will always be contentious when we change the verb and adverbs from "needs to be" to "deserves to be" on the part of the needy and "can be" is changed to "should be" - and every degree of severity in between. The plea for help becomes a demand for entitlement and since the principle of zero-sum always apply in wealth distribution, friction is always created between the have and the have not. That is the essence of the debate on income inequality.
So, do we really have it so bad today? That cattle herder in Tanzania and the young sidewalk vendor in Manila have today a hundred fold better chance of breaking the mold of their circumstance than the child of a peasant family indentured to eternal servitude, or those enslaved through conquest or purchase during the dark chapters of history. This is not to make light of today's suffering by the under privilege but I and a host of many others have a personal story of overcoming the circumstance of birth and took advantage of what chances there were, no matter how meager the odds, to better our lives. For all whose lives had gotten better from hard work and determination, timing in history made all the difference. Circumstance may have a lot to do for the wealth distribution but that is not all there is.
If the object of having wealth is ultimately the attainment of happiness, society was wrong all along for looking at the wrong places.
Forbes recent survey on the happiest countries in the world, the top ten are not economic giants and the U.S. is ranked no. 18. All of the Top 20, except for Costa Rica, no. 15), are all from developed regions of the world, topped by Finland and Denmark, while the unhappiest countries all come from third world countries, where Afghanistan and South Sudan are the two most unhappy countries.
Happiness is a state of mind, wealth is just a status of some kind. Happiness is therefore self-measured while wealth is measured by others. A bank account is a financial measure that can be determined by external audit, while happiness is a personal appraisal no one else can claim to measure nor covet. While physical assets and titles to property are transferable, often by mere signatures, happiness can neither be assigned or mortgaged, nor can it be devalued by decree or by crisis. Currency can be confiscated or lost. On the other hand the capacity and desire to be happy are the two qualities that cannot be determined by wealth and circumstance. It is possible, in fact, that happiness is independent of wealth and circumstance.
King Arthur and Guinevere from the musical "Camelot" pondered why simple folks seemed happy and content than they were - both who occupied the throne and therefore the top rung in the hierarchy of privilege and wealth. Guinevere pondered, "What Do The Simple Folks Do? Two of several stanzas are below:
Guinevere:
"What else do the simple folk do?
They must have a system or two
They obviously outshine us at turning tears to mirth
And tricks a royal highness is minus from birth
What, then, I wonder, do they
To chase all the goblins away?
They have some tribal sorcery you haven't mentioned yet
Oh, what do simple folk do to forget?"
King Arthur:
"Once, upon the road, I came upon a lad
Singing in a voice three times his size
When I asked him why, he told me he was sad
And singing always made his spirits rise
And that's what simple folk do
I surmise."
There is truth in that wealth and power are not only the wrong answers to happiness, they could be the precursor for sadness if not handled properly.
In fact, it is possible that the mere circumstance of being free from want is all the wealth anyone will need.
Singing in a voice three times his size
When I asked him why, he told me he was sad
And singing always made his spirits rise
And that's what simple folk do
I surmise."
There is truth in that wealth and power are not only the wrong answers to happiness, they could be the precursor for sadness if not handled properly.
In fact, it is possible that the mere circumstance of being free from want is all the wealth anyone will need.
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