Wealth, it's really all about population compared to resources. We tried this thing against poverty and hunger called "
the green revolution." Basically we tried to grow so much food, that there wouldn't be hunger. Makes sense on a basic level. Hunger = not enough food. Grow more food = no more hunger.... Except feedback loop effects. Simply, people had more kids....
We need to realize some things about wealth:
a.) It is created and needs sustaining. It doesn't happen in nature. Naturally, we're all just hairless apes.
b.) Wealth is sustained by having a crop of consumers who can afford whatever you do for them and are interdependent. Thus it matters if the average person is screwed.
c.) Wealth needs to be the product of effort and attention and be actively seized from the corrupt.
d.) Seeing as the machinery that makes wealth is reliant upon there being a large group of average people to build and support that machinery, we need to at least make things livable for the average person.
e.) Loss is not always from the lack of effort, ability or deserving nature. Winning is not always from the presence of effort, ability or deserving nature. Hands down, people get sick, they die, simply and I would say unarguably, shit happens. It is very often nobody's fault. We need a better way to deal with losses.
f.) Strangely, we currently have a huge tax gap helping the very rich the most, and hurting most the self employed (who due to self employment taxes pay more than most ever will as a percentage).
g.) We don't think about the sources of things or the consequences. The notion that people get what they want if they work for it sounds good in theory, but then you practice a little reality and it all falls apart, terribly. Even little things, like a soccer ball, end up being a horrid thing to own, because of the way they were manufactured. The way they were manufactured, directly benefits the consumer due to lower price. Fact of the matter is, those soccer balls are usually sewn together in third world sweatshops.... Thus, buy refusing to pay a couple extra dollars for the item, the consumer is encouraging this horrid state of affairs and ergo is hurting somebody to get what he or she wants. The consumer just doesn't have to look at the consequences of their actions or even necessarily know about them to begin with. All they see is "O that soccer ball looks nice and it's only $3...." There's more to it than that....
In the end, our ability to provide for 6, or is it 7 billion people, is not there. Worse, the problem isn't getting better. Somehow, the world's population is still growing by leaps and bounds. If we were really, actually smart, we'd figure out how to regulate births in an acceptable manner, hopefully by giving people complete control over it, and then plan them around making sure everyone had enough instead of just popping out kids left and right, which appears to be the plan for now. Tragic. We let all these kids "compete" with one another for everything that is based off position in life and that competition is completely needless and often incredibly cruel, especially when you realize the sheer number of kids born in 3rd world countries or
even certain parts of the US who have 0 chance.... It isn't right that we have people "getting what they want" (when what they want is usually stupid judging by the millions of dollars in pet rock sales) in this senario when there are people who don't even have what they need and have no opportunity to get it. There has to be SOMETHING we could put these people to work doing, but it seems we won't.
At the end of the day, most of the people who are doing fine seem to have this "I'm fine so hurray for me and to hell with you," attitude.
Pictured: Most people's attitudes about other people once they have what they want.