Two Hundred Seventeen

Posted on August 5, 2015 by John Swinburn

I wonder: Would the super-rich (let’s use the cliché and call them the top one percent) be willing to give up just one half of their wealth if, in so doing, they could assure that every human being on earth would have adequate food, clothing, housing, and healthcare for at least a ten year period? The part of me that wants to believe in the inherent goodness of people says yes, but the skeptical realist in me says no.  So, who wins this tug of war between my two selves? The skeptical realist, by a stunning landslide, the likes of which the world has never seen.

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes
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2 Responses to Two Hundred Seventeen

  1. John Swinburn says:
    August 5, 2015 at 7:59 am

    Thank you for the link, Juan. I will read it later. I am so afraid you are right; the monied class will not be good until forced to “behave” as if they were good, but they will never feel it in their bones. What does that say about the rest of us? Were we to find ourselves in their shoes, would the corruption of wealth and power overcome what we want to believe is our goodness? I am afraid that, too, is something I don’t want to learn.

  2. jserolf says:
    August 5, 2015 at 7:16 am

    You could present it to them in black on white. You could chalk and talk it on board, outline it in statistics, religiously stroke them until your hands and feet were bleeding, have the world sing praises about such a deed, but in the end they would justify their keeping it all. They would laugh in their naive sense of justification and say something like, “Well, just sit down and enjoy your Sarah Lee.”

    It would not surprise me in the least if were to discover that most of that 1 percent — aside from those given their wealth — are psychopathic.

    If anything history shows, it is the unshakable return and existence of human greed. The truth is that the only method — proven so far though history again and again — of remedying the horrors of their avarice is through a blood-filled revolution. I hate writing that, but I am only repeating what I’ve read from previous people who wondered this same question.

    John, here is a neat little article I just read. Good stuff my philosophical friend and writer!

    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/aug/13/brazil-corruption-progress/

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