I don't mean being greedy for food, I do sometimes want to
gorge myself on food that tastes really good, eg Christmas dinner, though I've
learnt to restrain myself, as the results are not good! No, what I mean by
greed is financial greed, the urge to accumulate more and more money, gather
more and more of it into one's hands, or bank accounts.
I'm thinking here of how, when a reporter once asked an
extremely wealthy man what he wanted, he replied "more money". He
already had more than most of us could spend in a lifetime, yet he wanted more.
And I suspect there are many out there like him.
Greedy people have always been amongst us, and there have
always been disparities of wealth, though till the Industrial Revolution only
royalty and the most powerful nobles could hope to live truly extravagantly.
The resources and the material goodies just weren't there. And there have also
always been those opposed to anyone having such a lion's share of the world's
wealth, especially if it's at the expense of others (and it usually is). And
during the middle decades of the twentieth century, it truly did seem that the
world's wealth was becoming more evenly distributed, at least in the Western
part of the world.
Now, however, it seems the wealthy are gaining the upper
hand again. I read somewhere recently that in the 1960s, the USA's richest men
had about thirty times the income of the poorest. These days, the richest are
worth around three hundred times the poorest. (I don't have the reference
handy, but it was something like that.) With this sort of concentration of
wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people, is it really so surprising that
even the middle class are struggling, while the truly poor increasingly go to
the wall? I think not.
Even in New Zealand, a country traditionally without this
kind of financial obscenity, we are beginning to see such differences. In the
same week that Campbell Live, a NZ current affairs programme, campaigned to
raise money for Kids Can, a charity that feeds kids in poor schools, one of the
wealthiest men in NZ launched his new yacht in Norway - worth around $NZ 78
million. The Campbell Live campaign raised around $NZ 800,000. This means that
for less than one seventy-eighth of the value of his yacht (and he already has
two others), this wealthy man could have provided breakfast and lunch for
hundreds of hungry kids from poor families.
There are of course plenty of other obscenities of wealth
out there. The movie stars who think nothing of spending thousands on a handbag
or scarf, or tens of thousands on 'therapy', while just a few miles away
homeless people are rummaging in bins to feed themselves. The huge houses of
the rich, while down the road kids go barefoot and hungry to school. And no,
I'm not talking about third world countries, but countries like New Zealand,
Australia, the UK and the USA. 'First World Poverty' is very, very real, and
becoming more so.
Don't get me wrong - though I would be deemed at least
'left-leaning' by most standards, I'm not any kind of communist, in fact I
dislike communism as a system. And life's luxuries are very nice, I wouldn't
deny that. I like decent cars and a nice house and smart clothes as much as the
next person. I also know that many of the richest do give substantial amounts
to charities. Though perhaps not all - a recent magazine article here in New
Zealand asked if being rich made you nasty and selfish - and it seemed that
sometimes, yes, it does. A typical example they quoted was how street charity
collectors often get a better response in poorer neighbourhoods than they do in
rich ones, that in fact the rich often ignore such collectors. The phenomenon
of the rich attitude that the poor are 'just lazy', and should 'pull themselves
up by their bootstraps' is also very real too, according to that article -
which of course totally ignores the fact that a) not everyone has the entrepreneurial ability to become rich, and b) they've left a lot of us without
any metaphorical 'boots'.
I don't know if my lack of understanding on this is due to
my being an aspie or not - I have noticed many aspies do seem to be on the
'left' side of the political spectrum, probably because of our passion for
justice, which extends to social justice. Others seem to be totally neutral, either
undecided or so turned off by humanity that they don't give a damn, while a few
express rabidly right-wing opinions - though I've noticed they also seem to be
the ones who have jaundiced, misanthropic views in general, due usually to
years of ill-treatment from the world.
I wonder too if my attitude is at least partly due to the
family values I was brought up with. These values weren't made explicit, were
never lectured to us or pushed on us, but rather simply demonstrated. I grew up
seeing my parents get involved with groups such as Plunket committees, school
lunch committees, and Lions Clubs. In more recent years, groups like the Child
Cancer Foundation, Hospice, Save the Children and others have received the
benefits of my family's energies. Moreover, we've all tended to gravitate
towards careers and jobs that help, educate or take care of people - nursing,
education, social work, etc. Community involvement is almost taken for granted
in my family.
This philanthropy goes further back than just this generation
- family history research has turned up evidence my ancestors were on church or
sports committees, organised fundraising events, or were members of such groups
as the Rebekah Lodge, the Hibernian Society and the Druids Lodge.
I've also had more than one discussion with various family
members about "what we'd do if we won Lotto". The general consensus
was that, after we'd satisfied our own needs, we'd distribute our wealth.
'Paying off our younger generation's student loans' and 'buying everyone in the
family houses' featured prominently on that list, and there was a general
feeling that beyond taking care of your own needs, it was best to 'spread the wealth' and help as many as possible.
Or perhaps my attitude is because of my own personal
experience of all too often having to go without - I've survived, at times,
thankfully never for too long, without things that most Westerners consider
'basic amenities', such as fridges, electricity or hot and cold running water;
I've also lived (for a few weeks or months each) in a tent, caravan, housetruck
and converted cowshed. I've gone without fancy clothes and many material
goodies that others take for granted, and had to trim my budget or shopping
bill to eliminate anything not absolutely essential to keeping body and soul
together. I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'd very much like to not have
to do that, but it has taught me you can live without many of the things most
Westerners consider necessary to existence. Luxuries are very nice, but they're
not essential. Other life-experiences have also contributed to what I can only
describe as a feeling that "all things are best in moderation".
And that includes wealth. So I just don't understand greed.
