I just read this statistic:
The combined wealth of the worlds' three richest people is greater than the combined Gross Domestic Product of the world's poorest 48 nations.
That's terribly sad. Maybe sad isn't even the proper word.. We have professional athletes pissing and moaning b/c suddenly $3 million a year isn't enough to put food on the table, all while people literally have no food and no table.
Recently I read about the United Arab Emirates where they have been auctioning off license plates with single digit numbers on them. I don't know if they've gotten to number 1 or not. They started with 9 and worked backwards. These license plates are going for millions of dollars. A license plate. And the proceeds are going to the department of traffic or something (I can't really remember).
Is there a possibility of bringing some equity to the world's wealth? Is there a chance of eliminating poverty? I don't know the first thing about the economics of this and the whole deal with capitalism and the other "ism's" so please don't go off on that. I just wonder if we will ever see the rich helping the poor. I'd like to think that I would if I had millions. It makes me wonder what I can do now with my thousands, compared to the millions or billions that others have.
What do you think about this? How do you see the average person being able to make a dent in this. And will we ever see the ridiculously wealthy doing the same?
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2 comments:
I've struggled more with this issue than possibly any other. It's one thing for me to condemn "those rich people with the huge boats and summer homes"...it is another to do what you are asking: what am I doing to reduce poverty? What are our congregations doing? How am I living my life. I type this in a $2500 mac... the money I spent on this would feed 8 kids for a year through compassion/world vision, etc. I live in a much nicer house than I need, with more clothes, food, stuff than I will never need.
I also think we need to engage the larger issues of justice. Sponsoring kids is great, but until we work on debt, water supplies, education... there will always been inequity of wealth. But I believe these are the issues our best and brightest minds should be tackling... but rather we are fighting over the color of the church carpet -- and in the business world building better widgets.
In a perfect world, we would live in a global communal society and everyone would share with one another and no one would horde for themselves and everyone would live in harmony. Poverty and obscene wealth would be nonexistent. Unfortunately, as we are currently discussing in Genesis, the instant blame, greed, selfishness, self-pity, etc. were introduced into the system, any thought of a perfect communal world went out the window. That cat was let out of the bag thousands of years ago. Let's face it, in only 125 or so years we went from blissful paradise to capital murder. To think we can reverse that trend to everyone singing Kumbaya is probably unrealistic. So, what do we do? People are rich... people are poor. In order for any distribution of wealth, the wealth needs to be created in the first place. I believe that capitalism is the economic engine best suited to "capitalize" on our imperfect world and create wealth needed to support all of us. I believe the wealth creation system is working fine. I think the wealth distribution system is failing miserably - and I think the fault lies at the feet of the church (collectively). If there is any institution that is responsible for instilling the "want" to give in people, it is church. Yet, as Shane Claiborne points out, many churches spend more money on buildings and "stuff" than they ever would on the poor. If that is our societal role model, why would anyone expect individuals and corporations to act any differently? In regard to the most wealthy, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett both give in excess of billions of dollars to help the sick and poor of the world. Maybe the church (as an institution) could learn from them...
Through all this, I'm not saying we should not grow Journey's ability to serve the needs of our community - and relocate to a place that would enable even more service - but if we ever want to add a gym, I may disagree.
Jim Z
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