Nobody ever said that life was fair. After all, every single human who ever lived was a result of an extraordinary set of random accidents, over billions and billions of years. Fairness never came into the equation.
But our so-called “civilisation” has allowed a huge inequality to develop, where the richest 0.01 per cent on our planet own no less than 11% of global wealth leading into the recent coronavirus lockdown. In the U.K., the richest 10% of households hold 43% of all wealth. The poorest 50%, by contrast, own just 9%.
By this year, the wealthiest 50 families in the UK held more riches than half of the total UK population, comprising 33.5 million people. If the wealth of the super-rich continues to grow at the rate it has been, by 2035, the assets of the richest 200 families will be larger than the whole UK Gross Domestic Product. Just let that sink in…..
What an appalling set of statistics. The billionaires are getting ever richer, ever quicker, whilst the rest of the populations struggle against hopeless odds, and get abjectly poorer and poorer. It’s the same story practically everywhere else.
I believe billionaires should not exist. It’s ludicrous that a single billionaire can accumulate more money in ten seconds than their employees make in one year, while all of the time workers are struggling to meet the basics like food, housing and spiralling energy costs.
I don’t think many people appreciate just how much a billion pounds is. Say I was to give you, dear reader, £1,000 every single day, (yeh, I’m just that type of guy.) Even if you spend not a single penny, it would take you three years to save up a million pounds. If you wanted to save a billion, it would take you just shy of 2,800 years. And remember, most billionaires use exploitative labour practices, and have unbelievable tax breaks and loopholes that are beyond the reach of most of us mortals.
No, I’m not remotely jealous. I just don’t see why anyone who has more than a billion pounds needs to have more and more billions. What’s the point when you already have everything you could ever want? A mere multi-millionaire can create wealth by building factories and employing thousands of people. You don’t need this perversion of untold wealth.
In a fair and just society, there would not be any billionaires, nor would there be one in ten people living on less than £2.00 a day.
The world’s biggest injustice
I’ll be personal on this issue, but first, I’d like to eliminate things like ‘This is so unjust!’ or ‘Justice for all.’
Yes, our world is a stormy ocean, and it would be too naive to demand some ‘justice.’ There is no justice. Period.
Having said that, I think the biggest injustice is kids’ diseases, pathological and autoimmune. I have a personal dimension of this as my eldest daughter has type-1 diabetes, a total lack of natural insulin production. Every time she has a meal, she needs an insulin injection to keep her glucose level within the norm.
Back in 2017, we just returned from our first trip to North Cyprus. I met Dean and Roger there, and this is how RUSUK was formed. Then I went to Alaska, and then, in October 2017, overseas, I learned of my daughter’s diabetes diagnosis. It was a shock; I felt such pity for my daughter, and I was horrified as, at that moment, the diagnosis sounded like a court verdict.
I remember my wife saying in tears: ‘She is just a little three-year-old girl. She has done nothing bad in her life. Why did this happen to her?’
I sharply felt then what an injustice is.
Yes, thanks to technological progress in diabetes treatment, it is not even like ten years ago, let alone my childhood years. Life for such people is much easier and safer with all those glucose level sensors, insulin pumps, remote control, etc. If you control your insulin level and keep it stable, without ups and downs, escaping frequent hyper- or hypoglycemia, you will live a normal, healthy life, avoiding complications. Still, you must constantly be on alert to keep everything under control. Yes, there are issues, but, in general, it’s OK.
But then I look at kids with cerebral palsy, mental problems, kids with Down syndrome, etc. You can’t fix such things at all, or you can only correct them at minimum levels. I also understand first-hand what their parents feel and how it affects their lives.
Why does it happen? I have no answer.
I consider it the biggest injustice in the world, but there’s no justice.
It’s like 2 Pac put it: Life goes on.
The World’s Biggest Injustice
The Global North has a long and poor record in its treatment of the Global South. But after World War II things started to change. Some reading this will not like it or even accept the truth; the United States set out to create a new world order. A new, law-based, rule-based world where there were new institutions like the UN and international courts were created. As a part of this new system, the US Navy would guarantee freedom of trade (except for the Soviets). Prior to this, each nation guaranteed its own shipping and was also free to prevent shipping under other flags, a system that dated all the way back to Privateers and the age of sail.
Now the Americans have grown tired of playing the world’s policeman. It doesn’t matter, the Global South didn’t like that system anyway. This is really bad news for folks living in the South. Example: France had colonies across central Africa for centuries. Even after giving up these colonies, the French continued to meddle in these countries for its own benefit. But not for the last couple of decades. That is all gone now, replaced by a vacuum that new imperialists are happy to exploit.
It feels like a weekly event: Africans wave Russian flags, welcome Wagner, and curse the evil European masters. China is also happy to exploit the Global South with its Belt & Road initiative. Another example is the Global Civilization Initiative, a new state-defined values system that is not subject to bounds of universal values.
Of course, it all sounds great – we want to create a multi-polar world where nations are free to pursue a better future. Who can be against that? What that really means is that we hate the Americans and all their rules. Two new imperialists nations are working to create influence, or subjugate, depending on your point of view, half the world all over again.
We will own your mines (Wagner), ports (Belt & Road), and railroads (The People’s Bank of China via bilateral swap arrangements), but we are not those evil Europeans who only want to take advantage of you. We are different, so you should trust us. The messed-up part is, these countries do trust the new imperialists. It seems the Global South is doomed to repeating the past and that may be the biggest crime of all.