On the Need for a Bigger Boat

I once heard the quote…

Capitalism rewards the owners of capital.

I’m not sure where I heard it. But it is true, isn’t it?

Throughout human history we’ve rewarded the hoarders of capital with luxuries that the rest of us can hardly imagine.

It’s like what Chris Rock said recently, “if poor people knew how rich people [live], there would be riots in the streets.”

That is, we create these luxurious experiences, but then only allow those who’ve impacted humanity to the greatest degree to enjoy them, from time to time.

Because the problem with trying to live an impactful life is how to do that and still just get by…to make a living…to put a roof over the head and food into hungry dependent mouths.

And maybe even indulge in a luxury or two, from time to time.

There are guys like Scott Harrison of charity:water who seem to have figured it out.

So, I guess it’s not impossible.

But, it’s damn hard.

And, really now, does that make the slightest bit of sense?

For the richest of the rich, the oft maligned 1%, to be grossly rewarded for their exploitative excellence.

While the rest of us can barely afford a decent one-week vacation every 365 days?

They are the ones raping and pillaging the planet, grossly underpaying labor, and concentrating all the earth’s stores of wealth into fewer and fewer hands…

They create, by sheer effort, the situation of the haves and the have nots.

And we reward them for that?

And they decry any attempt at reallocating that wealth downward in the slightest degree as being contrary to the hallowed laws of capitalism.

As if those laws were brought down from Sinai by Moses himself.

At certain times in history wealth has indeed been allocated downward, but it always takes wars, depressions, and other horrible human calamities for that to happen.

Why?

I guess we just live in a broken world.

We look for material solutions to our problems.

We look upon all that bright and shiny shit and want more, more, more…

Capitalism tells us that we can have more…

Hell, we can have it all!

So we strain and strive to accumulate.

We focus our efforts on the need for a bigger boat, because we’ve been deluded into believing that in it we’ll be sheltered from all of life’s stormy woes.

No storm (or shark) will be big or strong enough to capsize my personal Titanic.

But then that tiny unexpected iceberg appears and tears a whole in our expectations.

And down we go…

Capitalism, or at least the strain of it that has run amok, has planted the idea in the mind of our society that the bigger boat solution is the only one that is realistic.

So we sit back and allow “our” capital, the capital that the earth offers to all of its inhabitants, to just flow like a river and concentrate directly into the hands of…

the Koch brothers.

It’s developed a few holes in recent decades and is rapidly succumbing to the risk of capsize…

What are we going to do about it?

The Koch brothers reassure us not to worry…

they’ve got it all under control…

But they’re the very ones making the holes.

Should they really be rewarded so handsomely for that?

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