Today, we're immersed in the quality of selfishness, seeking to benefit ourselves with no regard for others. We've adopted competition (instead of collaboration) as our modus operandi, and when it comes to wealth, this creates a huge discrepancy between the rich and the poor.
There's only so much wealth to go around, it's finite, yet we expect everyone to compete for their share of the pie. We're all different, we have different talents, skills, attributes etc., and some people are simply better competitors than others - this is reflected in the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor:
- Total world wealth is ~USD $241 trillion. [1]
- 1% of the world's population owns 46% of the world's wealth (USD $110 trillion). [2]
- 10% of the world's population owns 86% of the world's wealth (USD $207 trillion). [3]
- 30% of the world's population owns 97% of the world's wealth (USD $234 trillion), the other 70% of the world's population owns 3% of the world's wealth (USD 7 trillion). [4]
- 50% of the world's population owns 99.3% of the world's wealth (USD $239 trillion), while the bottom 50% owns 0.71% of the world's wealth (USD 1.71 trillion). [5]
- 1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty. [6]
- 2.2 billion people are poor or near-poor. [7]
Aggressive competition is destructive and extremely unfair. It's akin to having $10 and asking 10 people to share it - 3 people would end up sharing $9.70, while 7 people would share $0.30.
In competition, there's always a winner and a loser, a natural consequence of our differences. However, when competition becomes a matter of life and death - such as when the rich enjoy the highest standard of living, while others don't have food, water, clothing, shelter, healthcare etc, it's simply unfair, especially when the rich have the means to help others.
We have to change from personal selfishness to mutual bestowal. We have to seek to benefit others instead of ourselves. We have to embrace collaboration, cooperation and basic sharing. We're all one family and we have to start behaving as one family.
The role of the rich (and those who are blessed with God-given talents, attributes and riches) is to help others. If poverty exists, it's because the rich aren't fulfilling their role. The annual income of the richest 100 people would be enough to end world poverty four times over. [8]
Round tables need to be established to seek to eliminate world poverty.
We have to simplify our lives and focus only on meeting our basic needs - food, water, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education etc.
In everything we do, we should seek to benefit others instead of ourselves.
In competition, there's always a winner and a loser, a natural consequence of our differences. However, when competition becomes a matter of life and death - such as when the rich enjoy the highest standard of living, while others don't have food, water, clothing, shelter, healthcare etc, it's simply unfair, especially when the rich have the means to help others.
We have to change from personal selfishness to mutual bestowal. We have to seek to benefit others instead of ourselves. We have to embrace collaboration, cooperation and basic sharing. We're all one family and we have to start behaving as one family.
The role of the rich (and those who are blessed with God-given talents, attributes and riches) is to help others. If poverty exists, it's because the rich aren't fulfilling their role. The annual income of the richest 100 people would be enough to end world poverty four times over. [8]
Round tables need to be established to seek to eliminate world poverty.
We have to simplify our lives and focus only on meeting our basic needs - food, water, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education etc.
In everything we do, we should seek to benefit others instead of ourselves.
_____
References:
- Working For The Few (PDF). www.oxfam.org. 178 Oxfam Briefing Paper - Summary, 20 January 2014, page 5. Retrieved Sept 25, 2014.
- Ibid.
- Working For The Few (PDF). www.oxfam.org. 178 Oxfam Briefing Paper, 20 January 2014, page 9. Retrieved Sept 25, 2014.
- Ibid.
- Working For The Few (PDF). www.oxfam.org. 178 Oxfam Briefing Paper - Summary, 20 January 2014, page 5. Retrieved Sept 25, 2014
- Eradicate Extreme Poverty And Hunger. Where do we stand? United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Millennium Development Goals. Retrieved Sept 25, 2014.
- 2.2 billion people are poor or near poor, warns 2014 Human Development Report on vulnerability and resilience. United Nations Development Program (UNDP). 24 Jul 2014. Retrieved Sept 25, 2014.
- Annual income of richest 100 people enough to end global poverty four times over. www.oxfam.org. 19 January 2013. Retrieved Sept 23, 2014.
Copyright © 2014, Carter Kagume. All Rights Reserved.
