The Greedy 1% - Oh Please change the record!

Is it just me?  Am I the only person who is getting tired of hearing about this mythical 1% (who seem to have replaced the sleazy politicians at the top of the list) who are the greedy spoilers of our lives, chances, jobs, pensions and our peace of mind? It certainly sounds good doesn't it?  How better to handle the on-going world crises than to point the finger at a small minority and thereby letting ourselves off the hook.  I am a little surprised at how many well educated, well paid and worldly people seem to be jumping on to this bandwagon, having, presumably, forgotten to look closely at the way our society has developed and the really quite obvious conclusions one can reach which blow the 1% myth right out of the muddied waters.

I have yet to see a political party in any "mature" democracy campaign with the promise to reduce peoples prosperity whilst increasing their sense of wellbeing. This is probably because, having employed the smartest of researchers, politicians have reached the conclusion that promising prosperity wins votes.  Of course it does. It's the nature of the human beast to be acquisitive and one of the main reasons that the planet is populated by people who find it easier to say "me first" than "after you".  We wouldn't be here at all - nor any other species - if we weren't, at our very cores, greedy and thrusting and willing to take any advantage possible.

That is not to say that I believe in a sort of Darwinian free-for-all.  On the contrary,  I believe that you cannot legislate effectively unless you first recognise, unflinchingly, the essential nature of human beings. It is remarkable to me that so many well-heeled individuals in the West will talk a great and eloquent game about the inequalities we see all around us and yet I don't see many in the West agreeing to a fair dividing up of global wealth - one of the estimates I recently read stated that we would end up with around 5000 USD each.  Bang go our houses, cars, pensions, holidays and all the other things that make our lives so pleasant.  I for one would be prepared to shoot anyone who tried to take my garden off me - you see, I'm only human.  So inequality it must be.

It is interesting that one of the ways in which those in receipt of incomes at the lower end of the scale choose to try and increase their wealth is by entering state lotteries and the like.  Could there be a more unfair way of redistributing wealth?  Take a bit of money off lots of people who are none-too-wealthy and then give it to one person. It's the wrong way round, duh!!  I for one have no trouble at all with the idea of capping wages and taxing heavily the very rich but I do have a problem with the current trend which seems to suggest that it is only a small minority that have spoiled it, without our complicity, for the rest of us.

One of the hottest of hot topics during the last few years has been the bonuses scandal.  Already rich bankers and the like taking massive bonuses even as the businesses they presided over were failing.  I fail to find an argument to support it.  It’s ridiculous and greedy.  However, if I close my eyes and imagine picking 100 people randomly off the streets and offering them, say, a million quid, no strings attached and then go on to try and imagine their responses, I cannot help imagine that many would simply take the money and run – perhaps to Disneyland with the wife and kids!  How many would say “No thanks, I didn’t earn it”?  How many would ask where the money was from, or if anyone was being exploited to provide it?  How many would say “I’ve got enough already thanks”?  99% of “No thank yous” do you think?  Personally I’d be a “yes thanks” and be perusing the solar panel catalogues in no time at all.

The vast majority - we could even give it a catchy title, perhaps the thoughtless AND greedy 95% or so? - have been more than willing over the last few decades to join in the bacchanalian bullshit we've called growth.  I remember the 80s very well.  Suddenly everyone was going to own a home and go abroad on holiday and do all the things that previously only rich people could do - and there would be NO consequences!!! Can you believe anyone fell for it?  But of course - after all, the political promises ever since, issuing from the right and from the left, appealed directly to our avarice. At that time, back in the 80s, we owned a tile shop in Wimbledon which meant that I daily came into contact with home-owners of all shapes and sizes.  House prices were rising at an unbelievable rate and the glow in the eye of practically every customer spoke of unexpected windfall.  For the most part people were overjoyed that their homes - some newly bought council properties acquired as a result of that highly subscribed scandal - were gaining value daily.  It was then that I first noticed what I called the "Disney Difference". 

Whilst the hot topic was the boom, one of the differences I observed, during many conversations around the subject, was what people chose to do with the unexpected windfall.  There were those who simply cashed in the money and spent it - I well remember a tiler who was a regular customer pointing to "That little beauty" parked outside the shop who went on to explain that his new, fancy car had been bought by remortgaging his home (which was earning him, he reliably informed me, more each week than his job) - and the rest of the money left over after buying the shiny new motor would be used to transport "The wife and kids to Disneyland".  

On the other hand I had some very different customers.  Those who intended to buy more property secured against the burgeoning equity in their homes and perhaps put the rest in shares. They were playing the long game and, there you see before you, the "Disney Difference". Which type of response is a greedy response?  I wouldn't like to say but it is clear to me that trickle up effect is more likely than trickle down given human nature.

Do I sound like I don't like humans - a true misanthrope? Not really, I just try to be realistic. It's a tired analogy I know, but the party's over - it's been a long one too - and now we have to clean up the vomit.

Of course, it would be easy to point at the greedy 1% (those very successfully greedy - such excellent exploiters indeed), and say it was ALL your fault.  It’s a comfortable position to take – blamelessness is a nice position to place yourself in.   So, the 99%, who presumably knew already that the way things were going was unsustainable, leading to disaster didn't speak up?  In fact, they joined in.  Those rich bastards didn't get rich without our help.  Of course, it's obvious that many "at the top" especially banks and financial institutions, made a complete cock-up and this has had a very bad effect on us all - not least that the public’s attention has been so focused on the world economy that the really important things, like ecology have been put on the back burner.  The problems created by poor financial management by governments and banks have been catastrophic and very public. 

However, the strain that is being put on world resources is largely due to massive comsumption.  It is interesting however, that when figures are compared, for food, fuel and water, between the obscenely wealthy and the very poor in the developed world the difference in levels is far, far less than you might expect.

Is it only the 1% who buy food and then throw it away whilst many in the world are hungry?  Is it only the 1% who will jump in the car to drive 2 mins down the road when some in the world live without the most basic amenities?  Or only the 1% who end up with stomach bypass operations whilst virgin forests are razed to grow palm oil?  I think we all know the answer. 

By all means let’s force changes in the way we operate - greedy bankers included - but we can only make real differences to way the world works if we first look to ourselves, straight in the eye, and address our own weaknesses.  The problem of the world’s diminishing resources and the horrible financial mess we are in can only be solved if we are the 100% behind changes for all.

I would really like to see people actually taking responsibility themselves.  Solving problems works much better when the burden is shared. But I feel that this is too big an ask to hope that individuals will see the need for change and apply the changes needed.  For sure there are some in the Western world who do live in mindful and sustainable ways, but the vast majority do not.  The instinct to accumulate and to favour oneself and family is too strong. I feel, without doubt, that the shenanigans of the top 1% need to be curbed by legislation but equally so does the thoughtless wastefulness of the remaining 99%.  It's an interconnected world.