Why We Need To Be Saved From The Rich, Why The Rich Need To Be Saved From Themselves, And Someone Had Better Save The Rich From The Rest Of Us

Well Gentle Reader, but this has to be my longest title ever.  During my happy stroll through one of our wealthiest neighbourhoods today I was thinking exactly about the same thing.  The rich are really the most unfortunate people in the world.  Why?  For lots of reasons.  For one thing, they have way too much.  When you have too much then really you are harming yourself just as much as you are hurting those whom you are depriving of their means of survival.  Greed is a disease that makes the wealthy sick.  Sure, statistically they are going to enjoy better health and longer lives than the rest of us but they have basically hoovered their souls out of existence.  There have been a number of studies that have shown a clear index ratio between wealth and sociopathy.  The more money you have, even if it was given you by inheritance and you didn't work a blessed day of your life to earn any of it, you are still going to feel somehow entitled to it, that you have earned it and that being rich sets you apart from and above the hoi poloi.  It makes you believe that you are better than people like me and you Gentle Reader.  Being wealthy will cause you to lose empathy and concern for others.  It will isolate you as you get swallowed up in the fear that others are going to try to deprive you of your Precious.  That's right, you turn into Gollum, or worse, you become Donald Trump.  Need I say more, GR?

The wealthy need to be saved from themselves as much as we need to be saved from them.  If they are going to enjoy the full benefits of being human, which is to say, if they are going to feel like true contributing members of the community and if they are to enjoy the blessing of true friendship within the human family then some sort of cap is going to have to be put on their earnings and wealth.  That is right, I am advocating here for a maximum wage.  I am not saying that we all have to have exactly the same income, but perhaps the playing field could be evened a little.  Say, that no one should be permitted to earn more than one hundred thousand a year and by the same token that no one would have to subsist on less than forty thousand.  Do the math if you don't believe me.

If we are to live in a truly just society then things are going to have to become a lot more equal.  If this means frightened rich people taking money out of the country instead of sharing the wealth, then so be it.  None of that loot ever goes to the people or programs that need it most anyway.  By the same token we are really going to have to recover, to cure ourselves of this epoch of greed.  Our culture, our very civilization depends on this.  Save us from the rich.  Save the rich from themselves.  Otherwise the rich are going to have to be saved from us!