Living in the COVOD World ... and Beyond #28: Global Economic Inequality and Greed
There is a crisis of global economic inequality.
According to the Credit Suisse Global Report, the world’s richest 1 percent own 47.8 percent of all the world’s wealth. Meanwhile, adults with less than $10,000 in wealth make up 53.2 percent of the world’s population but hold just 1.1 percent of global wealth. Individuals owning over $100,000 in assets make up 13 percent of the global population but own 85.6 percent of global wealth.
In 2020 and 2021, the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population took nearly two-thirds of all new wealth – six times greater than the wealth made by the poorest 90% of workers. And while billionaires get richer, global poverty is increasing. Put another way, since the pandemic started in March 2020, the world’s 2,690 billionaires increased their wealth by 68%, from $8 trillion in March 2020 to $13.5 trillion as of July 2020.
So not only is wealth distributed unequally but it’s getting even more unequal.
I wonder about the motivations that drive some individuals to seek and secure enormous wealth. And does that motivation exist inside all of us or only within a select few?
There are doubtlessly many different motivations in play such as the desire to compete, wanting to demonstrate how smart one is, and/or the desire to dominate. One underlying motivation for the climate crisis and the increasing economic inequality is greed.
Greed is not an inherent quality that exists within human beings. No child wakes up in the morning and hopes to become a greedy person. I’m reminded of the comic book character from my youth, Richie Rich – he was born into great wealth, did not seek it, and was repeatedly kind and generous towards all. Rather, greed is a characteristic that is developed within us.
Many generations ago, our early ancestors were in a struggle to survive. They did not know whether they would survive or not. Many did not. Understandably, fears were installed about whether they had what they needed in order to survive. These fears have been passed down through the generations and have clouded our thinking about what we actually need in order to survive or, more commonly expressed now, for our lives to go well.
In addition to that ancient trauma, most of us had experiences of not getting everything that we needed in our own early lives, whether that was milk and food, love and caring, and/or physical contact and affection. One impact of living in our current economic system is that most people grow up with inadequate access to food, housing, and health care. These early experiences of not having what we needed, or deprivation, create confusion about what we actually need now.
Greed can best be described as wanting or having more than one needs and acting indifferent to the needs of others. Many of us, if not all of us, seem to be infected with some form of greed, whether about money, food, affection, information, or something else. In my experience, greed can appear in two seemingly divergent forms. The first form, and more commonly understood, is of wanting more, regardless of what one has or what is actually needed. The second form, equally as confused but destructive only to oneself and not the broader population, is actively not wanting anything.
Greed confuses us and it manifests in our culture in numerous ways, including in these attitudes:
• The Earth is ours … take from it endlessly without regard
• Everything can be bought and sold, can be commodified
• Accumulating exorbitant wealth is celebrated
• Consumption makes people happy
• More is better
• What is mine is mine … valuing personal ownership
• Colonization, imperialism, genocide, and war are acceptable means of getting ahead
• Economically wealthy nations can dominate poorer nations
Looking at the list above, it is not surprising that we have the twin crises of climate change and economic inequality.
If we accept that greed is one of the roots of these crises, what can we do to help us recover from our ancient and childhood traumas, and act to meet our real needs which includes preservation of human life and the planet on which we live?
At the individual, level, I have worked as a counselor and coach with many people to help them discard their training towards greed and to think better to understand and act to fulfill their real needs. As is true with so many of the ways in which we have been hurt, a key step to overcome the common denial and pretense is to first acknowledge the existence of the hurt and confusion. In other words, people need to admit that they are greedy and here in the United States, many of us need to acknowledge that we have more than we need. It might be helpful to note that any individual who earns over $34,000 per year is in the top 1% of annual earners in the world. Of course, as we do this individual work, we need to be reminded that our training to be greedy is not something we ever asked for or wanted. The fact that we have grown up to be greedy is not our fault. But it is also not OK to allow our pattern of greed behavior to proceed uninterrupted. So, first acknowledge that we have this difficulty with greed.
Beyond the acknowledgement, we both need to look more at how greed got installed in each of us and, at the same time, take a realistic look at what we actually need in order for our lives to go well.
Some questions to consider include:
· When do you first see or understand that there were differences in people’s wealth? Many of us, if not all of us, saw differences in wealth in our families, in our neighborhoods, or in our schools when we were young. How did we feel about some people having more and others having less?
· Do we have more than we need? We don’t need more than we need. But what we actually need has become confused. Who has not at some point bought something and brought it home only then to wonder why they had bought it and to recognize that they did not need it. I encourage people to think and talk with others about purchases before making them in order to try to sort out what is actually needed and not respond reactively to an impulse. Indigenous leaders have challenged us to look at our patterns of consumption and to adjust to support a sustainable world.
We can choose to prioritize addressing questions like those above. If we do, we can learn to decide not to act on the training we received about greed and instead act to promote greater economic equality and solutions to the climate crisis.