And everybody here commenting on this post are Haves. Maybe not on the scale that some others are, but I know I certainly didn’t have to walk several hours today just to get clean drinkable water.
The system of haves extracting wealth from have nots is not one where you are either 100% one or 100% the other. If you rent a house from BlackRock, you likely get access to clean water. You are a have not, since you do not have a house, and money is extracted from you by BlackRock because they do have a house (many of them). But the homeless man around the corner is not in the same position as you, because he has no income. In that sense you are both a have not (a house) and a have (a job). It is more a linear scale between the have everything and the have nothing. Corruption is a different example of the same system: the have (power) extracts money from the have not (power). Sometimes it looks as if the richest is always the leech, but it can also be the corrupt employee instigating the extraction.
But I can, and that’s because my government tilts the scales in my favor.
It’s not only individual haves extracting from individual have nots, but also groups of the one making profit of the group of the other. I am not a fan of this system, but large part of it is our (flawed) human nature. If you look at animals they tend to share among a group (a herd, a family etc) but not share among others of the same species. It’s a free-for-all and we are in dire need of a system that protects the weakest instead of rewarding the strongest.
The system of haves extracting wealth from have nots is not one where you are either 100% one or 100% the other. If you rent a house from BlackRock, you likely get access to clean water. You are a have not, since you do not have a house, and money is extracted from you by BlackRock because they do have a house (many of them). But the homeless man around the corner is not in the same position as you, because he has no income. In that sense you are both a have not (a house) and a have (a job). It is more a linear scale between the have everything and the have nothing. Corruption is a different example of the same system: the have (power) extracts money from the have not (power). Sometimes it looks as if the richest is always the leech, but it can also be the corrupt employee instigating the extraction.
It’s not only individual haves extracting from individual have nots, but also groups of the one making profit of the group of the other. I am not a fan of this system, but large part of it is our (flawed) human nature. If you look at animals they tend to share among a group (a herd, a family etc) but not share among others of the same species. It’s a free-for-all and we are in dire need of a system that protects the weakest instead of rewarding the strongest.