I'm not much of an idealist anymore, so I'm not entirely hopeful that the Make Poverty History demonstrations today - accompanied by Live8 - will really change things. I'd like to believe that they will, and that this mass outpouring is the start of a move towards genuine social change. Currently, 90% of the world's wealth is concentrated in just 10% of the people's coffers. Large corporate entities routinely pay billions of dollars to each other, just to keep a consumerized, environmentally unsustainable culture churning forwards in the West - while people die in abject poverty in Africa, parts of Europe, Asia, South America, and even sections of the USA (itself subject to 80% of the wealth in the hands of 20%). As an almost-comfortable professional, it's very hard to see what I can personally do about the situation: I definitely can't afford to give chunks of my paycheque (meagre by US standards, but very substantial in most of the aforementioned areas), except maybe in redistributive taxation (an unpopular concept these days, despite it's prevalence in the Western world). Something really needs to be done on a far larger scale - something I'd gladly participate in, rather than funding illegitimate wars in the Middle East with my tax dollars.
What we need are massive forgiveness of debt (itself a wealth-concentrator in the West), significant changes in the pharmaceutical industry (accept that human wellbeing is a social good, and not a profit centre; change patent laws to allow cheap access to drugs quickly; distribute drugs to needy areas as a social benefit, not a source of revenue), an acceptance that globalization is only meaningful if it applies equally to everyone (with social benefits, a smooth market, and strong international policing of corporate exploitative practicies), and most importantly an acceptance of the brotherhood of humanity. The latter doesn't need to be a religious concept (although most major religions espouse it), a Socialist/Communist concept (human equality underpins most post-Mill/Locque Liberalism!), or an anti-capitalist concept (even Adam Smith, often cited by neocons, stated that the invisible hand of the market can only help if monopolies are checked, innovation abounds, social goods are treated differently and the burden shared, and market distortions in terms of both social policy and economic policy* are to be eliminated). Equality of opportunity, a level playing field, and the fundamental understanding that ultimately, we're all human, and share this tiny planet are pretty basic concepts - it would be nice if they were paid more than lip-service.
Of course, in a world that slides between Mercantilism, Globalism, and Bloc economic theories, achieving this is very difficult. The US has strong Mercantilist tendencies: collect as much wealth as possible (somehow hoping to avoid the inflation that really killed the Spanish empire!), and play bully on the International stage. The US also has Globalist tendencies (alternating between Globalism and Isolationism, really), largely driven by corporate interests - but gradually leading to a redistribution of money and power away from the USA. The US generally really dislikes Bloc theory, and if anybody could make it work they could make themselves quite rich - at the expense of the rest of the world. Arguably, ASEAN is the world's most powerful trade bloc currently, with the EU gradually (maybe!) working on becoming another. The US probably counts as a bloc itself.
The only optimistic route I can see here is for wealth to gradually spread itself out as corporations outsource, dilute, and the world becomes considerably more interconnected. That doesn't help war-torn Africa for now, but with development it could in the future. Unfortunately, I'm really pessimistic in general. I'd love to think that the world will change for the better, but I'm not sure that it will in my lifetime.
* - Unfortunately, the largely illiterate neocon & modern Libertarian club tends to regard "distortion in social policy" as meaning "eliminate social policy, particularly safety nets." We saw how well that worked in the early Industrial Revolution, and it isn't what Smith said at all.
Mood: tired
Music: Black Sabbath - Live Evil
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