Material Things

In the Pyrenees, sheep farmers moved with the seasons.  In the winters they lived in the valleys with their sheep in small fields or pens, fed on hay reaped in the autumn.  As spring turned towards summer they moved up the mountains to high pastures to take advantage of the growing grass and to save the resources in the valley.  In the time before motorized vehicles it was too far to walk up the mountain each day and return in the evening to sleep in their houses in the valley.  As a result the farmers built little cottages high up in the mountains in which to stay, in Scotland these are called "crofter's cottages."

Today there are cars and trucks which make the ascent and descent quick and convenient.  As a result the farmers live down in the valleys all year round with their families and the comforts of the modern world.  But the cottages still remain, in various states of disrepair.  Being from a time before the modern world these cottages don't have electricity, or sewage, or really anything that we take for granted.  Heat comes from a fire.

There is someone I know who lives in one of these places, a 47 year old man, someone who has wandered the world, drifting from one place to another, but this is now his home base.  He makes his living by busking, or picking grapes, or other odd jobs here and there.  He cannot drive and makes his way around Europe by walking, hitch-hiking, or public transport.  I have never heard him complain that he hasn't enough, and he's happier and healthier than most of the people I know.  This man is my brother Peter.

He has spent a considerable time in India, wandering around with a backpack.  He has told me of returning to London after such a trip and seeing the beggars on the streets (there is no shortage of these) and feeling the urge to laugh at them.  Why?  "Because they didn't even know what being poor was," he said.  After having seen the truly destitute on the streets of India, living skeletons starving to death or dying from disease, these comparatively plump people with access to shelter, daily food, and potable water, were rich in his eyes.

As for myself, for several years I worked in a building in downtown Portland that was available for those with "very low income."  Practically this ranged from a low of zero income to a high of about $300 a week.  In my capacity there I helped hungry people find food, those without furniture to find a bed, those without money to pay for their electricity and heating.  It was a horribly depressing place to be, and perhaps some time I will write the list of things I saw there that have damaged me.  Suffice it to say that entering the building fills me with dread, my heart rate rises, and I have an animal urge to flee.  However, nobody starved, nobody died of exposure, nobody died of dysentery, or cholera, etc..

All around me in the USA at the moment I hear cries of anguish against the terrible plight affecting the poor, and even the middle class.  A few days ago I heard some one say, "You can't live on $35,000 these days."  I have heard tragic stories of people committing suicide because they have lost everything.  There are people around the country publicly demonstrating to get their fair share.  I have heard people complaining that they won't be able to own a house, or keep the house in which they presently live, in disbelief that this would be allowed to happen.  I have heard the story of a retired veteran who was a teacher for forty years (and therefore gets social security, a pension, and free health care) complain that he has to live in an apartment and struggles to pay the bills (on what must be about $25,000 a year).

People say it isn't fair for them to be poor like this.  That the rich have taken it away from them.

Well, the truth is that the poorest people in the USA, in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression make as much money when you adjust for inflation as they did in 1979.  before the downturn they made about 11% more than they used to.  This does not include any technological improvements (most people on welfare in the USA these days have a color tv with cable and a cell phone, the objects of only the rich in 1979).  In fact, over this period, all sections of the US population have become wealthier.  The middle class have become about 1/5th wealthier in the last thirty years.  While it is usually mocked and derided, it is actually true that "A rising tide lifts all boats."

The US has one of the highest average incomes in the world.  In fact the standard by which Americans are designated as poor is about the same as the average income in Portugal, and higher than the average income in Costa Rica.  These are not third world countries, these are stable democracies with school systems, health systems, roads, bridges etc..  While it is deplorable that there are homeless people in the US the highest estimates for the number of homeless is 1 in 600, 1/6th of one percent.  The poor of the United States are rich compared with the rest of the world.

What then are people complaining about?  People are complaining that they have not had "their fair share of the pie", and a very, very large pie it is.  It is absolutely true that the better off you are the greater your increase in wealth.  It is absolutely true that the wealth disparity in the US (and the UK) is growing.  It is absolutely true that this is not as good for the future of the US as a more equitable distribution of wealth.  It is absolutely true that I think the wealthy should be taxed more and that money spent on improved services.  But the truth of it is that rich people are complaining vociferously that they are not rich enough while the fabulously wealthy try to hold on to their fabulous wealth.  In the US the class warfare is between the rich and the very, very, very rich.

Why then are people complaining with such anguish?  The first reason is that most Americans are literally entirely unaware of what real poverty is.  It was a repeated theme of my work in that building that those who had lost their money through bad luck or illness were in literal disbelief at how few services there were for the poor, and this being a place with food, shelter, furniture, bathrooms, and electricity.  Most Americans have never seen a family living in a corrugated iron shack, eating the same meager meal every day and washing their two sets of clothing in river water.  Actually living like that is literally unimaginable.  Most Americans think that living in an old apartment with ratty carpets, peeling paint, shopping in bulk at Costco, and driving a fifteen year old car which is difficult to keep full of gas, is really poor.

The second reason is that people have forgotten the lessons that every single one of us is taught from an early age, and then repeated over and over again.  The best things in life are free.  Love is what really matters.  You can't buy happiness.  Be grateful for what you have.  These things are true!  I mean that, they really are true.  Has any material thing ever come close to making you as happy as a friend? 

It is a good thing to wish that the world was a fairer place, a kinder place, a safer place, a more beautiful place.  It is an even better thing to work to make it so.  It is an absolute tragedy to make yourself miserable as a consequence.  It is possible to be like my brother, high on a mountain, owning very little but a love for life.