The Relativity of Wealth - Part 1

Wealth and poverty are relative. To be more specific, the emotional and psychological states that determine how we view ourselves on the scale of wealth and poverty are relative. In fact, I believe that nearly all cases in which people are dissatisfied with their objective financial/material situation can be explained by the fact that those people are comparing their situation to the financial situation of others. So you see, their discontent isn't a legitimate signal that there is a real problem with their f/m situation, but rather a purely subjective mental state triggered by nothing more than seeing that others have more and then determining that their own possessions are insufficient.

We tend to plot the scale of wealth and poverty based on a pretty small geographical area around us. Consider your average small city. I will use Saint Joseph as an example. At one end of the spectrum we place some blighted neighborhood (I won't name any) and at the other end we put a community like Twelve Oaks. We then apply the label poor to the inhabitants of one and rich to the inhabitants of the other. All too often this then becomes the default scale that is used when we think about the ethical issue of wealth and poverty e.g., when reading relevant scripture in our bibles.

If we would expand the geographical area used to create this scale to include the entire planet, a very different picture will emerge. We will now have at one end of the scale abject poverty where life literally cannot be sustained and at the other end multi-billionaires whose immense wealth is such that it puts them above the law and gives them near unlimited earthly power. When using the expanded scale, the financial situations of the two communities used in our Saint Joseph scale (according to my rough calculations) differ by only about .002 of one percent. This paints a much more accurate picture and I believe it would be very beneficial for everyone if we could learn to view ourselves this way.

Well I have just begun to say everything I want to say about this subject and I have run out of time for the moment. So this will now be a multi-part blog.