The Rich and The Poor

Community owned property. Collective contribution. Equal wealth distribution. And Justice For All.

Justice it is, for there comes about the complete absence of inequality, and Thomas Piketty would have the least worry of authoring another book. What is equal in not always what is just, but for what it’s worth, subjectivity leaves room for the ambiguous to play with your mind.

I am no economist, but I do understand the constraints to be dealt with when a command economy is in practice. And the modernist businessman in you would tell me that today’s nerve breaking competition is no place for the government to be in charge of. I agree. But I still can’t get over that feeling, that 15-year old me in the back of my head, sympathizing the downtrodden, exploited, stressed out people in the bottom.

And of course I never made those sentiments public. Mine was a childhood spent with enough and more half-wits around me.

The kid in me was always a Communist. A Communist out of sentiment. That kid always wanted a Communist world. A perfect, flawless world. That kid respected the Communists for their most celebrated concept;

Equality.

Several books and lectures later, I found something drastically wrong with the Communist ideals. Something that made Communism as erratic as any other -ism you can think of.

The Communists forgot something;

Human nature.

Material wealth could be the source of your happiness; the only stop for your train of thoughts. It could easily be the bullet to your gun of jealousy; the dope that gets you high. The fate of every world citizen, the agenda of every government and the carefully crafted lie of every diplomat could be the consequence of this never ending greed for wealth. And the Communists’ solution for a new world order was fueled thus. Equal distribution of wealth, and everybody’s happy.

What you can touch is what you own was the simple definition. What triggers emotion was simply forgotten.

Imagine an ideally Communist world where none would reign financially supreme; Equal pay, equal benefits and equal recognition. Will the divide no longer exist? Won’t there still be the ones who enjoy love and the ones who don’t? Won’t there be the ones loaded with talent and the ones found wanting? Will the Rich and the Poor vanish altogether?

For the simple reason that humans are never psychologically satisfied, equality would remain an undefined term.

If material gains can’t put your mind at ease, what contentment will the poor have in a Communist world?

I don’t imagine the answer would be a logical one.