[saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Concerns

[Sharon Phelps]

Steve,

Your comments reinforce a model of sorts that has been developing in my
mind. It is not well-seasoned, or well-supported, as is, but I offer it in
hope that you and others on this list will consider it and comment on it.

Redistribution of wealth in the global economy can be compared to the
movement of sand in an hourglass. Wealthy societies are the top of the
hourglass, poor ones are the bottom. Of each of these halves, the top part
represents the upper classes, the bottom part represents the lower classes.
I doubt we could graph the statistics to show these perfectly balanced
inverse cones, but I think we can agree that in wealthier societies, those
above some "poverty level" outnumber those below, while the reverse is true
in poor societies, giving us the inverse shapes of the top and bottom halves
of the hourglass.

As sand, representing wealth, trickles from the top of the "hourglass" to
the bottom, it is necessarily the sand distributed at the bottom of the top
half (representing the lowest economic class of the richer societies) that
first passes through the opening in the middle. And where does that sand
land? At the top of the heap in the bottom half, or course.

This model seems to fit the scenario of low-paying textile-industry jobs,
for example, that are exported to developing countries. It is the
barely-surviving blue-collar workers in depressed mill-towns in the US that
lose their jobs and can't find another, while corrupt government officials
and rich factory owners in the developing countries are further enriched
long before factory workers at the lower classes enjoy any real prosperity.

That's about as far as I've gone with this. I can identify some holes in the
analogy myself, but I will leave that to others on this list.  I do believe
that a more equal distribution of world resources is a good thing. I also
believe that with the way it happens now, we find the "bottom falling out"
for the lower classes of our society (and sand getting shifty for
once-stable middle classes). We are torn by our compassion for the global
poor and our compassion for our poor neighbors in our society. (For some of
us, our compassion for either may be trumped at times by our fear that we
might join those poor neighbors.)

Rather than arguing about the size of the hole between top and bottom of the
hourglass, and when to turn the hourglass over, maybe we need to invent a
new way to "keep time" - something more balanced in shape, like a round
clock face?

Peace,
Sharon Phelps
West Knoxville Monthly Meeting

-----Original Message-----
From: sayma-bounces at kitenet.net [mailto:sayma-bounces at kitenet.net]On Behalf
Of Steve Livingston
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 9:16 AM
To: sayma at kitenet.net; Janet Minshall
Subject: Re: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Concerns

> The question has been asked "to increase the incomes of the poor in
> the rest of the world, are we willing to have less and buy less?"
> Well, are we?
>   Best Regards, Janet Minshall

I think this is an excellent question for us as Friends, Janet. I would be
very interested in hearing what Friends are currently doing, either as
individuals or as groups, to make that happen.

Statistics indicate that most Americans are indeed "having less",
whether they want it that way or not. Janet refers to statistics that show
"between 1980 and 2000 75% of the world's population achieved an
enormous increase in bothaverage incomes and living standards". For
your perusal I offer these statistics

http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html

that show that in America, during approximately the same period,
concentration of wealth has fled from the lower and lower middle
classes, into the hands of the upper class. In 2001, the latest year for
which the statistics were analyzed, the wealthiest 1% of Americans
controlled 32.7% of total wealth. At the same time, the lowest 50% of
Americans controlled only 2.8%. From 1983 to 1998, the lower and
lower middle classes lost over 75% of their net worth.

Clearly, the majority of Americans have already sacrificed a great deal
of their share of accumulated worth and buying power. However these
statistics show that it has not been entirely sacrificed in the manner that
Janet suggests, and with which many of us Friends would eagerly unite.

How do my purchasing decisions enable people of developing nations to
enjoy a better quality of life? How can I divert the flow of my capital from
the wealthiest 1% of my fellow citizens to the less wealthy 99.9995% of
the world's citizens? Does "living simply" assure that others may "simply
live", or am I called to do more? These are questions I ask myself often,
and Friends I admit to you that my self-assessment is not very good. I
find that my lifestyle and my condition are not conducive to my
testimony. I don't think buying "Fair Trade" coffee is enough for me.

How is it for you, Friends?

Steve

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