We’ve been here for thousands of years. And in that time we’ve learned many things. We’ve created many amazing things. We’ve figured out how to use natural resources in ingenious ways to provide for ourselves. To not only provide for ourselves, but to live a relatively luxurious lifestyle.
A middle class person living today enjoys more luxury than the richest person in the world did a century ago. Yet we still have billions of people struggling. Even in first world countries we have millions of people struggling to simply pay their rent or own a small house. Most of us have to slave away for decades under the rule of bosses and money lenders before we can own a modest home to live in.
We’ve come a long way economically (and socially). There are far fewer people living in poverty (per capita) than ever before. People live longer. More people can read and write. Violent crime has gone down. There are fewer major wars. Women and people of color have more rights (people in general have more rights). But with everything that we’ve accomplished we still have major gaps in lifestyle.
In other words, greed is still a major problem. There’s no easy fix. We need a market economy — we need capitalism. But we also need a spiritual revolution, where capitalism is seen as a way of serving humanity, rather than serving self. Not enough people have come to the realization that their spiritual life and their service to others should be their priority.
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