Have you thanked a rich person lately?

In my experience, most rich people cause more problems than they solve. However so do poor people and the middle-class, so what can I say? In any case, I understand why people defend the middle and lower class, because they suffer greatly (even if the majority of them unwittingly bring it on themselves). Rich people, on the other hand (and broadly speaking), don't suffer nearly as intensely as the majority of 'ordinary' people who struggle to get by on a daily basis, whatever their reasons.

Defending the down-trodden and the underprivileged makes sense to me, even if a lot of people take it overboard and/or over-do it. But I don't understand why some people feel the need to actively rush to "rich people's" defense, as if they are some unfairly oppressed minority. The irony is almost overwhelming. But who cares? First of all, rich people, aren't 'the problem', and no true 'anti-inequality' advocate thinks that way. The real socioeconomic problems of this planet come from above the money - the money-issuers; those elite transcendent few who have the illusory power to permit or deny us this 'wealth' we covet so passionately. They're beyond rich, they're beyond powerful, they're beyond justice, and they're beyond useless as far as humanity's interests are concerned.

I'll thank a rich person like I'd thank any person - based on their personal deeds and merit; not because they merely worked hard to provide for themselves and now have the potential to help others. We all have that potential, and money has very little to do with it. It's not money which makes those hospitals and universities and museums thrive and function as the integral institutions that they are. It's not even money which builds those infrastructures. It's the lower- and middle-class workers who make those resources and institutions even possible, let alone as valuable as they are.

Of course money can convince, or perhaps more accurately, coerce people to invest their own invaluable time and energy and resources into a project, maybe. But money and material wealth cannot realize a project in and of itself. In fact, it's fundamentally useless. Money is ultimately just a form of primitive incentive. And it is only effective incentive for unfortunate people who need it so desperately in order to survive or provide for their family that they are willing to get their own hands dirty and put their own personal health on the line for these rich people who (for the most part) merely just pay them to build their hospitals and their parks so that they might get their names on plaques and be remembered as a respectable and benevolent contributor to society.

But it is only the priceless blood and sweat of hard-working human beings which turns that otherwise-useless money into hospitals and schools. Most (normal) people only pursue money in order to liberate themselves from the consequential subjugation inherent with the lack thereof. But truly benevolent human beings who seek genuine riches of a more meaningful nature understand that real wealth can only be measured by degree of one's own cultivated virtues, and that money is only an irrelevant symbolic game like fashion or language. It is purely representative; it is not a tangible reality like love or pain or joy or hunger. And no matter what anybody says, money cannot buy you those things. It can help you coerce others into providing them for you, but you can't eat money and you can't feel money besides the cold touch of it in your fingertips.

It is just a symbolic means to a symbolic end; a hypnotic talisman of energetic incentive. Money itself is only valued so highly because, for the majority of people, it is so intolerably difficult (and unpleasant) to obtain. Much like all precious resources, except that in the case of money, its degree of rarity and associated difficulties are entirely artificially encouraged and sustained. In reality, money is only worth whatever we all agree it's worth, and most of us agree that it's worth whatever the people who print it says it's worth, because that's the way we've been conditioned to function as a 'civilized' society out of fear, apathy and / or ignorance. So then, why people worship it or even humor it is beyond me. How can people regard money more seriously than they regard human life? That has always baffled me even as a kid, and it probably will forever.

Anyway, don't get me wrong. I'm not belittling charity. I'm only belittling in-genuine charity. If a rich person really wants to make a difference, they need to do more than just pay for it. They need to involve themselves personally. The only rich people I have a remote interest in or respect for are genuine philanthropists. Otherwise, wealthy people are just as destructive and indifferent to the planet as the middle-class or lower-class, except with far less forgivable excuses.

Anyway, it's definitely an interesting and controversial topic for debate. But not one I care for very much with so many more urgent topics on the table. For all of the injustice and inequality in the world, I hardly think that a lack of appreciation for rich people is of pressing concern. I'm sure that despite all the terrible slander and ethical pressure, most rich people will sleep comfortably and warm tonight without hunger or thirst or the heavy ominous weight of anxious financial desperation overshadowing their every thought and action like the majority of people. That psychological luxury alone is worth far more in this troubled world than any amount of material wealth.

But whatever. I've made my point, for whatever it's worth (not much, I suspect). I didn't meant to write such a long and boring tangent. I actually couldn't care less about the issue personally, because to me it's only a symptom of a greater cause from a greater source of evil. At the end of the day, I'm not a fan of excessive wealth, and I'm not a fan of unnecessary poverty, but I am a fan of human compassion and philanthropy. So I'll thank the people who deserve it, like I've always done since I was a child, regardless of how fat their wallet is or how many digits their digital bank balance has or what colour their hair is or what kind of shoes they wear or whatever other trivial superficial elements of a person's identity that holds no relevance to their merit as a human being.

Well then, that's more than enough pseudo-intellectual idealistic rhetoric out of me for one day.

Peace