http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCNKn7JirBUNorth americans make up around 5% of the worlds population, and control 35% of the worlds net worth.
Infant mortality in Uganda is 1 in 5.
But this documentary isnt about any of that. Its just about maldistribution of wealth within an already opulent and overprivileged society.
Have a nice day.
"The film's title refers to the top one percent of Americans in terms of wealth, who controlled 38% of the nation's wealth in 2001."
Some random thoughts:
- Milton Friedman came across like an asshole and cold reptile, as someone with a dark agenda and secrets he has to hide. Fair enough, he might have been confronted with left-ish hippies throughout his life and may be quite fed up with them and the common misconceptions about the free market. He's right of course that it's quite naive to demand higher taxes from the rich, as they will find ways to escape taxes. But still, in an old age shortly before his death he should have developed a more relaxed manner and benevolence towards a young idealistic man trying to find ways to make a change.
- Speaking about the ever-upcoming, never-ending discourse of individualism vs socialism, providing incentive vs distributing equally, free markets vs planned economies: Proponents of both directions will claim that their ideas are often misunderstood and that there has never been a "true" form of their ideas implemented in reality. Both directions seem to look fine in theory, but are utopian. Governments, how ever "big" or "small", seem to continue to fail to find the balance. They fail to balance rules vs freedom, order vs chaos, because they are corrupt as they are only human in the end, and humans are weak. Thus all forms of society are utopian at last and will finally fail in practice. Some sooner, some later. Another reason is simply because the only thing that is constant in this universe is change.
- Howsoever, the solution for all of this is kind of hidden in plain sight in this documentation. It's the protagonist himself, not so much by his economic knowledge, but by what's in his heart. Earth and nature has "enough for everybody's need (and much more), but not enough for anybody's greed" (Gandhi). We must overcome the fear of scarcity and greed, we all must grow from within and develop empathy and a sense for the greater good, then the currently implemented form of economy becomes a meaningless label. Economics is the science of managing scarcity. It's now time to transcend into the age of abundance.
