Howling at the Moon and the Lost American Dream

We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent. – “We Are The 99 Percent” (http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com)

Although I have never been entirely comfortable with street protests and Guerilla Theater, preferring instead the traditional tools of democracy, debate and persuasion to achieve a better world, I understand the need for them. On occasion, public demonstrations have changed the course of history. When in 1963 the late Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth organized a group of black students and clergymen in Birmingham, Alabama, to protest segregation, the ensuing photographs displaying the vicious attacks and fire hoses of Bull Connor shocked the nation’s conscience. More importantly, it awakened Americans to the injustices of racism and moved public opinion, eventually resulting in equal rights for all Americans. A few years later, when hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets to oppose the Vietnam War, a sitting president chose not to run for reelection and influential members of Congress began questioning U.S. involvement in an immoral war. More recently, protests in Tahrir Square in Cairo helped propel an Arab Spring that has toppled corrupt dictators in Egypt and Libya.

Viewed from the broad perspective of history, the Occupy Wall Street movement may prove ineffectual and less momentous. Its message is unclear and its solutions virtually non-existent. But I do believe the protesters are tapping into something real. A sense of frustration with the lost American dream, perhaps, or a feeling that the system is rigged against the middle class, that it is no longer enough to finish school and work hard to get ahead in America, and that the rules have changed. The economy has become a high-stakes casino where the lucky 1% (or even 5%) wins all the prizes, while the rest fight for the scraps. There is something not right with America right now. The reasons are most certainly complex and not entirely understood, but the notion that our political and business leaders have for too long ignored the plight and suffering of the average citizen resonates strongly.

As far as I can discern, the protestors that make up the Occupy Wall Street movement have no definable political demands, and the vague, open-ended character of their message is a bit frustrating. But the catchphrase We are the 99 percent has a plain-speaking directness that gives voice to the widening disparity between the richest Americans and everyone else, a level of inequality not seen since the Great Depression. Consider just some of these facts:

• The 400 wealthiest Americans today have a greater combined net worth than the bottom 150 million Americans (The New York Times).

• The top 1 percent of income earners has more accumulated wealth than the bottom 90 percent (The New York Times).

• To join the ranks of the top 1 percent requires a minimum annual income of $516,633 and an average net wealth of $14 million. By comparison, 50% of U.S. workers earned less than $26,364 in 2010 (The Washington Post; Social Security Administration).

• The average salary in the financial sector in New York City is $361,330, nearly six times what the average worker makes in all other private sector jobs in New York (The New York Times; New York State Comptroller).

• 25 of the 100 highest paid CEOs in the United States took home more pay than their companies paid in federal corporate income taxes (Institute of Policy Studies).

• The average CEO at publicly-traded corporations makes 350 times that of the average worker. Only thirty years ago, this disparity was 50-to-1. (Institute for Policy Studies).

• Adjusting for inflation, the average hourly earnings of American workers have not increased in 50 years (Institute for Policy Studies; Bureau of Labor Statistics).

• The United States ranks 93rd in the world in income inequality (Central Intelligence Agency, 2010).

It is hard not to question the morality of an economic system that so greatly rewards a small few while requiring all others to struggle in a survival-of-the-fittest, dog-eat-dog world. “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism,” said Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968, “but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.” As the Rev. Jim Wallis noted in Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street and Your Street (Howard Books 2010), “The rules of the game seem to have worked for those who set the rules, but not for those who played by them.” America’s economic system, built on a foundation of profit-motive and self-interest, an economic model based historically on a pre-industrial, agrarian society, when too-big-to-fail financial institutions and multi-national conglomerates did not control the reins of power and wealth, has reached a point where the American dream is no longer accessible to the vast majority of participants. For the past thirty years, ever since the Reagan Revolution, Wallis states:

We were promised that as the rich got richer, the rest of the country would prosper as well. If we handed our finances and ultimately our lives over to those who knew the market the best, it would benefit us all. If we took the virtues of the market and made them the virtues of our lives, we, too, would experience boundless prosperity. Fulfillment would come if we could just trust the market enough to work for us…

“Left to themselves, economic forces do not work out for the best except perhaps for the powerful.” So wrote John Kenneth Galbraith in Economics and the Public Purpose (Houghton Mifflin 1973), the last installment of his classic trilogy that started with The Affluent Society (Houghton Mifflin 1958) and The New Industrial State (Houghton Mifflin 1967). A Harvard economist and public intellectual who served in the Office of Price Administration during World War II and as United States Ambassador to India in the Kennedy administration, Galbraith wrote eloquently and plainly about the practical effects of economic theory, explaining the workings of free market capitalism in the real world of global conglomerates, oligopolies, and a powerful financial sector. According to Galbraith, how economic systems perform and for whom are very much dependent upon a society’s distribution of power and wealth. A capitalist economy is in constant tension with our democratic ideals, for “the man who spends $70,000 in the course of a year speaks to the market with ten times as much authority on what is produced as does the man who disposes of but $7000.” Although power rests with the individual, “in the exercise of that power, some individuals are more equal than others.”

This is evident in the faces and stories of the many people who have joined the protestors in 150 cities throughout the country. As Anne-Marie Slaughter, Princeton professor of international affairs, told The New York Times, “Go to the Web site ‘We Are the 99 percent’ and you will see . . . page after page of testimonials from members of the middle class who took out mortgages to pay for education, took out mortgages to buy their houses . . . worked hard at the jobs they could find, and ended up . . . on the precipice of financial and social ruin.” It seems that the economic system we have relied upon for so long to provide stability and opportunity to all who are willing to play by the rules and work hard, has left behind all but a select few.

In 2010, corporate profits as a percentage of the economy exceeded $1.4 trillion, an all-time high, while wages as a percentage of the economy have dropped to an all-time low (source: St. Louis Federal Reserve). And yet, many companies continue to downsize, cutting costs (and people) to further increase profits. Meanwhile, unemployment hovers officially at above 9% and the real jobless rate (including those who have stopped looking for work and part-time employees in need of full-time work) stagnates at 17% of the workforce. Median family income has fallen 6.7 percent over the past two years, while executive compensation has reached near-historic levels.

Of course, ask a highly-paid corporate executive why companies reduce jobs even as profits soar and you will likely receive a carefully articulated, economically rational explanation. It is precisely why we cannot rely upon the private sector alone to solve the nation’s economic ills. And it is why an economic system in which the sole legal obligation of individual firms is to maximize profits, and which rewards short-term gain at the expense of long-term stability, is a flawed and unsustainable system.

When the richest 1 percent rake in money as if perpetual winners at a gambling table, while the wages and jobs available to working class Americans are cut; when a college education goes from something that almost any middle class family could afford 25 years ago to being a huge debt burden on the young; when the richest 5% of the country controls almost all of the nation’s wealth; and when both major political parties cater to corporate interests and the needs of their wealthy donors, it is understandable that people have taken to the streets.

But income inequality is only part of the story. Occupy Wall Street, as disorganized and ineffectual as it may be, has hit a vital nerve, because average citizens do not believe anyone speaks for them. They cannot afford K Street lobbyists or $25,000 plate fundraisers. They know that when extremely well compensated executives and investment bankers run their businesses into the ground, the politicians will come to their aid, while the average citizen who loses a job, or a home, or has his retirement fund decimated, is told to make do.

There was a time when Americans had an unshakable faith that their government stood ready to help in times of need. Under the New Deal, and later during the Great Society, the nation established the concept of economic security as a collective responsibility. Putting people to work and building and repairing the nation’s infrastructure became a governmental, community imperative. Enduring programs like Medicare and Social Security, which today serves 54 million Americans, has helped tens of millions of Americans avoid poverty. At a time when corporate pensions and job security have become quaint notions of a distant past, I am astounded that government programs which aid our most vulnerable citizens, which provide a fair shake for the middle class, and which put people to work, are under constant attack.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has hit a nerve because it encompasses the majority of Americans who feel left behind, ordinary people struggling with hard times and looking for answers. It is a movement of people who yearn to be heard, whose voices are calling out for a political and economic system that truly provides economic opportunity and fairness for all. They are the 99% who wish for a country where the government wisely spends tax revenue and works to create jobs; a country that takes care of working families; an economic system that values people and encourages corporations to invest in the American workforce, even at the expense of a small portion of profit. It is a movement that wishes to retain the American Dream that has all but vanished from our grasp.

Has Glenn Beck Lost It or Is He Always This Ignorant?

I do not generally pay much attention to Glenn Beck. On the few occasions I have stumbled across his show, I have usually changed the channel within a minute or two, genuinely perplexed that anyone can take this man seriously. But a Glenn Beck expert I am not. Perhaps he occasionally voices a good idea; I have simply yet to hear one from him.

Beck recently told his listeners that they should leave their faith communities if their church website, or priest or pastor, mentions the word “social justice.” As I believe that churches should pay more, not less, attention to issues of justice, Beck’s statement caught my attention. Figuring there must be some mistake, I decided to see what he actually said. Here it is:

Social justice was the rallying cry – economic justice and social justice – the rallying cry on both the communist front and the fascist front. That is not an American idea. And if we don’t get off the social justice / economic justice bandwagon, if you are not aware of what this is, you are in grave danger. All of our faiths – my faith, your faith – whatever your church is, this is infecting all of them.

Beck added that to “preach social justice” is a “perversion of the gospel” and that if you find the words “social justice” or “economic justice” on a church website, “run as fast as you can. . . . they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

Not surprisingly, Beck’s statements offended the sensibilities of a very large number of people who consider themselves Christian – those aligned with the Catholic Church, the Mainline Protestant churches, the historically Black churches, and a growing number of Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, including many congregations with Asian-American and Hispanic majorities. All of these churches, at the leadership and congregational levels, consider social and economic justice essential components of biblical faith. Within just a few days of Beck’s comments, more than 30,000 Christian pastors and church members had written to Beck declaring themselves Christians who believe in social justice and asking Beck to reconsider his statements.

That social and economic justice are essential to the heart of the Christian faith is not really a debatable topic, however deficient individual Christians and churches often are in applying the concept. For example, a social statement of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) declared in 1991 in a document entitled, “The Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective,” that: “In faithfulness to its calling, this church is committed to defend human dignity, to stand with poor and powerless people, to advocate justice, to work for peace, and to care for the earth in the processes and structures of contemporary society.” Consistent with this premise, the ELCA actively advocates before the U.S. Congress and other governmental bodies for the needs of the poor and the powerless, for increased foreign aid, and for human rights. So does the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the Quakers (through the American Friends Service Committee), the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., the Church of the Brethren, the Episcopal Church U.S.A., and many other denominations as diverse in their theology as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Association of Evangelicals.

The Catholic Church, in particular, has been at the forefront in advancing the causes of economic and social justice. The 1986 pastoral letter on Economic Justice issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declared that:

Society as a whole, acting through public and private institutions, has the moral responsibility to enhance human dignity and protect human rights. In addition to the clear responsibility of private institutions, government has an essential responsibility in this area. This does not mean that government has the primary or exclusive role, but it does have a positive moral responsibility in safeguarding human rights and ensuring that the minimum conditions of human dignity are met for all. In a democracy, government is a means by which we can act together to protect what is important to us and to promote our common values.

Even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, to which Beck belongs, has declared that “caring for the poor” is one of its four primary missions, on an equal footing with preaching the gospel. As noted by Mormons for Equality and Social Justice, the Book of Mormon teaches that “there should be an equality among all” (Mosiah 27:3) and calls its followers to stand against racism, gender inequity, and injustice on the principle that “black and white, bond and free, male and female...all are alike unto God” (2 Nephi 26:33). It speaks harshly against inequity, exploitation, oppression, and violence (2 Nephi 20:1-2; 3 Nephi 24:5; D&C 38:26; Moses 8:28), and teaches that human beings are stewards of the earth and its resources, which should be used “with judgment, not to excess” (D&C 59:20). I am no Mormon, but this sounds pretty “social justicey” to me, Glenn.

Christians, of course, differ greatly among themselves about what social and economic justice mean when translated into political terms. But as liberal evangelical preacher Jim Wallis said in response to Beck’s ranting, “the Bible is clear: from the Mosaic law of Jubilee, to the Hebrew prophets, to Jesus Christ, social justice is an integral part of God’s plan for humanity.”

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, For the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; Defend the rights of the poor and needy.
Proverbs 31:8-9.

Although Beck apparently did not address his comments to the Jewish community, the primary branches of American Judaism also embrace – often more explicitly than many Christian denominations – the concept of social justice as essential to its tradition and faith. After all, most of the biblical mandates on justice stem from the words of the Hebrew prophets, found in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and Micah, among others; from the five books of the Torah; and from the books of Proverbs and Psalms. The concepts of tzedakah ("the religious obligation to perform charity and philanthropic acts"), chesed ("deeds of kindness"), and tikkun olam ("repairing the world"), place Judaism at the vanguard of religious social justice movements.

The ethic of Christian love and justice found in the New Testament Gospels is merely an extension and application of the justice portrayed and mandated in the Hebrew Scriptures and espoused by the Hebrew prophets. In Matthew 25, for example, Jesus speaks of the hungry, the homeless, the outcast, and the stranger and challenges his followers that, “As you have done to the least of these, you have done to me.” All four gospels instruct and demonstrate the clear, and sometimes radical, call for social and economic justice, for peace, for non-violence, for loving one’s neighbor, and welcoming the stranger.

Last week, in a respectful and well-stated letter, the Rev. Jim Wallis invited Beck to engage in an “open and public discussion on what social justice really means and how Christians are called to engage in the struggle for justice.” Wallis requested that they have “a civil dialogue and not engage in personal attacks on each other – which are never helpful in trying to sort out what is true.” Instead, he thought it important to sit down together and to “talk about the heart of the matter.” Beck, of course, would have none of it. He responded with threats, informing Wallis that “the hammer is coming, because little do you know, for eight weeks, we’ve been compiling information on you, your cute little organization, and all the other cute little people that are with you. And when the hammer comes, it’s going to be hammering hard and all through the night, over and over….”

Wallis reiterated that he will not engage in personal attacks on Beck, and he renewed his call for an honest and civil dialogue bereft of personal attacks. Beck again was unmoved and promised to devote an entire week of his program to exposing Wallis and the Christian “social justice” community as nothing but radical Marxists hell-bent on perverting the Bible.

Beck simply knows nothing about which he is talking. Having grown up the son of a Lutheran minister, I have personally known many Christian clergy, theologians, and committed church members, all of whom would agree that social, economic, and racial justice are integral to the message of Jesus; and not one of them is a Marxist. How anyone can read the scriptures or examine the life and teachings of Jesus and not sense that justice, mercy, and compassion – particularly to the vulnerable, poor, and marginalized – are essential to the Christian and Jewish faiths, is either ignorant, illiterate, or both.

The only people who should leave their churches or synagogues are those who believe that justice is not an integral part of their faith traditions. Justice is the very foundation of God’s creation. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you. Psalm 89:14. Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. Isaiah 1:17. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8. To practice justice is to act with love for all of God’s creation. Any faith community that rejects this concept has no reason for being. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., declared, “A religion true to its nature must also be concerned about man’s social conditions. . . . Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men [and women] and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion. Such a religion is the kind the Marxists like to see – an opiate of the people.”

What Glenn Beck seems incapable of understanding – unless he is a complete fraud – is that, for people of faith, an essential component of bearing witness to God’s love – whether inspired by the Hebrew prophets or the life and teachings of Jesus – is working to advance the causes of peace and justice. God’s mandate, as expressed throughout the Bible, is helping those in need. Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. Amos 5:24. Often this is carried out by individual acts of charity. But while charity involves individual acts of justice, it does not amount to societal justice, which often requires a change in the social order. When the Church in its institutional capacity reaches out to help a person in need without acting to change the conditions which caused that need, it implies an acceptance of things as they are. The status quo is not acceptable, however, if there is a shortage of decent housing and medical care, if children are dying of starvation and disease, if innocent people in foreign lands are maimed or killed by landmines, or if the world is beset with war and violence. Christianity and Judaism command its followers to reject complacency and to do whatever one can to change conditions for the better. Sometimes this requires demanding more from our government and our large private institutions; if charity alone were sufficient, there would be no need for wider action.

Beck’s ignorance may be, in part, a reflection of the religious illiteracy of American society. I am often astonished at the lack of knowledge – on the right and the left – of the history, distinctions, diversity and complexity of American religious life. To equate social justice with Nazism or fascism, or to state that it has nothing to do with biblical faith, suggests only that Beck knows not of what he speaks. So, Mr. Beck, believe what you like and worship wherever you feel most comfortable. But when it comes to telling others what to do or believe, you may first wish to consult with the leadership and teachings of your faith tradition. You may even want to try reading the Bible sometime. But please do not expect anyone with a sound mind or a semblance of faith to listen to you.

On Economics, Values, and Meaning

As an undergraduate student at Wittenberg University in the late 1970’s, I chose to major in economics in the belief that no other subject so adequately explained the workings of everyday life. By understanding economics, or so I believed, one could understand the efficient allocation of resources, the affects of competition on prices and jobs, the distribution of wealth and income, the proper role of government and law in regulating business and the economy, the impact of advertising on the behavior of consumers, and the realities of business cycles and international trade. The true study of economics is not restricted to quantitative formulas and complex computer models – the stuff of Ph.D. programs – but concerns itself with matters difficult to quantify – political decision making, human psychology, sociology, and culture. Although the days when I debated the merits of John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith, Milton Friedman and Adam Smith, are long gone, the theoretical and practical distinctions of their philosophical differences continue to interest me.

I wish here to reflect not on capitalism or socialism, not on the relative merits of free enterprise versus a centrally planned economy – I wish instead to focus on the morality, values, and ethics of society’s grasp for excess wealth and the growing gap between the rich and the poor. What are the spiritual dimensions of our present economic circumstances? Is there a way to alleviate poverty and suffering, reduce gross inequalities, and improve the quality of one’s life?

Jim Wallis, the founder and executive director of Sojourners, poses such questions in Rediscovering Values: A Moral Compass for a New Economy (Howard Books, 2010). Wallis recently spoke at the Friends Select School in Philadelphia, where he argued that the global economic crisis “provides the rare opportunity to ask some fundamental questions about our most basic values.” He does not approach economics from a left or right framework – he is neither a capitalist nor a monetarist nor a Marxist, neither a liberal nor a conservative – rather, he examines the American economy from the pulpit, as a progressive, socially conscious evangelical preacher with an activist bent. He acknowledges that the 20th century created and distributed a great volume of goods and services with unprecedented efficiency. But he suggests that “with these great advances, the moral weight of our decisions becomes greater than ever before.” Is the purpose of business simply “restricted to turning a profit” or can it become something more? Does self-interest always have to be the prime motivational force of business conduct and personal behavior? Can one make sound financial and economic decisions without sacrificing moral values, fairness, and compassion?

Market forces are important, but the ability and power of markets to solve all social and economic needs has limits. Market values do not govern personal and family relationships, ethics and religion, service to the community, and matters of social justice. It is impossible to place a monetary value on a sense of personal contentment, or a life enriched by poetry, music, art, service to others, and closeness to family and friends. This occurred to me last weekend when I attended a fundraiser at the Abington Friends School, which in the Quaker tradition attempts to instill an appreciation for a simpler life, one of mind and spirit, a life committed to responsible stewardship and community service, with little emphasis on material accumulations. As several teachers and staff wowed the audience with beautiful poetry and song, including original compositions accompanied by piano and guitar, I was struck with how self-satisfied each appeared. Despite modest salaries and little public acclaim, these dedicated mentors and educators displayed a sense of personal contentment rarely seen in the corporate world.

Those who need validation from status symbols and accumulated wealth must often sacrifice a sense of purpose and meaning and personal fulfillment. “Without a clear sense of self, a strong identity, and a community of purpose,” Wallis notes, “our default mode is to identify ourselves by the things we own.” But such an identity is inherently weak and can easily dissolve and be taken away.

For some, the market is sacred and not to be questioned, more sacrosanct than religion. How else to explain a lack of outrage over $20 million severance packages handed out to CEO’s of failing companies, or billions of dollars in bonuses awarded to executives of the very institutions that contributed to our present economic woes, while the jobs of millions of Americans have been eliminated? Where is concern for the common good and a sense of neighborly compassion? Wallis suggests that “a sense of entitlement is not just an attitude we can blanketly attribute to the poor, but is a real problem of many rich people, who believe they are entitled to be treated like kings and queens of old, whether or not they are successful.”

American culture is fascinated with the super rich and the fabulously wealthy; we admire their mansions, covet their fancy cars, emulate their fashion trends and secretly desire invitations to their dinner parties. Our enchantment with wealth causes many of us to buy “things we don’t need with money that we don’t have.” We live in an age of materialism, where mass consumption results in an over emphasis on the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the houses we own – important sources of identity for many Americans. But what does it say about the ethics and morality of a society that accepts excessive consumerism and gross disparities in income and wealth, while millions of Americans are unemployed, tens of thousands are homeless, millions more are undernourished and uninsured, and half the world lives in extreme poverty?

In the Theory of the Leisure Class, the classic 1899 treatise on wealth, Thorstein Veblen coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption” to describe the lavish excesses of the Gilded Age. He explained that, for a certain segment of the upper class, wasteful luxury and extravagance helped to demonstrate one’s wealth and status. Since Veblen’s day, these excesses have become more prevalent, and at times more profuse. In Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich (Three Rivers Press, 2007), Robert Frank describes the modern-day practitioners of conspicuous consumption. In one chapter, he examines the super-rich yacht culture, where 100-foot yachts are considered tiny and unimpressive, as 300, 400, and even 500-foot vessels are required to keep pace in this status conscious crowd. In a world where half the global population still lives in extreme poverty, paying upwards of $100 million for a boat seems morally unconscionable.

The gap between rich and poor – indeed, between rich and everyone else – is on the rise. In 1965, the ratio of CEO salaries to average worker pay was 24-to-1. By 2004, that same ratio had risen to 431-to-1. The family of Walmart’s founder, Sam Walton, has an estimated net worth of $90 billion, which translates into one American family with a net worth roughly equivalent to the combined net worth of the bottom 40% of Americans, or 120 million people. And while the CEO of Walmart makes 900 times the salary of the company's average employee, his $17.5 million salary is nothing compared to the salaries paid to CEOs of some of the big financial institutions. In 2005, Richard Fairbanks of Capital One Financial received compensation of $249.4 million. In 2006, Angelo Mosilo, the CEO of Countrywide Financial, which led the way in subprime mortgages and dishonest lending practices, “earned” $141.98 million, ranking him seventh on the Forbes list of best-paid CEOs.

Does anybody really believe that this is a good thing? Does society benefit from such gross income disparities? Wallis argues that “when wealth becomes more and more concentrated, bad things begin to happen to us: social bonds begin to unravel, societal morale erodes, and resentment sets in when we perceive great unfairness.” As I wrote in “Is This Guy Really Worth a Billion Dollars?”, a certain amount of income inequality is a good thing, necessary to promote efficiency, to provide appropriate incentives for hard work and productivity. However, some CEO salaries and wage disparities are simply not justified, and they represent a moral and spiritual failure of our corporate and economic structures. The survival-of-the-fittest mentality, that greed is good and self-interest a necessary force for a sound economy – the notion that, if left to its own devices, the market will work itself out – are concepts that have failed a great many people, even as a select few have prospered. Is it any surprise that the two years in which income inequality was at its highest in this country – 1928 and 2007 – were years that preceded economic collapses?

Some believe that economic inequality is a reflection of one’s value to society, and that those who are rich are deservedly so, while those who are poor have simply not tried hard enough, or have done something wrong. It is easy for many people to forget that wealth is not a reflection of self-worth, or one’s value to humanity, and that much of life’s riches are distributed to those who, through a combination of many complex factors – hard work (up to a point), chance, circumstance, opportunity, and luck – determines one’s fate in life. King Solomon, a man of great wealth in his day, recognized this in the book of Ecclesiastes:

The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Recognizing that financial and economic success is not strictly or always the result of hard work, ingenuity, and merit – and that not all who fail to achieve great wealth are somehow less worthy human beings – is a first step in creating a more compassionate society. Somewhere along the way, we seem to have lost sight of the common good; we have failed to recognize that the human race is in dire need of a helping hand, some understanding, and kindness, and that we are all in this journey together. Perhaps a search for meaning and purpose, in our work, in our relationships, in our lives, will lead the way to creating a more just and compassionate world, and an economic system that rewards hard work and success without leaving all others behind.