Landmark #3: Wealth and Poverty
Along with my concerns about population, one of my greatest concerns is the distribution of wealth in the world, and particularly the distribution of wealth among children. I believe all children should start out with a reasonable opportunity in life. I would like to live in a world where there aren't gross systemic imbalances in the levels of food, education, and health care available to children of different countries.
"The consumer class -- the 1.1 billion members of the global consumer society... enjoy a life-style unknown in earlier ages. We dine on meat and processed, packaged foods, and imbibe soft drinks and other beverages from disposable containers. We spend most of our time in climate-controlled buildings equipped with refrigerators, clothes washers and dryers, abundant hot water...
The world's poorest billion people are unable to provide themselves with an adequate diet; perhaps half of them are so short of calories that they are likely to suffer stunted growth, mental retardation, or even death. ...they drink water that is often contaminated with human, animal, and chemical wastes. If hunger doesn't kill them, the water may: waterborne diseases account for 80 percent of illness in the Third World, according to the World Health Organization."
-- Alan Thein Durning, How Much Is Enough?
In the previous section, I introduced Ronald Howard's paper about MicroMorts and people's perceptions of risks. The paper concluded that people's perceptions of risks are not consistent with the real risks, and as a result their behavior is not rational. The same can be said of perceptions about wealth and poverty. As with population, I am concerned not only with the situation itself, but also with people's perceptions of it.
Most of the people in my life -- my friends, family, and colleagues -- are doing well financially. By global standards these people are downright rich, and even by American standards they're better off than most. But despite their exalted position, I find that these people describe themselves as "poor" far more often than they describe themselves as "rich." And when they do acknowledge their wealth, they frequently describe themselves as "middle class" or "upper-middle class," when in fact "rich" would be more accurate.
This tendency disturbs me for two reasons. My first concern is that if we don't recognize how well off we really are, then we may fail to fully appreciate just how poor much of the world is, and how much work needs to be done to provide reasonable living conditions for all people. My second concern is that if the rich people don't see themselves as rich, then they may fail to recognize that they have tremendous power to solve world problems, and they may be more inclined to view stewardship of the world as someone else's responsibility.
I think it's easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to people who have more than you do rather than ranking yourself objectively among all people. I had a friend back in high school who was moderately well off and was extremely concerned about social problems. He couldn't understand why people who were well off financially didn't do more to help those who weren't. One day when he and I were out running, we passed an Audi Quattro and he remarked, "That could have been a Honda Civic and a college education." (Actually something of an overstatement, but that's what he said.) Six years later he was driving an Audi Quattro himself, and although he still spoke passionately about the importance of helping people, he thought the majority of that responsibility should be borne by the rich, and he didn't see himself as rich. That's a trap I never want to fall into.
Back in 1992 I had the pleasure of working for one of the brightest and most able people I've ever met. The project he ran had been granted an unlimited budget, of which he was spending maybe $10,000 a day. Surprisingly, if you asked him whether he thought he was a powerful person he would say no. He wore $120 neckties and he was well aware that his income was within the top 1% of all incomes in the U.S., yet he didn't really consider himself rich. He'd grown accustomed to his position in life, and had begun to lose some of his perspective.
Like my boss, I think most of us have trouble keeping everything in perspective. I hope this section of the letter can serve as a tool to help keep an objective outlook.
The Bottom Line
Wealthy people often have inaccurate perceptions of their level
of wealth -- they often don't realize just how well off they are.
