I often think that the most important question we can ask ourselves as we proceed through life has three letters.

Just three little letters.

It takes less than a second to pose this question.

And yet, I’ve noticed that most of us will do just about anything to avoid asking it, let alone answering it.

Why?

That’s it. That’s the question.

I suspect we fear the question “why” because if we ask it, we have to answer it. If we answer it, we might not like the answer… and then we might have to do something about it.

So if we begin to question why our society is set up the way it is, or why we consent (tacitly or otherwise) to engage in practices and systems that are harmful to ourselves and others, we might have to… change them.

Change is scary, even when it’s change for the better. So many of us prefer the devil we know, even as that devil is roasting us on a spit, to the devil we don’t, even if we know it’s not really a devil at all.

As this pandemic drags on (and global society as a whole is clearly not ready to come together and stop it), it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore the why of it all. The flames under this particular spit are only heating up.

So maybe it’s time to start asking the most obvious questions.

For example, why is it that a person who collects vast amounts of food they couldn’t possibly eat and keeps it to themselves (even as others starve), would be considered selfish at best and a hoarder at worst, but a person who collects vast amounts of money they couldn’t possibly spend (at the expense of the people who do the actual work to earn that money and desperately need it to survive) is considered successful?

Why do we pretend that hard work is all it takes to survive within an economic system designed to run on exploitation (particularly in societies founded in colonialism and enslavement)?

We do this at the same time that we praise people whose economic success is clearly based on opportunities handed to them and their willingness to exploit the labor of others. Why?

Perhaps we do it because the truth is ugly. Very ugly.

An article in the New York Times‘ 1619 Project draws a clear, straight line from transatlantic enslavement to the current economic system, in which an expectation of a living wage or humane treatment is often recast as an attitude of entitlement:

If that quote sounds like it can apply to both eras, that’s the point.

Before you write me off as an idealistic Socialist (as if it’s an insult), please know that I don’t necessarily consider any particular economic ideology to be a panacea for all of society’s problems. However, I’m unconvinced that the current state of things is a case of Capitalism run amok. After all, it can’t be a bug if it’s a feature.

What I am is a person with eyes and basic common sense who is therefore capable of seeing that this **gestures broadly at everything** isn’t working.

When I see that a man who runs a company that abuses its workers to a staggering degree saw fit to spend an untold (literally) amount of money to launch a penis-shaped rocket to outer space for a few minutes during a pandemic that has crippled the global economy… I tend to have questions.

And yes, most of them begin with the magic word.

Before I ask, let’s deal with the necessary context:

• Jeff Bezos is clearly a very intelligent man. However, he is not a self-made billionaire (that’s not even a thing) who built the Amazon empire from nothing in a garage. He was a VP at a hedge fund company when he had a good idea and was in a position to quit his job and request $50,000 investments from friends and family (20 of whom chipped in). It was with that substantial leg up, a very timely idea and, eventually, the labour of more than one million people that he turned that idea into the trillion-dollar behemoth it is today.
• In addition to his brilliant business acumen, Bezos can credit tens of millions in government subsidies and a fondness for legal tax-dodging for contributing to his fortune. This means he benefitted from public funds at the same time he endeavoured not to contribute to the public’s coffers. Even as he paid his employees so little that many of them qualified for food stamps.
• His philanthropy is not and will never be enough to offset the damage he has caused. In fact, philanthropy at the billionare level is rife with serious issues, particulary when they’re engaging in it in exchange for tax breaks.
• According to this very helpful tool, which puts the mindboggling numbers into human perspective (and is based on his fortune as of April 2021), this one individual is currently worth enough money to house every homeless US veteran and pay for chemotherapy for all cancer patients with many, many, many billions left over. ‘Cause he’s capable of making a record number of billions in just a day.
• Money does bad things to your ability to feel empathy for others, which might explain why, despite all of the above, Bezos could unironically thank his employees for funding his little phallic jaunt to space.

All of that said, I guess I just have one question:

Why are billionaires a thing?

I’m not asking why wealth is a thing. I’m not suggesting that no one should be paid well for their labor and be able to afford nice things. In fact, it should be pretty clear by this point that I’m in support of compensation for one’s efforts.

The kind of wealth I’m referring to here could never actually be earned by any one person and is on a scale that is literally difficult for humans to comprehend… which is a thing the super-rich know.

I’m asking why we allow individuals (’cause it’s not just Jeff) to amass more money than entire countries based on the labor of others even as other people lack the bare essentials of life.

This is a world where, on one end of the spectrum, it’s possible to have more money than you could possibly spend (or give away, if you’re MacKenzie Scott) and on the other end of the spectrum, it’s possible to be unable to get a job because you don’t have housing… because you don’t have a job. It’s also quite possible to be fully employed and still not have housing… because someone else is reaping the financial benefits of your labor.

I’d ask you to make it make sense, but I think we all know that it doesn’t. I’m not even nearly the first to suggest it.

So… why exactly do we allow it?