Heaven on Earth
March 13th, 2010I have been delving into the recent release, “How to Achieve Heaven on Earth“. No it is not a religious tome about the end days. It is rather, a series of essays about how to make the world a better place. Assuredly, of the 101 or so essays, some of them do have a religious slant, but for the most part they attempt to deal with the here-and-now, and not the here-after.
There are many thought provoking essays. Though the editor, John E. Wade, seems to attempt to pick a balanced crew of essayists, most of them lean to the left. This is not all bad as it gives me a chance to scribble in the margins and fulminate, and also decide what it is I really think about a particular subject.
For example, picking an essay at random out of the book, I struck on one by Peter J. Tanous. It is called, “What is the Money for?” It goes into detail about how most rich people ultimately want to help the underpriveleged and end up leaving legacies that do just that. The robber barrons of the late 1800s are a perfect example. Think of all of the buildings and endowments still around that bear the name Carnegie, or Mellon. Look at how Bill Gates is spending much of his fortune for Charity.
It all sounds very nice. It is great that people are high-minded, principled, and love their fellow men. The only problem is that this is not the solution to the world’s problems. People don’t seem to understand that in an economy, money is NOT wealth. Any economist who understands his subject can tell you that wealth is the sum total of goods and services created. If you have all the money on the planet and the only wealth out there is a pot to…well, cook in. Then all the money in the world is worth one pot.
This means that all this money for charity would be better invested in new industries that created jobs, goods, and services. Productivity is the solution to the worlds problems, not charity.
Now, all this does not mean that we should not have a safety net for people incapable of making a contribution to society. But it does mean that by being too nice to people we spoil them. We create an environment of inflated expectations. I would admire Bill Gates far more if he would have plowed his money into monetising the final frontier, or founding a shoe factory in Ghana.
Let’s get our heads screwed on strait, and not view what is good by the intention of the giver, but by the results accomplished by action!
Read my in-depth review of Heaven on Earth.