Are we really entitled to our fair share of the world’s bounty?

Whatever mankind needs, the earth provides.

As an example, right now, we generate enough food for 10bn people. The global population is only 7bn. In fact, 10bn is the maximum the population on this planet is ever going to be. Yet 1bn people are hungry every day.

The earth provides; mankind does not. Therefore it is financial poverty and greed that causes the misery in our world, not any lack on the part of our benevolent earth.

It all comes down to those damn tokens of exchange.

You know those pieces of paper with colouring-in done on them and that have numbers like 5, 10, 20, 50, etc.

You know — you give them to the man in the shop and he gives you stuff.

Well, the sad reality is that they are actually less valuable than toilet paper or blank paper. At least toilet paper is luxuriant enough to be useful for you-know-what, and blank paper can be used to write on.

However, those pieces of paper that we know as money are actually totally worthless and utterly useless for anything else.

So, how in the world have we got to the point where people are taking their own lives when they can’t lay their hands on them, or others die in the gutters from hunger when they cannot get them?

Unfortunately, it is because we gave our power away a long time ago to others to design, run and own the distribution systems of the world’s bounty. It really is time to take it all back.

The earth provides. It always has and it always will. The question is, do we believe we deserve our fair share of it?

Think of our homes which are primarily made from stone (concrete, blocks, slate, etc) and timber (roof, stairs, floors, furniture, etc).

While there is value added in turning them into the products we need that need to be paid for, is it really fair that people dedicate a whole working life to pay off these absolutely abundant earth resources through a mortgage?

Mantra time again: The earth provides.

Barry Fitzgerald

Lissarda

Cork