People we thought were living the high life now complain that money is getting so tight that they’re struggling to make ends meet. Mortgage repayments seem to be spiralling out of control. Extensions and internal building work undertaken with loans now need to be paid for.
A few years ago there seemed to me a warm fuzzy feeling that came from the prestige of moving into a grand house in an exclusive neighbourhood. Now it just feels like a noose around their necks. Money worries now mean unceasing stress at work, as they seek out promotions to afford all they once thought was easily within reach.
In truth, it is all just madness. Society tells us to take on more and more, upgrading our lifestyle perpetually. If only we could obtain just this next standard, then we would be happy. Climb the ladder, we are told. Accumulate stuff which says to others that we have made it in life. Where we live and the car we drive tells others all they need to know about us. But does it really?
As it is said, if we had a valley full of gold, we would still like to have another one, for nothing fills our mouthes except dust. At what point is enough enough? Ask the multi-billionaires at the top if their stupendous wealth is enough for them yet. Have they stopped accumulating wealth yet? On the contrary, most of them are so precious about their wealth that they devise all manner of cynical schemes to avoid taxation on a massive scale.
The current crisis has largely been created by wanton greed. At the same time that ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet, the country’s wealthiest companies are making gargantuan profits. High inflation is being caused by rising wages and energy prices, we are constantly told. Less well known: the impact of profiteering, with energy companies reaping hundreds of billions in profits while ordinary people struggle to pay their bills.
This is the age of opportunism. Dog eats dog. It is no coincidence that the super rich who set our news agenda are the same pitting ordinary people against one another. We have culture wars. Wars on woke. Wars on migrants and refugees. Wars on minorities. Wars on benefit scroungers. But oddly enough, no war on billionaire tax avoidance or underhand lobbying; no war on the machinery of war.
In short, we’re being led on a merry dance, rather like the proles in that prophetic dystopia that captured our collective mood to a tee.
“Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult… All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations.”
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
What would it take to wake us from our slumber, if not the present crisis?
Last modified: 19 June 2023
