If we treated billionaires like they were human, would they behave more humanely?
I read recently that the environmental activism group, GreenPeace, is being sued for $300 million, by the multi-billion dollar corporation, Energy Transfer Partners. The corporation’s accusation is that GreenPeace instigated the highly publicized “NODAPL” protests against their construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which took place at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in 2016.
I myself drove up to Standing Rock in October of 2016, to the Oceti Sakowin Water Protector camp. Although it was only for one weekend, dropping off a few donations and helping in the communal kitchen, what I experienced there was a beautiful and undeniably unique gathering of people from every walk of life.
Having been raised in a retreat center nestled in the hills of Scotland, my own upbringing was richly steeped in spirituality and nature, but I have never experienced a prayer meeting like the one “all available hands” were called to, by an elder of the camp that Saturday morning. Holding hands with folks from every socio-political background – gay and straight, Jew and Palestinian, European and Indigenous American – we prayed together for the protection of our most primal element, that which should be so abundantly available, and yet has become unattainable for so many in our scarcity-based world system: clean water.
Tears streamed down many faces as we stood in that circle. The prayerful words of the elder reminding us that this was not some fairytale problem created by bleeding hearts, but an urgent imperative to prevent real life suffering, such as chronic illnesses, catastrophic weather phenomena and the loss of habitat and home.
A few months later, I read an interview with Mr. Kelcy Warren, the CEO behind the pipeline’s construction. He said the bad press his corporation had received during the protest was all very “unfair”, but that for himself, he found it best to stay detached from the situation.
“Even with this year’s tumult, Warren insists he is undeterred by the negative publicity. “I just do not even let that affect me. I try to stay detached and keep my head down,” he says.” – Forbes¹
His comment struck me hard as I thought about the tears of the Indigenous man, the elder who had wept so fervently as he led us in prayer. Surely, of all people, the natives of this land understand the devastation that power, industry and disease can wreak upon a people?
I found myself wondering if emotional and mental detachment from the rest of humanity might be the price that billionaires have to pay in order to feed their addiction: the hoarding of wealth and resources, which keeps the multitudes sick with hard labor, chronic anxiety and malnutrition, and the elite, slaves to its addiction.
As I processed these thoughts, this song sprang up in me like an almost compulsory reaction; a deep desire to appeal to Mr. Warren’s humanity. To beg him not to detach. To ask him about his own story. I found myself longing to know if he too, like the original inhabitants of these Great Plains, had ever loved the land which birthed him.
Not just America, or the idea of nationhood, but the land itself: the earth and water from which we are formed? Could he, I wondered, possibly allow himself to see that this protest, instigated in fact, by the Indigenous people of North and South Dakota, was not about one group fighting another: the Sioux against the Corporation, Greenpeace against Fossil Fuels, but this protest – spearheaded mainly by young native people – was about a true HUMAN desire to protect that which is fundamentally necessary to us all. Not just to our bodies, but to our souls, to our whole human being; that is, our biosphere, our natural sanctuary, our earthly home.
During the year of protest at Standing Rock, shares in Mr. Warren’s company rocketed almost 200%, making his personal net worth nearly triple what it had been.
“Between February 2016 and February 2017, Warren’s fortune rose 165% to $4.5 billion – the largest percentage gain of any American billionaire in that period.” – Forbes²
These numbers might look impressive, but in real terms, what does that actually mean? What can more billions – a series of zeros written on a screen – actually mean to a person who already has more wealth than they could possibly spend in one lifetime? What does it mean when the people who are asking for your attention, asking to be heard, asking you not to build on their sacred land, the gravesites of their families³, what does that mean when many of those people live without the basic means to get by?
“The poverty rate on the Standing Rock Reservation is more than triple the national average, with over 40% of Indian families living in poverty. 52% of the Reservation population under age 18 live below poverty.” ⁴
These statistics are not really news to us at all, are they? The story is the same the world over, and the widening gap has only increased during and since the Covid19 pandemic.
“The executive-worker pay gap keeps getting bigger as CEOs rake in an average $27.8 million a year. Money might seem tight, but CEOs are doing just fine. Top executives earned 399 times that of the typical worker in 2021, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute” – Fortune.Com⁵
“At the same time, the costs of basic needs like housing, health care and education have risen dramatically. Over the past 30 years, rents have gone up faster than income in nearly every urban area of the country. In 2016, there was no state or county in the nation where someone earning the federal minimum wage could afford a 2-bedroom apartment at market rent. This has precipitated a structural housing crisis with 2.5 to 3.5 million people who are living in shelters, transitional housing centers and tent cities.”
From The Poor People’s Campaign, Our Demands.⁶
The horrifying extent of our wealth inequality problem is fast becoming common knowledge, and it seems to me that it is no longer enough for us to keep pointing to the wage gap and endlessly accusing the rich. We can clearly see what the problem is, but how do we fix it? In what tangible way can we reach the mega-wealthy and free them from this addiction which, I would argue, is killing them as well as us?
The French Revolutionaries believed the only way to solve their problem of resource inequality (which was causing them to starve) was to hang the mega-wealthy from the lamp posts in the streets of Paris. To execute and guillotine them one and all. To revolutionize their form of government into one that held “fraternity” (brotherly love) above financial gain. But as many spiritual leaders have pointed out, “You can’t legislate the hearts of men”. You can’t topple a power system with the same violent power with which it was built. Our inner greed problem needs an inner transformational solution. We need a rebirth in our human consciousness. We need to find a way to reach past the billionaire’s “detachment” and bring them back into the human family. Can we, as Lorretta J. Ross (7) suggests, not just cancel, or call out those with destructive bad behavior … but can we call them back in? Back to sanity and reasonable, humane behavior.
Is it possible for us to look past the nameless, faceless, all-powerful image of the “big corporation” and see that behind that facade there are just ordinary people, struggling with extraordinary addiction, just like the rest of us? Can we name these people? Can we invite them to know the freedom from compulsion and relief from shame that so many of us have found through recovery from addiction?
It’s often said that if you treat a person like they are worthless, they’ll come to believe in that worthlessness and even act upon that conviction. Could the same be said of the billionaire? If we seek to connect with their innate humanness – that hopeful beating heart which might still be present within the Giant’s skin – would they, could they possibly respond more humanely? There are 12 step programs for every kind of addiction, from sex to sugar, but where is the one that could free the mega hoarder of wealth from his cage of isolation and complete human detachment?
What would it look like if the human family sat down together to give our wealth-hoarding relatives an intervention? If the mothers of Congo, whose children mine cobalt for our cell phone’s batteries, could say to the CEOs of Apple and Samsung, “Your addiction to extreme wealth has affected me in the following ways …”
This is all hyperbole of course, but I would argue that there is hope that the mask of the “billionaire lie” is slipping. By that I mean, the towering lie which tells us that the number of zeros on the screen actually indicates our self-worth. When we look at people like Mackenzie Scott (8) (Jeff Bezos’ former wife) who has not only vowed to give away her billions but has already done so in great measure. Or Lyda Hill (9) (a lady I once had the privilege to tend garden for) who was born the heiress to an oil empire and has promised to give away all her wealth within her lifetime. When we look at people like this, we can see that mega-wealth does not have to keep a person perpetually enslaved. Perhaps, when we see promises like these come to fruition, we can have hope that humanity can evolve past this terrible age of elite wealth, and mass insecurity, which has so marked these last few centuries of empire-making and colonization.
For those of us who believe that a new level of spiritual consciousness is vital, not only for the survival of our one human race, but for the healing of our home, the earth, my question is this: Can we look together for solutions to our greed/addiction problem? Already researchers are producing studies (10) which point to our human capability to house and feed every person on the planet.
Is it possible that we could stop idolizing wealth and begin to root out our own deeply entrenched fear of lack, which keeps us locked in a scarcity worldview? A view which can’t possibly line up with the lifestyles of our spiritual teachers like the Buddha, St. Francis, or Jesus of Nazareth, who taught us not to worry about what we wear or what we will eat. Can we push back against the political rhetoric which wants to blame the very poor, the outsider, the immigrant for our failing blue-collar economy, while hailing yet another billionaire as prophet and leader to the working people?
Can we meditate on compassion? Can we pray that we might truly see one another, from the very rich to the very poor, as fellow human beings, struggling to know ourselves while we – each of us – works out our own salvation?
Although I have read that he is a keen folk-music fan, I know it’s highly unlikely that Mr. Warren will ever hear the song I’ve written for him. However, it’s his love for folk music, and the fact that he wasn’t raised wealthy (he started out his career sweeping floors in a warehouse) which gives me pause – and reason for hope.
It’s even his determination to blame an agency (GreenPeace) rather than listen to the folks of Standing Rock themselves, which tells me there is still a beating heart within the billionaire. If it’s just an agency who came after him in their endeavor to stop fossil fuels, rather than real live people, who want to protect their one small piece of earth, then it’s much easier for him to stay “detached”; to have no pesky conscience which might keep him awake at night with their cries for justice ringing in his ears!
Despite the fact that he sent them the rubber bullets and water hoses of a hired security force, in return for their prayerful protection of the water, I still want to hope that Kelcy Warren can listen to his heart and free himself from the cage of detachment which mega-wealth has so clearly bound him in. I must hope for him – and for all the other billionaires – that they might see that a legacy of mega-wealth (more zeros on a screen) means absolutely nothing when compared to that which they might pass on to their descendants and the world in general: a legacy of mega-generosity, mega-compassion, and mega-humanity.
References:
- Forbes.com
- Forbes.com
- Resilience.Org Women of Standing Rock: LaDonna Brave Bull Allard. The Guardian, LaDonna Bravebull Allard
- Testimony of Ira Taken Alive, Vice Chairman for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
- Fortune.com ceo-worker-pay-gap
- Poor People’s Campaign. Our Demands
- Loretta J. Ross Ted Talk “Don’t call people out, call them in”
- MacKenzie Scott
- Lyda Hill
- World Development Perspectives: How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis Jason Hickel & Dylan Sullivan
