Dominance of money

Thursday’s cartoon on political donations reveals a serious flaw in our humanity. Few folk do something for nothing.

The race to replace Boris Johnson in the UK is a classic example. Politics is about serving the people, yet the two candidates talk tax cuts (bribes) and engage in personal attacks; little is said of policies to clear up the mess the nation is in.

This dominance of money was illustrated in last Saturday’s edition of The Timaru Herald. Pfizer, who developed the Covid vaccine, had a 97% rise in profit last year. Apparently none of that went to provide vaccines for poor countries.

But in New Zealand, prompted by churches, many thousands of folk donated the price for a jab in a poor country, when the free needle was stuck in their arm. Thankfully this reversal of the usual trend to only give if you get is not unknown, but rare in public life.

So one in seven people in New Zealand live in poverty and the gap between rich and poor is increasing as the money funnels upwards. Is it because we judge the worth of a person by their bank balance? It doesn’t have to be that way.

In Victorian times Beatrix Potter was the most successful children’s author. She used her fortune to establish the first national park in the English Lake District. In the last century most giant earthmoving machinery was made by Caterpillar in the United States. The head of the company was told he should tithe his fabulous income to the church. He went one better, he lived on 10% and gave the rest away.

And in this century we have thousands of Kiwis with sore arms . . . and generous hearts.

Dennis Veal Timaru