"I just want to see peace..."
(The photo is titled, "Life in Tijuana.")
It's a familiar refrain: "I just want to see peace in Darfur. Nothing else." In this case, it comes from Sudan. But I've heard much the same plea from civilians in Sri Lanka— of all ethnicities. "We don't want to fight Tamils." "We just want to live in peace." "Both the government and the LTTE have killed our people; when will we be left alone?"
The problem, it seems, is that leaders seeking power benefit from violence. And it's rarely the leaders themselves who pay the price for their actions. But civilians living on the front lines lose their homes, children, limbs, and lives. Little wonder so many feel their so-called leaders don't represent them.
Why the apparent disregard for life in such places? I find myself struck by a comment one of my classmates made years ago on a high school debating team with regard to the Palestinians: "If you want them to become conservative, you must give them something to conserve." The roots of violence are all too often poverty and failed democracy.
It's not lost on me that much of the world's wealth resides here in the U.S.— and that I have more than my fair share of it. Yet my giving to someone in Darfur or Batticaloa will change little: it is the system itself that creates imbalance.
Adam Smith knew back in 1776 that progressive taxation was necessary to recirculate wealth and keep the capitalist system moving. Our national leaders have forgotten that. But the problem is much broader: as trade globalizes, capital collects not within classes of a single nation, but within nations. There is no trans-national government with the authority to implement a progressive tax. And as long as there isn't, by definition cash will flow from the poor nations to the rich, leaving the poor of the world more and more desperate and prey to greater violence.
Our knee-jerk response is to compare ourselves to this nation's extravagantly wealthy and say, "We're not rich." But we are. If you make more than $2 a day, you're in the top 50%. If you're reading this blog, you're in the top ten percent. If you own your computer and have internet access in your home, you're in the top 1%. Contrast that with the cardboard shacks and makeshift toilets that much of the world lives in, from Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka to africa to Tijuana: yeah, we're rich.
Capitalism demands an authority empowered to tax the wealthy. Our resistance to a "world tax" promotes violence around the world. Do I want to pay more tax? Not really. U.S. tax rates are already among the highest in the industrialized world. Would I willingly pay more taxes if that money went to improve the lives of people living in abject poverty? The short answer is, yes.
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