Greed has a very strong influence throughout a person’s lifetime. It is man’s primal desire to own everything that he wants. It is hence a never-ending lust for debauch materials to further enrich his own quality of life, especially for one who has already amassed enormous wealth and power. Such kind of person will never be contented even though he has more than what he needs. He has an unquenchable thirst to take and possess despite those who suffer because of his materialistic greed.
Undoubtedly, there is a distortion in the mentality of the person who is rich and powerful. It is the cause for him to be apathetic to those that get victimized by his unrighteous ways. This is hence a long-standing problem that is about time to get remedied.
Our modern-day nobility has served a compromise among the affluent individuals, minority by number but who have a hand on various economic powers. These people are those who have the control over the revenues and profits of companies in all sorts of businesses and industries. For instance, there are only around five companies in America that own a large percent of most businesses encompassing various economic sectors.
Interestingly, they have an intangible yet tremendously large influence on the consumers’ needs and wants. With this capacity, there is a possibility that they are having shady transactions and schemes that may endanger the economic state or whatever disposition of not only the masses but the entire country itself. They have so much authority that their decisions could affect the overall economic market. Such risks could have been left unexamined in the hands of small groups of people that can easily be tempted by the profit they could somehow earn.
This greed is the effect of the overidealism among people about capitalism. Minority yet amassing great influence, they take this idea to an extreme, capitalizing on everything that they believe to earn them more and more wealth.
Capitalism itself is not a negative thing, but taking it too far with its ideals is nothing but resulting in treacherous deeds. Too much of everything can be harmful and evil. Their priorities should be straightened out and have them realize that virtue is more valuable than anything they can earn by deception.
The values of the rich and the wealthy are twisted and misguided. Their pursuit for vanity is the cause of their unwillingness to understand how the common people they exploit would feel. They see the common masses as mechanisms rather than actual human beings. An example of such a person is the CEO of a pharmaceutical company who bought a large portion of the stock of medicine for a grave illness. He sold it then to the people for so much more than the acquisition price. Evidently, what he prioritized was his own profit and returns rather than the people who were suffering. Such is a sick practice and yet to be properly addressed.
There is a need for a movement to change the vile ways of the greedy upper class that rules the common masses. It is time to revoke their control over the economy and have them reflect about the realities of their misdeeds. They should no longer be allowed to devalue the rights of people to access common necessities. The oppression of the rich and the wealthy ends with the reformation of justice and emancipation.
The article was submitted for publication (as a guest post) by Cris Anjelo Banaag. A second year BS Information Technology student in an IT school (a part of a large network of private schools in the Philippines), he also joins essay writing competitions. Recently, he bagged the 2nd Place in Essay Does It!, an on-the-spot essay writing competition among student participants from 8 clustered schools around Metro Manila. [Minors edits were made by editors of iMillennial Publishers]
