Is There Enough Money for Pakistan?
A thought experiment
Antonio Guterres makes an appeal for $160 million to help Pakistan with flooding.
Why does it cost money to help people?
Let’s say they need shelter, food, medicine, health care, and transport to get to safer places.
They need people to build shelter, cook & distribute food, make medicine, provide health care, and drive vehicles. Why do these people need to be paid for providing these goods and services?
They need to pay for rent/mortgages, food, clothing, schooling (maybe), health care (maybe), transport. Why do they need to pay for these things?
Because someone owns their living space (maybe the owner/maybe the bank) and they want to be paid for the use of that living space. They want profit.
Because someone owns the shops that provide the food and clothing and those owners need to be paid. The owners need to pay for supplies and employees. And they want profit.
Because teachers need to be paid as they have the same expenses as those providing the above goods and services.
Because doctors & nurses etc need to be paid as they have the same expenses as those providing the above goods and services.
Because drivers need to be paid as they have the same expenses as those providing the above goods and services.
Someone owns the fuel and other raw materials (cotton, vegetables, etc) that are used to make and enable things listed above. The owners of those things want profit.
Someone owns the patents on medicines. They want profit.
If owners said that they would offer what they have free of charge… medicine would be free, fuel would be free, clothing would be free, food would be free, health care would be free, etc.
Helping Pakistan get what it needs to survive this disaster only costs money because there are people (owners) who say they will only provide all of the above if someone pays them for them.
This is a choice.
Why do I ask for donations for my work? Because there are people who require me to pay for water, electricity, gas, health care, food, clothing, classes for my daughter. Generally, most of what I do is for free.
The economic system within which we live is a choice. It is not a natural law.
Some of you might think that people wouldn’t do things without a money incentive. And there is an open question as to whether we want people with power over our lives to be making decisions based on greed rather than based on a desire to support living beings on the planet to survive and flourish.