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The Politics of Wealth

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Notes from address given by Colin Whatmough on 5 October 2014 at Kirribilli  Neighbourhood Centre.
The following is based on the research of Al Gore, former Vice President of the USA in his recent book ‘The Assault on Reason’.
I  invite you to ponder on one of the Unitarian Principles – the right of conscience and/or reasoning and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and within society at large.
Democracy begins with the premise that all are created equal and seeks to meet human needs – it values access and equity concepts.
By contrast, capitalism begins with  the premise that competition will inevitably produce inequality – depending on differences in talent, industriousness and fortune – in its desire for profit.
These two systems have been the reigning philosophies in two different spheres of life. Most Western countries exist as the Democratic Capitalist style of government. The faultline that marked  the boundary between capitalism and democracy generated tremors in Abraham Lincoln’s mind in 1864, quote, “But I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the Civil War, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow; the money  power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices  of the people until all the wealth is aggregated in a few  hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.”
Al Gore makes the case that Abraham Lincoln’s suspicions have not proved groundless in the current American democratic Capitalist system especially with respect to the immense power exerted by modern  multinational corporations and media outlets in the new globalised world of Earth Incorporated.

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