It’s more important to make the poor richer than the rich poorer

I totally understand our obsession with bashing the bankers. After all, these troubling economic times are all their fault. (That’s not totally true of course, but they’re the easy target.) We want them to feel some pain for all the trouble they’ve caused. We want them to suffer.

But I wonder if in the midst of all this that we’ve lost sight of the point. The point isn’t to make ourselves feel a bit better by seeing the bankers have lower bonuses and the like. (This, incidentally, will actually cost the UK economy around £5 billion in lost taxes over the life of this parliament.) The point, surely, is to keep focussing on eradicating poverty and buildings systems and structures that truly enable the poor to become richer.

How many of us who are banging on about the big, bad, bankers actually even give a damn about the poor? I’m not saying that some of the anger isn’t justified; I’m simply challenging us to keep our eye on the people who truly need our attention and support.

Simply put, it is far more important to find ways to make the poor richer than it is to focus trying to make the rich poorer. Isn’t there some cross-over? Don’t they affect each other? Sure, even if to what extent is up for debate. But, frankly, that’s too complex to explore in this post. My point here is to challenge our motivations. Are we more fired up by bashing bankers (and rich people) or by standing up for the poor and oppressed?

I for one would far rather be remembered for championing the poor rather than bashing the bankers.