Has slavery been abolished in the West, or are we all actually slaves to our own greed?

Living in debt:

An invitation to financial slavery

I first went into debt when I was a student physiotherapist. My bank account went 50 pence overdrawn. I was horrified and asked my mother for a loan to cover it until my next student grant cheque came through. I was still in debt, but being in debt to my mother did not seem as bad as being in debt to the bank. When I graduated, my parents wanted me to buy a house. I could not bear the thought of taking out a mortgage and being thousands of pounds in debt, so I did not listen to them. In hindsight, looking at house prices now, perhaps I was unwise to ignore their instructions, but not having a mortgage gave me the freedom to do what I thought was right by leaving an NHS management job, and a Council Housing job. In both of those jobs I felt that my managers were pressuring me to be dishonest, and I have seen evidence that these were not isolated cases.^[1,2] If I lived in fear of not being able to pay off my mortgage, perhaps those managers could have kept me under their thumbs.

Luxury

Material attachment:
Since that time, debt has become a normal part of my life. I am currently over £12000 in debt, yet, if I ignore that fact, I could be under the illusion that I am better off than people without such debts, who ask for money in the street. Am I, or am I a slave? Much of my current debt was necessary for my karma yoga. I believe it was my duty to be a student occupational therapist, and that it is my duty to be a medical student now. As a student, I needed to take out loans to survive. My debt never needed to be as big as it is though. While working for the council housing department, I bought myself a Mitsubishi 3000GT. It was great fun, but my insurance was £1500 per year third party only! The tyres cost £200 each to replace and when I put my foot down it drank like a whale. One day whilst I was on an excursion with an attractive woman, the gearbox failed, costing me £1500 to repair. Wiser people told me to get rid of the car at this point, but I was too attached to it. Later, the exhaust and alarm systems also failed, and the gearbox failed again, resulting in a court case to recover my costs from the people that did not repair it properly the first time. I finally saw sense and gave the car away to another foolish materialist. After that, I bought two Toyota MR2s which were much more reliable and cheaper to run. Unfortunately, one was hit by an uninsured driver and its engine blew up, and the other was run over by a lorry. Due to my psychological attachment to those cars, both incidents caused me stress. Now, driving an Aygo, which drinks very little petrol and costs less than £50 per replacement tyre and less than £200 per year for fully comprehensive insurance (but unlike the sports cars, does not attract any attention from women) I am aware that I was a slave to my sports cars.

Lesser luxury

Debt culture:

I am not alone in being in debt. At the moment, it seems like almost everybody is in debt, including the Greek, our own and the US governments. They strangely had enough money to invade Iraq and Afghanistan though. Who on Earth do all of these people actually owe money to? I asked a banker and he kind of said “each other” but that does not make any sense to me. I used to think the Zeitgeist movies^[3] were paranoia, but the current situation leads me to re-think that. There is always somebody else to blame. People have complained that doctors get paid too much and public sector workers pensions are unfair. I think those people should try medical school and public sector employment to see whether they can hack it before complaining. Similarly, scape-goating of bankers seems to be a popular pastime nowadays. If you feel jealous, try being a banker before complaining. Did anybody hold a gun to your head and force you to buy things that you cannot actually afford?

It seems that many want to blame and heavily tax ‘the rich’. I agree that tax-evaders should be forced to pay up, but as higher earners that do pay their tax, pay more tax than low earners, I do not think it would be fair to penalise them for their hard work while so many people are happily living off the state with no intention of contributing to society in any way. If rich people are over-taxed in Britain, what reasons will they have to stay here instead of moving to more sensible countries? I think taxes should be based on how ethical your earnings are. If you exploit people by selling necessities such as food, fuel or accommodation at inflated prices, you should be taxed heavily, while if you sell necessities at reasonable prices or make your profits by selling luxuries that people do not actually need, but choose to buy, why should you be penalised for your success?

I believe the solution to our problems can be found in Isa Upanishad:

Omé pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaḿ pūrṇāt pūrṇam udachyate
pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśhiṣhyate

(The Invisible Absolute is whole; the visible Universe is whole; from the Invisible Whole comes forth the visible Universe. Though the visible Universe comes from the Invisible

Whole, the Whole remains unaltered.)

Iśhāvāsyam idaḿ sarvaḿ yat kiḿ cha jagatyāḿ jagat

tena tyaktena bhuñjīthā mā gṛdhaḥ kasya svit dhanam

(Everything that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord. One should therefore accept only those things necessary for oneself, and one should not endeavor to gain anybody else’s wealth).

Eight month's supply of food (+ about 4 months supply of drink) <£2 per day.

On a personal level, this means not borrowing money to buy things you do not need, and on a national level it means not invading other countries supposedly in search of non-existent weapons of mass destruction regardless of how much oil they have.

In Western Societies perhaps this is easier said than done. When I was in Sri Lanka I saw a house built in 3 days. Similarly when watching a television program about Nigeria, I saw people making land out of rubbish and saw dust, building huts out of corrugated iron and growing fish to eat in the water where they lived. I have never seen anything like that happen in England. It is too difficult to live simply here. I remember seeing on the news when I was a child that an African woman got into trouble here for building a mud hut without planning permission. Similarly, some of the so called ‘travellers’ who wish to live in buildings at Dale Farm instead of travelling seem to have run into trouble with their local council due to lack of planning permission for building on land that they themselves own.^[4] I may be naive, but if it is on land they own, where nobody else is likely to go, why is planning permission such an issue? Why does everything in England have to be so complicated? My mother cannot even get permission to have the curb in front of her house dropped to prevent tyre damage to cars accessing her driveway.

Pure greed:

Necessity

Why are houses so expensive here? It is insane. I

think firstly it is because people are willing to pay that much and be mortgage slaves instead of seeking more simple living elsewhere.^[5] I also think landlords have a lot to answer for. If there was a very high ‘landlord tax’ that made it financially insensible to own any residential property that you yourself did not live in, I think landlords would have to sell all of their properties and house prices would come down. Personally I do not think it is ethical to make money out of people that cannot afford their own places to live. I used to think that if things kept going the way they are, sooner or later there would be a revolution here! A few weeks ago when riots seemed to be springing up all over the country, I thought it had started. In reality what happened was nothing like a revolution, but just another mass expression of greed. People dressed from head to toe in branded sports goods were interviewed on television saying that the riots and looting were because they are poor. Instead of attacking the Royal Family, The Bishop’s Avenue, or Harrods, they attacked small businesses in their own local communities and looted items that no human really needs. People ridiculed those seen stealing rice, because rice is so cheap, but of all the rioters and looters, I respected them the most, because their choice suggests to me that they really were poor, and just wanted food, while others were more interested in trainers from Footlocker. One person on television, when trying to justify the looting, defined his 'poverty' in terms of finding it difficult to pay off his mortgage! I cannot even afford to get a mortgage. Should I help myself to a widescreen television from Comet and some trainers from Footlocker?

Definitely not necessity

There was no shortage of people making excuses for these criminals. Somebody sent me a Facebook message saying:

“it's not about making excuses for them, but ignoring the reasons and

social issues dictating behaviour will only cause more problems for our society. for example, if you remove social housing and benefits from everyone convicted with rioting, these newly homeless people with no money will probably turn to crime, targeting the most vulnerable in our society”

Wanting everything for nothing:
Despite this, I think the looters could benefit from Isa Upanishad just as much as the landlords. So too could those who choose to live off the state. For a short period of my life I was unemployed and spent my time relentlessly applying for jobs. It was depressing, but I noticed that most people visiting the job centre I went to were not even bothering to look at the advertised jobs; they were simply going there to sign up for job-seekers allowance. I saw one woman smile in the face of the job centre employee who told her off for not actually job-seeking. She still got her job-seekers allowance. Previously on Channel 4’s Tower Block of Commons I saw people living in conditions better than I can afford, having produced

Depressing but necessary

more children than I could afford to raise, complaining to MPs about

how poor and hard done by they are. Strangely at least one of them could afford to blow a huge proportion of his benefits on tobacco consumption. Should the tax-payers really be paying for his tobacco consumption? More recently I saw a single mother with 8 children on television, describing her financial hardship. In a news story about Parent Gyms, a mother of 10 children complained about how difficult it was to control her youngest two children. Is this planet big enough for every human mother to have 10 children? Contracepton is free in the UK. What excuse is there for producing more children than you can cope with or afford to raise? These people may not be living in slavery, but they are living off the slavery of other people who work and pay taxes.

Speaking of people living off the state, I am sick of students complaining about tuition fees while they seem to have enough money for sufficient alcohol to get themselves drunk. Drunkenness is not a necessity is it? Why then should it be government subsidised? I know graduates who are unemployed and have no idea what they want to do with their lives. What was the point of their government subsidised higher education? Did they really need it? Did it make any difference? One of the excuses I have heard from fight fees campaigners demanding free degree level education is that people learn social skills at University! Is that really needed, or is it a luxury? Should it really be subsidised by the taxpayer? I think that only higher education that is actually going to benefit the country should be government subsidised. If students want to study unnecessary degrees, they should pay for them themselves, instead of expecting the taxpayer to subsidise them, or even worse, pay for them completely.

Conclusions:
In short:

Student vice: should not be supported by the taxpayer

1. If you expect the government (i.e. the British tax-payer) to pay for your excessive progeny, alcohol and tobacco consumption, laziness and your useless education, hello! There is a national debt crisis. Wake up!

2. If you are making a profit by renting residential property that you yourself do not need to live in, or selling necessities at highly inflated prices, you are forcing other people into poverty. Karma will catch up with you sooner or later.

I expect this blog entry to be very unpopular, but there it is. Rant over.

References:
1. Revill J. (2003) Hospitals faking cuts in casualty wait times. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/may/11/health.nhs1 Accessed: 4/10/2011
2. Mailoo V.J., Abrahams P., Warner E., Wickham J. (2005) Council housing: getting what your service user needs. Therapy Weekly 31(29):11-14
3. http://zeitgeistmovie.com/ Accessed: 4/10/2011
4. Haddadi A. (2011) Dale farm Eviction: “Ethnic Cleansing” or Just Planning Permission Issues? Available from: http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/216193/20110919/dale-farm-eviction-ethnic-cleansing-or-just-planning-permission-issues.htm Accessed: 5/10/2011
5. Knight K. (2010) My Masai Mr Right: Why is this middle-class woman giving up a life of luxury to live in a mud hut with an African warrior? Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1262574/My-Masai-Mr-Right-Why-middle-class-woman-giving-life-luxury-live-mud-hut-African-warrior.html Accessed: 5/10/2011