preview

Greed, Exploitation, And Division Of The Black Class

Good Essays

As Pope Benedict XVI famously stated, “Our world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises.” His ideas are especially true in modern society. Greed refers to the intense desire for something, particularly wealth and power. The desire for materialism has acted as a catalyst for greed to become prevalent in society, especially in the United States of America. The presence of greed in the upper-class dates back to as early as the 1820’s when wealthy oil businessmen exploited sailors into working in extremely dangerous conditions for their own self interest (Philbrick). The greed present in the wealthiest families in the nation has established a detrimental division between the wealthy and the poor. The gap is only growing further and further apart, as greed constructs the desire for the rich to become richer resulting in the poor becoming poorer (JBW). As of right now, the United States has the worst income equality out of all the developed countries in the world (Gongloff).
Unfortunately, we don’t have enough people in our federal government looking for opportunities to change our ways. The laws present in our government don’t do enough in preventing the wealth gap in our nation from increasing; in fact, since President Obama took office in 2008, the top 1% of our country reels in 90% of all income gains (Hill). As a nation and a people, we must elect members running for

Get Access