Saturday, March 30, 2024: 8:30 am – 10:00 am
On Zoom
Offered by David Loy
Why is it that we as a civilization find it so difficult to respond appropriately to the ecological crisis — the greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced? One of the main reasons is that the eco-crisis is also an economic crisis—a class problem. Between 1990 and 2015, the wealthiest one percent of the world’s population was responsible for twice the carbon emissions of the bottom 50 percent. And the wealth gap between rich and poor continues to grow. By some measures, the top one percent in the US is wealthier than the bottom 92 percent. A 2017 Oxfam study found that only eight people, six of them Americans, own as much combined wealth as half the human race.
Inequality in the United States has become greater than in France, Germany, or Japan, or in any other country that we think of as democratic. The U.S. is a democracy in form, in the sense that we (well, most of us) can still vote. But the reality is that the U.S. better described as a plutocracy: a society that’s controlled, directly and indirectly, by people with great wealth. Wealthy individuals and corporations influence the government through legal and illegal methods such as lobbying, funding election campaigns, bribing, and dark money—all of which are common today. And most of them don’t want significant change because they benefit so much from the way things work now.
What does Buddhism have to say about plutocracy?
If you have any questions, please contact the Earth Care group at EarthCare.Dharma@gmail.com
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89645479739?pwd=cG50SmViQ1hpaEFTSzdWNUY0Ky9PZz09
Meeting ID: 896 4547 9739
Passcode: 786010
One tap mobile
+16699009128,,89645479739#,,,,*786010# US (San Jose)
+16694449171,,89645479739#,,,,*786010# US