Without his reforms, the economy would have remained mired in depression and the mass anger finding an outlet in street protests might have evolved into outright revolution. Today, the danger threatening the rich is not so much mass revolt as inescapable environmental meltdown. Like it or not, the rich need the poor if they are to save their own skins. Without the cooperation of the poor, there is no hope of dealing with global warming, forest loss, and many other environmental hazards that will punish rich and poor alike. We teach the concept of sharing to our children.
Sharing remains a central message of most of our religions.
Sharing has been a basic survival tactic for most humans, for most of our history. As Maurice Strong explained at the 1990 Earth Summit, the wealthy nations must substantially reduce their production of greenhouse gases in order to make space available so that Southern nations fighting poverty can increase their greenhouse emissions. Many Americans will resist such sharing, in part because they simply do not realize how lavish their lifestyles are compared with the rest of the world's. In taking for granted such luxuries as unlimited hot water at the turn of a tap and cars bigger than many people's houses, Americans inadvertently exhibit the sort of arrogance and self-centeredness that has made the poor hate the rich since time immemorial. Most Americans have far more material possessions than they could possibly need.