Agenda 2030: Prosperity
To ensure “all human beings can enjoy prosperous and fulfilling lives and that economic, social and technological progress occurs in harmony with nature.”
Prosperity? How exactly can all human beings enjoy a prosperous and fulfilling life?
One would wonder, how do you streamline that across the board? Well, the simple and quick answer is you can’t, not without entering into other territories to do so.
You have the current social-economic classes or a more controlled dystopian approach to ensuring everyone has the same finances.
Let’s look at the current economic state of affairs from a microcosm. If we look at the stock market, the Dow is currently sitting at “-0.35%.” The S&P is sitting at “-0.45%.” The Nasdaq is sitting at “-0.35%.” We also see a host of other items that have dropped in value, such as Precious metals. For instance, Silver hovered at about $25-$28 an ounce for the longest time after dropping to $11 an ounce at the height of the Covid outbreak and bouncing up to $32 an ounce when the economy opened back up. It’s currently down to $18 an ounce. So you may ask why that matters much; you look at the overall consumer goods and stocks index. You can usually get a pretty good point of reference based on stocks, precious metals, and overall consumer confidence. If any drops below a certain threshold, we’re going through some economic turbulence.
Precious metals and stock info.
let’s consider this part “all human beings can enjoy prosperous and fulfilling lives.” But how does this play out concerning Americans’ current economic situation, “capitalism?”
Investopedia defines capitalism: “Capitalism is an economic system in which private individuals or businesses own capital goods. At the same time, business owners (capitalists) employ workers (labor) who only receive wages; labor does not own the means of production but only uses them on behalf of the owners of capital.”
Further explanation of capitalism
So, how exactly do all human beings enjoy a “prosperous and fulfilling life” when they’re consistently in a position where they’re the backbone behind the “business owner,” (capitalist) financial gain and wealth? The answer? They don’t!
I feel it’s also a fascinating intersection to add this movie reference. I’ll link the info for the movie below. But the movie “Snow piercer” (no, not the tv show, the movie)
the general idea I’m shooting to emphasize here is the movie’s ideology at its crux.
That idea is that there will always be two main classes of people, “the rich and affluent” and “the poor and destitute.” It must remain this way for the order of our world, especially in a nation built on capitalism, to continue in like fashion.
There will always be the two classes, and any assertion otherwise is selling you a pipedream.
Snowpiercer
There will never be a society or system where everyone has equal results and financial gains. Why? Because it’s just not realistically plausible. The only place that’s even remotely approachable is in books, and guess what?! It’s not because it’s a utopia; it’s a dystopia. We look at incredible examples in literature, such as “The giver.” Truly a shining example of a “utopia” that’s actually a “dystopia.”
Here’s a link from an essay on “the Giver utopia.”
First, let’s give a brief description of the book for those who may have never heard of or read the book.
”In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.”
The below-mentioned quote concerns the Christian perspective on the book.
“She was inspired to write The Giver—which won the 1994 Newbery medal—after visiting her elderly father in a nursing home. He had lost most of his long-term memory, and it occurred to Lowry that without memory, there is no longer any pain. She imagined a society where the past was deliberately forgotten, which would allow the inhabitants to live in a kind of peaceful ignorance. The flaws inherent in such a society, she realized, would show the value of individual and community memory: Although a loss of memory might mean a loss of pain, it also means a loss of lasting human relationships and connections with the past.”
The Giver is not a Christian novel, but if I were doing a review, I would be able to point out what a Christian should learn from the story. When I finished reading the novel, I couldn’t help but compare the colorless, or boring, society that allowed individuals to live in “peaceful ignorance” to the untrue perception many non-Christians have of those who live in faith.
Christianity is often described as a “crutch” or a way some people choose to avoid dealing with the realities of life and death. Non-Christians often believe a life of faith to be rigid, routine and restricted—often colorless or boring. I can see how someone could read The Giver and believe it was a condemnation of religion while another might read it and believe it to be supportive of faith. I can see others read it and believe it has nothing to do with faith at all.”
The giver: a Christian perspective
When we look at the premise of this book, it’s hard not to wonder how life would be if we were free of pain and suffering, differences, or even of choice. On paper, it looks so idyllic, like the perfect little world. But it’s not perfect, and it’s not ideal.
You’ll find when you eliminate everything that differentiates people and removes diversity in all aspects. You lose a bit of your humanity as a person and as a people group. Then you couple that with the removal of choices… you’ve got a recipe for disaster. We need to feel pain; we need to feel loss; we need adversity; we need choices! Without them, we’re just robots clunking around in the dark, and our lives would be meaningless, with No pleasure, No pain, or actual achievement of goals! Love it or hate it, we need to feel the pits of despair at times in our lives; why?! Because without it, we wouldn’t appreciate the truly wonderful points in life! The parts you think could never get any better… the parts you hold in your heart as a cherished memory. Would you want to live in a world free of emotions and victories, actual victories? I sure know I wouldn’t. So yes, I’ll take the days I’m miserable and can’t get going and swallow my pride when I’m stubborn and difficult. Because it’s through that pain that beauty develops!
And I’ll continue to be morose at times. Because that means a beautiful expression of joy is around the corner. And I’ll take that 15x out of 10…
However, I digress.
Let’s keep moving and look at some stats.
”Around the world, more than enough food is produced to feed the global population—but as many as 829 million people still go hungry. After steadily declining for a decade, world hunger is on the rise, affecting nearly 10% percent of people globally. From 2019 to 2022, the number of undernourished people grew by as many as 150 million, a crisis driven largely by conflict, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic.”
World Hunger
Hunger: Goal 2: Zero Hunger
Current estimates are that nearly 690 million people are hungry, or 8.9 percent of the world population – up by 10 million people in one year and by nearly 60 million in five years.
The majority of the world’s undernourished – 381 million – are still found in Asia. More than 250 million live in Africa, where the number of undernourished is growing faster than anywhere in the world.
In 2019, close to 750 million – or nearly one in ten people in the world – were exposed to severe levels of food insecurity.
An estimated 2 billion people in the world did not have regular access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food in 2019.
If recent trends continue, the number of people affected by hunger will surpass 840 million by 2030, or 9.8 percent of the global population.
144 million children under age 5 were affected by stunting in 2019, with three quarters living in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2019, 6.9 percent (or 47 million) children under 5 were affected by wasting or acute undernutrition, a condition caused by limited nutrient intake and infection.
Goal 2 Target 2.1:
By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.
So here’s the problem, we have the resources to do so; we’ve had them for some time. But the issue isn’t the quantity or even the distribution of food. The issue is that the people at the top running the show see us as a blight and want to rid the world of most of us. Knocking off the defenseless and lame first.
In summation, I’ll leave you with these two quotes, which I feel encapsulate quite a bit:
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. ~ Thomas Jefferson."
"The American war is over, but this is far from being the case with the American Revolution. ~ Benjamin Rush."