Friday 29 January 2016

Poverty, wealth, tax, inequality, work, politics and chairs

Two people are sharing a bit of bread. It's all they've got to eat today. In the corner of the room, someone is eating a huge meal. A politician walks in and says that he's collecting tax. He takes a part of the bit of bread from the two. He goes over to the person eating the huge meal. He takes a bit from the plate.

The people eating the bread are sitting on the floor. They say, 'Can we have a chair?' The politician says, 'No, times are tough, we can't afford chairs in the present climate.' The people sharing the bread say that the politician took a quarter of their bread but only took a corner of the other person's meal. An argument breaks out about how unfair that is, but the politician explains that that's the law and anyway, last time anyone tried to collect anything of the person eating the huge meal, they didn't get anything.


The politician leaves.

The two people sharing the bread are wondering about the chair. The person eating the meal is on a chair. One of them remembers from another time that the person has many, many chairs. He remembers seeing them when he was cooking the meal for the person.

The politician comes back into the room and says things are getting better and goes out again.