Materialism

I recently visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and came across an exhibition donated by Sir Arthur Gilbert at his death in 2001. Sir Arthur Gilbert and his wife Rosalinde were one of the largest private antique collectors in the world. The complete collection is valued to £75 million!

 The pieces displayed at Albert and Victoria is just a tiny fraction of the entire collection. The craftsmanship of the things was amazing.

 

We are used to see the wealth that the aristocracy used to have and eagerly pump into their stately homes. But the English aristocracy had to stop their lavish lifestyle when they had to stop using slaves and when employment rights forced them to pay minimum wages and stick to human work hours.

 

But the wealth of the Gilberts was built during modern times (Sir Arthur Gilbert lived 1913 to 2001) and the question is – what do you have to do to others in order to accumulate so much personal wealth in a lifetime?

 

 I think that there is something seriously wrong with the world when one married couple can have so much cash to spare so that they can blow it on a hobby worth £75 million whilst children are homeless and starve. Walking around the room looking at the pieces I suddenly started to feel sick.

 I believe that each person on earth has an intrinsic, built-in value that is equal to all others. Therefore, it is something wrong when some people swim in money whilst others have to starve. I do think we need to re-allocate the overall wealth in the world differently or we are heading straight to total disaster. If current unequal distribution of wealth continues we will see more of the riots and violence we seen last summer. I say to the politicians, ‘you keep on going on this path on your own peril'