My life is odd. Since it is hard to get reliable news on the television here, I spend a great deal of my free time gathering news online. And that news is pretty grim. For example, even Facebook’s IPO only managed to be flat, despite all the hype about how successful it would be in bringing some ordinary traders to a market that had been rather light over the past few months. The fact that Facebook’s IPO could not manage to rise beyond its initial price sank the stocks of its rival social networks as the stock market had another brush with fear and panic.

This ought not to be a surprise. Right now the governments of the world are falling down on the job. The job of a government is to seek the best for the people, and most governments from what I can see are no longer even pretending to do this job because the people who hold the money behind the scenes, whether they be German bankers or people from the IMF, are telling those governments that it is austerity or fiscal destruction for their nations and their economies. So, even though the Spanish government has a 50% stake in their failed nationalized banks, the Spanish people (like the Greeks) are making a run on those banks, because there is no faith that those governments are going to be able to meet their social obligations. And Spain, with a 25% unemployment rate (and a 50% unemployment rate for workers under 30, according to Yahoo Finance), is already in a Great Depression situation. With that kind of unemployment and that lack of trust in the government, it would be no surprise if there was blood and revolution in the streets before too long.

I am reminded of my fairly life here in Thailand. Because of a lack of trust in students in the cooking crew, I am the quartermaster for all of the meat for the school [1]. Yesterday, after the students arrived late from planing rice a rice paddy in one of our properties, I was concerned that the meat would be forgotten because it was late Friday afternoon. My concerns were justified because the meat was forgotten, and it ended up being a huge mess (including someone ending up shopping early this morning, which I loathe, presumably without permission). At any rate, being the quartermaster of the meat has meant that I have the responsibility of making sure the right supplies are bought and stored and given out little by little before every single meal. On the plus side, it means that we now have about twice the meat ending up in the meals at the school as we had when the meat was in the kitchen and being pilfered by some of the students.

But at the same time I’m in the position of the German banks. A lack of trust in local institutions has meant that someone else has to do the job of passing out the meat. Not all of the meat ends up being eaten by the students and teachers though. For example, Legacy (lacking a ferocious dog, unlike most of our neighbors) has a lot of little kittens on the premises. Now, they are cute little kittens, and very hungry, and some of the students here have taken pity on the kittens and tried to feed them. Unfortunately, the kittens are extremely shy towards humans (probably because most people don’t treat them very nicely). It is far easier to be nice to cuddly and affectionate little kittens than it is to be affectionate to scavenging animals that run away from affection but try to steal food.

I often wonder if there is a connection between these problems. Our skinny little scavenger cats are in a same position to the citizens of many peripheral countries (and quite a few Americans, it might be noted). They depend on others for their food, and consider themselves entitled to others providing them with decent food. Of course, most people in this situation are pretty savage when it comes to meeting the needs of others, because supplies tight and our own insecurities are great. Add in a systemic lack of trust and what one has is a lot of ferocious and not very cuddly scavengers and beggars who cannot find a level of self-sufficiency but are not possessed of the charm and charisma to win over those who have at least a little to give. The result is a great deal of unhappiness and misery and actions that show the lack of trust even more starkly.

Scarcity is a serious problem, and when scarcity threatens the response of people tends to be hoarding if they have and looting what is hoarded if they do not. All this does is reduce the trust even further, pit neighbors against each other, and lead to less food being offered and available in markets. Sadly, people are not very rational when they are desperate. The civilized and cultured mask we present to the outside world is often an act that depends on having all our necessities covered so that we do not have to savagely fight for survival. Being a person whose native gifts are far from the area of logistics, I struggle to make sense of the importance of supplies and resources for the happiness and well-being of others.

When we have meat in due season, we are able to be generous about what is above and beyond our needs. But when we feel our needs are not being met, and that our survival is at stake, our struggles and fights take on a much more harsh and savage nature. And it feels like we are living in a world that is increasingly concerned with mere subsistence, and lacks an understanding or appreciation of plenty, which means that those who have more than enough are going to increasingly be a target for those who do not have enough. There are only so many ways to resolve those problems, and the best ways are providing opportunities for people to share in gains so that they have enough for themselves and enough to share with others above and beyond what they need for themselves and their families. But no one seems to be thinking that way right now, and it deeply concerns me. Instead, we howl and steal and bite at each other other like the unloving scavenger kittens, for whom life would be so much easier if they were more cute and cuddly and lovable.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/quartermaster-duties/