Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "wealth"

Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing by Barbara Matterson-Horowitz, MD and Kathryn Bowers, New York,
Alfred A. Knopf, 2012
The conclusion of the authors (and their contributing partners from both the veterinarian and medical professions) is that we are not alone, we humans, in how we suffer and how we should be treated. Each chapter provides many stories of the way different health problems are shared between humans and different animals.

Chapter 1: Yes, “Jaguars get breast cancer…rhinos in zoos get leukemia.” Dinosaur bones show signs of brain tumors, “…gout, arthritis, stress fractures…even cancer.”
Chapter 2: We all can faint or go vagal under “…extreme emotion or fear.”
Chapter 3: We share various cancers with all kinds of animals and birds.
Chapter 4: The authors suggest that the many varieties of animal sexuality can teach us quite a bit about ourselves--like how females could “…audition males before allowing them to mate.”

Chapter 5 is a fascinating tale of why we all--humans and animals alike--are subject to addiction. Our bodies and brains “…have evolved doorways for…potent drugs.” Why?
Because evolution has provided all of us with nerves and brain chemicals that interplay to create emotions. In short, survival tactics are rewarded with hits of natural feel-good narcotics.

However, on the negative side, “…life sustaining activities, like “finding safety…happiness, foraging, eating and socializing, causes…release of…mostly dopamine…” that can be addictive. Note that “accumulating wealth” is also on that list!

We also share happiness, fear, anger, and pain--though our “…self-protective strategy may differ… Most animals don’t vocalize when they’re hurt… It’s dangerous and could attract predators…Pain management is now a priority in both human and veterinarian medicine.”

Chapter 6: We larger animals all share heart attacks, including those caused by dread and sudden panic.
Chapter 7: We all--even fish--can get too fat to be healthy.
Chapter 8: Self-injury can give us relief from stress. Even fish enjoy grooming.

The ninth chapter is entitled Fear of Feeding. Eating Disorder in the Animal Kingdon. Birds, mammals and spiders indulge in food caching, as do we.
Chapter 10 is all about our common problem with STDs. Some are shared between species via circuitous routes. The extinction of wild koalas in Australia has been threatened by an epidemic of chlamydia.

Chapter 11: Adolescence is defined in species from “…condors to Capuchin monkeys to college freshmen [as] taking risks and sometimes making mistakes.”

The authors conclude by reviewing how we share infectious agents with various animals.
This book of engaging stories includes many pointed suggestions that define how and why human physicians and veterinarians must work together to enhance patient care and solve our common medical puzzles.

Billionaires’ Ball: Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality by Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks, Boston, Beacon Press, 2012.

In reviewing Billionaires' Ball I'm tempted to quote from the book Zoobiquity: by Barbara Matterson-Horowitz, MD and Kathryn Bowers. Chapter 5 is a fascinating tale of why we all--humans and animals alike--are subject to addiction. Evolution has provided us with nerves and brain chemicals that interplay to create emotions. Survival tactics are rewarded with hits of natural feel-good narcotics like dopamine. Accumulating wealth is a survival tactic, hence it can be addictive--a scary observation for these times.

The authors of Billionaires Ball remind us of the Crash of 2008 and provide a detailed history of “Chapter 5. Why Bill Gates Doesn't Deserve His Fortune, Chapter 6. Why Other Billionaries Are Even Less Deserving...and Chapter 10. Why Billionaires Are Bad for Democracy."

The authors compare the U.S. and Sweden. They observe that most Americans think that we are similar in the distributions of wealth. We are not. Our differences in wealth are currently much higher than the Swedes. In America the average wage has slid downward since the 1970’s, while exorbitant wealth has accumulated to a very low percentage of Americans.

The answers are simple. It is up to Congress to reinstate reasonable leveling measures. Trickle-down economics has been debunked as a myth. I come back again and again to the Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant: Rome, faced with hungry people and unequal wealth, chose a ”hundred years of class and civil war," while in the Athens of 594 B.C. Solon, an aristocratic businessman, “…eased the burden of all debtors…established a graduated income tax...reorganized the courts on a more popular basis, and...educated at the government’s expense..." sons of the military. “The government of the United State, in 1933-52 and 1960-65, followed Solon's peaceful methods and accomplished a moderate and pacifying redistribution…"

Why is this so hard to understand? People need to feel some basic respect as part of society, not as lackeys.

by Chris Hughes, Co-founder of Facebook.,St. Martin’s Press,NY, 2018.

Chris Hughes gives us a critical, thoughtful view of his remarkable luck in rooming with Mark Zuckenberg at Harvard. Riding the huge fortune they generated with Facebook took hold of their, and all, our lives. He calls it luck, not a path accessible to most of us, since the U.S. has been skewed to favor the wealthy in the last few decades.

Therefore,, the 1% of people who hold most of the U.S. wealth should provide a guaranteed income in order to combat poverty and stabilize the middle class. The Earned Income Tax Credit is already in place and could easily be re-structured to relieve what has become a vastly unfair loss of workable economic s for so many.

The financial Times (July 2019) has argued against a Universal basic Income (UBI), assuming that it would undermine incentives to work and social cohesion and increase inequality and poverty. Studies have not confirmed this. Money for the UBI need not come out of health and education funds.

Many studies, including one by the Roosevelt Institute, have shown that a small additional amount can lift the spirit and heal the stress of those unable to pay their living expenses. Those who appose the UBI have been shown wrong in claiming that much of that money goes to drugs and alcohol. Alaska’s universal sharing of oil resources is a case in point.

A rise in income tax for the wealthy to pay for a UBI is long overdue, since we all support the Facebooks of the world. Access to opportunity has been the key to broader studies that show the universal benefits of having enough to eat. Do read this book.