Common Ideals

I might have suspected by the title Common Wealth as to where Jeffrey Sachs would be going, but in truth I didn't. I looked at the cover and thought economy--which is, of course a part--I looked at the print size and frowned--another point--and then dove in.

After reading the chapters and sitting in class and hearing the discussion caused by Sachs' idealistic views on convergence and world population, I have to sit back and laugh. I have often thought similar things in my very small knowledge of the world and economy in general. No, it doesn't make sense in the least, the idea that we can gently level off at 8 billion, or that eventually our wealths can meet into one, or that we can even come to grips with a common wealth. But it is a place to start, and I respect Sachs for that. There is a hope in his idealism, an earnestness. And on paper, it sounds good. We all want to end the poverty trap, most of us would agree that we should find a sustainable means of harvesting natural resources. But what can we do?

There was some disagreement in class as to the level of influence one's own decisions can have on such common wealth, worldly problems. Yet there is this: reform has to start on an individual basis before it can gain, say, a business-wide grasp. It's an individual decision to view "the commons" as not only something to which everyone has the rights of reaping, but to which we all have the rights of protecting.