Money Grabbers

While reading  Utopia, I couldn't help but to think of the state that America is in now. The rich are getting richer by monopolizing  resources and the people on the bottom are forced to survive by committing petty crimes like theft, prostitution, and drug trafficking---which they receive harsh punishment  for. I couldn't help but see a parallel between the world that was described in this conversation and the world I live in now.

The most similarity. Saw in this text to the modern world was that "the king should... let other kingdoms alone, since his own is big enough, if not too being for him" (30). We are always prepared to go to war, but we aren't prepared to fight for those in our country who have less or nothing at all. We'd rather poke our noses in other peoples' business (countries) than tend to our own. We spread ourselves thin every time like The king in the story trying to rule Italy and France at the same time. France is way too big to govern as is, and to add another country to his duties is just plain stupid. We have yet to understand that thought in he modern age.

There are so many things wrong with our nation that we're willing to sweep under the rug while acquiring new territory: the upper class is robbing us blind with taxes and commercialism and the poor and working poor are starving to death. More explains in this text that one person's greediness can bring a whole country down and make it barren and unproductive. He also says that  depriving a group of basic rights breeds thieves: "If you allow young folk to be abominably brought up and their characters corrupted, little by little, dome childhood; and if the. You punish them as grownups for committing the crimes to which their early training has inclined them, what else this, I ask but first making them thieves and then punishing them for it?" (21).  Basically, the country breeds thieves because these people have no other choice. They aren't given a fair chance to beat the odds because they were raised the wrong way, yet this was the only way their parents knew to survive. It is the country's fault that these people are committing the crime, yet they punish the people for something out of their control. THIS DOESN't MAKE SENSE. WHY IS THE WORLD SO STUPID?


I think this text as a whole applies to the current state of the U.S. because its gluttonous hand wants to stick dig into the candy jars of all nations. America wants to receive the best of everything and be the best at everything. More argues that "one greedy insatiable glutton" leads his whole country into destruction and waste. No one is really happy; everyone hurts each other to get to the top. I think this is true because while there are greedy people in the top, they're always on guard because they don't want to lose their privilege, power, and possessions. Poor people, on the other hand, are always armed because they're desperate and have nothing to lose.