Wealth brings far more significant problems than depriving people of beauty. This is because once the rich in society set eyes on a given item or property, they will do anything within their means to ensure that they get it irrespective of the adverse effects that their actions may have on the lives of the poor.
This essay seeks to analyze the other adverse effects that wealth can bring to society apart from the aspect of the destruction of beauty. To this end, examples from modern day living shall be drawn and coupled with proper explanations to illustrate the weaknesses of wealth-driven society adequately.
Wealth leads to the creation of frustrated individuals in society. For instance, a wealthy man driving on a highway through the countryside will see a large farm with animals grazing peacefully, and instead of appreciating the calmness of the region, he would probably see how he could turn the farm into an out-of-town shopping mall.
The owners of the land may not be willing to part with their property, but this rich man could easily come with ridiculously vast amounts of money and ensure that he has convinced them to leave. Eventually, high story buildings will go up and concrete structures replacing the trees. In this instance, the rich man would have interfered with the beauty of the land.
However, and even more disturbing is that he would not care where the farmer and his family relocate to because it is almost apparent he (the rich man) is not going to offer them an alternative settlement. Consequently, the farmer may find himself in an urban region where the costs of living are very high, and in time at all, the money he had received from the sale of the land will have gone into rent and food.
With time the farmer and his family will have to go back to the rich man to look for menial jobs at his shopping complex and in a way signing to lifetime slavery. From this example, it is easy to see that wealth also ends up creating a few happy persons at the expense of many frustrated individuals.
The acquisition of wealth results in the breaking of family and societal linkages. An individual will generally tend to relate very well with members of his extended family as well as his neighbors as long as they don’t have a lot of money. However, once this individual lands an extreme amount of wealth, he will turn on the people that he used to share good times with and convert them into his laborers.
In a way, he will strive to ensure that even the people who helped him get where he is don’t get the opportunities that would make them arrive at his level. A good example is a way politicians in third world countries behave. Before the election, they will meet with the people, share meals and even relate positively with them.
They would spend a lot of time pledging to improve the lives of poor citizens as soon as they get elected. However, once they get to the office, they move into posh houses and buy huge cars with dark windows to ensure that the people who elected him/her do not get to know of his whereabouts.
If a person, even his/her uncle wants to meet him to seek some slight help, the now-elected Member of Parliament or counselor will demand that they make appointments with his secretary and most of the time he/she will not make an effort to see whether the matter was attended.
The desire for wealth also brings with it very many societal vices. One good example is corruption and bribery within public service. Individuals who work for the government are generally always complaining that they are not well paid. Since they are in the office for most of the day, they do not have time to do something else on the side, and this leads them to come up with ways of getting the extra dollar while still at work.
So instead of following a given protocol while serving individuals who come seeking assistance from their offices, they will do things slowly and sometimes withholding certain relevant documents only to release them once the client has promised to give a few extra dollars to get the work done on time.
The same applies to police officers who can catch an individual in the midst of committing a crime and instead of arresting him/her, they let the person go after receiving a huge amount of money as a bribe. This desire for wealth is the primary factor that drove western countries to invade the nations in Africa during colonial times.
The colonialists discovered that Africa had a lot of natural resources and since they (colonialists) had the tools for accessing things like minerals, they invaded the countries, turned the natives into their slaves and shipped all the mined products to their mother nations.
In conclusion, it is easy to see that the adverse effects of wealth in society are much more than just the destruction of beauty. As has been shown above through various examples, wealth can lead to the development of many unwanted characteristics in individuals which sometimes leads them to lose all sense of humanity such that they see other individuals as lesser humans. I, therefore, agree with the fact that apart from the destruction of beauty, wealth also generates many adverse effects in society.