Do you live your life by your principles?

please, feel free to elaborate, coz from where Im sitting, that sounds like you paint all wealthy people with the same brush, which is hardly fair or accurate, by any stretch.

It was a touch glib, I'll admit! Yes... I was meaning more the multi-national corporate wealth to which Mr Smyth referred. Although, I would perhaps include many of those who work for such companies (outside of contract cleaners etc) enabling them to continue their general exploitation of the world and its workers, and all those who aid and abet the unethical practices of such companies.

The question we'd then have to ask, is what constitutes 'aiding and abetting'?

And then I have to make the following, overly pious argument, that even I can't be bothered to adhere to in reality half the time:

Because, one way or another, most people in the western world 'contribute' more money to unethical companies than to overtly ethical ones, or to charities, be it through banking (and don't our British banks have a insatiable predeliction for investing in arms and fossil fuel companies?), shopping and so on etc. We fund their continued existence.

So our acquired, comparative wealth, fiscal and material, is ultimately (arguably) to the detriment of the workers/miners/farmers/cotton pickers of yore etc, etc.

I quite agree that not everyone is born into wealth and that many people work seriously hard from heavily handicapped backgrounds up to the top of successful companies; I have no problem with those who work hard getting their rewards (provided they pay tax honestly and don't dodge every penny they can).

I just find it a little difficult to stomach it sometimes when people 'work hard' for large companies whose business models are based almost entirely upon exploitation at some level, or when their 'rewards' are hundreds of times larger than those of the people who actually keep the company functioning day to day.