A friend of mine once told me we should ‘eat the rich’ and he listed the following reasons:

1. Their use of weapons of mass destruction

2. Their endless wars of aggression

3. Their reckless poisoning of food and water supplies

4. Their monopoly control over our media

5. Their dismantling of our economies, through outsourcing and automation

6. Their obscene profits, at the cost of misery for billions

7. Their stranglehold on our governments, through lobbying and rigged elections

8. Their obsession with monitoring everyone

9. Their brainwashing of our children

and if all that wasn’t bad enough…

Their smug arrogance – the way they flaunt it all before us, with their luxury boats, cars and gaudy mansions

The most expensive listing in the world is the $500 million compound being built in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles by Nile Niami, a film producer and speculative builder. The property will have a 74,000-square-foot main house, a 30-car garage and a “Monaco-style casino.”

In nearby Holmby Hills, a more modest 38,000-square-foot mansion, built by the investor and developer Gala Asher, came on the market in April for $150 million.

The ultramodern house, on the prestigious Carolwood Drive, has a 5,300-square-foot master suite and a club level with bar, dance floor, wine room, lap pool, theater complex, beauty parlor and massage rooms. The property also includes several guesthouses and staff housing. The broker, Ginger Glass, said the price of the property was justified.

By the end of this list, most people would be seething.

And for a split second, my friend already had me at ‘eat the rich.’

But, all kidding aside – as much as I detest obscene displays of wealth amidst so much poverty, eating the rich would be useless. It’s like cutting the head off a three headed hydra – it will only grow three new ones.

So, here is 1 reason why we should not to eat the rich:

While the rich are no doubt to blame for their unbridled arrogance and callous indifference to everyone else’s pain and suffering, the rest of us are to blame for worshipping them so much that we shower them with riches, in the first place.

The 1% simply cannot exist without the consent – indeed, the active participation – of most everyone else, operating in an entire system that serves only the rich.

So, next time someone tells you to ‘eat the rich’ tell them you’d rather eat the system that creates the rich instead. This way it cannot recreate more rich people to replace them.

End all monopolies — especially the monopoly on money creation. Level the playing field by making money honest and freely accessible to all, to be created exclusively for activities that serve people, without exploiting others and while preserving the environment, and everything else will balance itself.