“Then let them eat cake.” Whether or not Marie Antionette actually spoke these words is doubtful, but there is no doubt that these five words accurately represented the attitude of the French court towards the nation’s starving millions. Of 23 million Frenchmen prior to the revolution, 10 million subsisted on charity while 3 million begged for a morsel of bread, even as the nobility feasted sumptuously and danced gayly about Versailles. They were totally and willfully oblivious to the plight of the people.

Jumping ahead some 200 years, Indian Prime Minister Modi, who opened the World Economic Forum in Devos, Switzerland recently, has called for the planet to turn from an economy of greed to one of need. A catchy phrase reminding us that greed is one of the seven so-called deadly sins, greed and pride being at the top of the list of the worst characteristics one can have. There is no scarcity of bread in today’s world, but unlike the story of Jesus’ feeding the 5000, todays bread is not distributed. In fact, the bread-wealth of the world is increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer. Oxfam reports that eight men own as much wealth as the poorer half of the world population.

My googling research this week led me to some conservative websites that took issue with what Oxfam was saying. The issue was this: that while it is true that the distribution of wealth is increasingly unequal, there is less worldwide poverty than before. The conservative conclusion, therefore, is that the trickle down theory is working, that all boats are lifted in a rising tide, and that therefore the correct economic policy for helping the poor is to give more tax breaks to the rich, reduce regulation that inhibits their money-making enterprise, and influence (bribe) the government to pass legislation that will further encourage and enable this concentration of wealth and power.

It may be the case that there is less poverty in the world today than there was prior to the French revolution. Perhaps people are now making $1.80 per day rather than $1.50, and surely for them that is a big difference. It is definitely the case that wealth distribution is increasingly unequal. In fact, Thomas Piketty, French professor of economics, in his blockbuster Capital in the 21st Century, argues that this trend is inevitable. Wealth will accumulate faster than an economy can grow unless steps are taken to mitigate the process. To paraphrase, the rich will get richer at a faster rate than workers will get higher wages. That’s how capitalism works.

This seems to be a law of economics, insofar as economics can be said to have a law, but there is a deeper issue that is more basic than wealth accumulation. And that, quite simply, is this: what value do we place on human beings? Should we treat them equally? Ayn Rand, guiding light for many Republican lawmakers, places no intrinsic value in others. Do not love your neighbor; love yourself only. And Robert Mercer, financier of many Republican lawmakers, places no value on human beings except how much money they make. He sees himself as worth thousands of times more than a teacher because he makes thousands of times more money. A welfare recipient has a negative value, for obvious reasons. The same would be true of poor immigrants and refugees. They are worth less than nothing. They deserve nothing.

The US is not alone in this regard. In the news these days are Russian oligarchs, including Putin, who have stolen money from the Russian people and placed it in Western banks and real estate, some of that owned by Trump. As violators of human rights, these oligarchs have had their assets frozen in the US through the Magnitsky act, enacted by Congress under Obama. So they have lots of money, but can’t get to it. Is it any wonder they want that act repealed? any wonder they were willing to sell dirt on Hillary to have the act repealed? any wonder they kill any investigator who gets to close to the truth, starting with Sergei Magnitsky, after whom the bill is named?

So it is wrong and now illegal to violate human rights. It is also increasingly clear that unequal distribution of wealth is an economic dead end. What does one do with a bank vault full of money other than protect it from the rats? Once the middle class has been destroyed, you can lend them money on which to survive, but what happens when they can’t pay it back? The Great Recession is one consequence, and we have yet to recover. And there are social implications: poverty breeds disease, crime, discontent, violence, drug use, environmental degradation, social disintegration, -all of which we are experiencing right now in America. The division of the population into the poor and the extremely rich is not only immoral, it is also unsustainable.

It is also sexist. The women of the world have been denied bread throughout all of recorded history. Treated like property to be bought and sold. Traded in political alliances. Perceived as descendants of temptress Eve in the Roman Catholic Church. Never quite as valuable as men in the workplace. Some thing to be grabbed.

Quite like the court of King Louis, much of the world today divides people into two classes, those who have value and those who have less or who have none at all. The result is racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia, all curses of the modern world. I cannot end without noting that Jesus lived his life among the outcasts. In his eyes, all are equal.