Kylie, I have no opinion at all as to how this relates to UO. I have played for 14 years, and through the luck of placing an original house within Luna, I have the money I need to play. I don't hoard cash, and while i do hoard stuff, I also give it away freely. You, however, have posted a screed that takes this concept into the real world, and with huge flaws, both in the analogy and in your reasoning. In the game, if I work and make gold, it is great, but it is not essential. I can sit in the garden of my house, which costs me nothing past the initial outlay, which is governed not by the local economy, but by the government of the game. True, that if I want things, I can bust my butt or set up a house of vendors, or spend hours scanning the forums to find out where the lastest give-aways and events are, but what i end up with is what my grandmother used to call "the icing". Not even the cake... the icing. But that is all it is... icing. I don't need to eat, and if I want to eat, there is food readily available for the picking. I don't pay rent or mortgage or taxes. My house needs no upkeep. I can have basic clothes for nothing, and I can find decent cast-off armor all over, because even the richest folks don't worry that if they toss a sword they don't need on the ground some lazy, free-loading welfare queen might pick it up.
In the real world, it is different. I am the 99%. I have not camped out in a park a single night, but I respect the people who have. I respect them for doing what I don't have the freedom or the courage to do, and I respect them for reaching a point where they have to do something, then following through with actions. I also respect them for not disavowing the poor, the homeless, the broken and the outcast who have joined them in these public spaces, not because they believed in the message, but because they sought some relief from people who would not deny it.
I hav e more education than my father. I work longer hours at a better job with less benefits, and in the end, I do not do as well as he did. This is not because I am careless or lazy or stupid. It is because in the last 40 years things have changed. The 1% are far wealthier and further removed from me than they were from my father. They have learned better what the robber barons of the late 19th century knew well... do whatever you must to wrest wealth from whoever you can wrest it from, and to keep it no matter what. If it is illegal, buy a judge or a jury or a prosecutor or an inspector. Then buy a politician and change things so it is no longer illegal. And make sure that that money stays in your social group, regardless of whether those people, like your children, ever worked for it.
