A Healing Love
Copyright© 2025 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 31: Altruistic Capitalism
Coming of Age Sex Story: Chapter 31: Altruistic Capitalism - Paul Robertson's journey continues as his past and present collide at a star-studded movie premiere, where a connection that once terrified him reignites with passion that threatens to consume them both. Fighting to forge a new future for himself and stop drifting, Paul must finally become the man he’s always been afraid to be. A beautiful, bittersweet exploration of grief, social responsibility, the healing power of love, and learning that sometimes loving someone means letting them go.
Caution: This Coming of Age Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Romantic Heterosexual Fiction
Lana and I took our seats in the centre of the front row while Henry stood behind the lectern on a low stage, elevating the speaker above the audience. I looked around the room and saw that the event was far better attended than I’d expected, with about two-thirds of the seats occupied. A video camera was positioned at the back of the room, focusing on the stage, and I also noticed Doctor Bennett standing at the side of the room.
Lana gripped my arm and tugged it, much like a child pulling on her father’s arm while waiting for her turn on the merry-go-round. I looked at her; her eyes sparkled, and she wore a wide grin.
Henry gripped the lectern with both hands and waited for the chatter to stop.
“Thank you,” he said when everyone was quiet. He paused, scanning his audience, confidence emanating from his steely gaze. He had a ‘presence,’ I’ll give him that. There was an aura about him—something indefinable that you couldn’t quite put your finger on. He commanded your attention. He was a genuine example of the privilege and advantage that money can buy, and it wasn’t just the designer jeans and expensive button-down shirt.
He took a breath, then began. “Thank you all for joining us this evening—those of you in attendance and those of you joining our YouTube live stream.” He paused. “Last term, as the one hundred and seventy-first President of the Westmouth Union, it was my privilege to stand here and introduce eight exceptional guest speakers, ranging from a prominent speech radio presenter and respected political journalist to an award-winning, best-selling author, and even a former Secretary of State of the United States. It was an excellent term—even if I did have my arse handed to me by someone taking part in her first debate.” He looked at Lana and winked while the crowd chuckled.
“But I never expected to be standing here to introduce ‘one of our own.’ As I’m sure you’re aware, Doctor Alexandra Bennett joined the university in September, having forged a reputation as one of the brightest, most insightful, and influential political and economic commentators to emerge in the last twenty years. Her blog is the most-read political commentary among those under thirty-five in Europe, and her videos on YouTube, explaining concepts such as inflation and interest, alongside topics as diverse as communism and fascism, have garnered hundreds of thousands of views.
“She has become a regular contributor on national radio and television, having appeared on BBC News, Sky News, Question Time, and The Daily Politics. Furthermore, her first book, published just last week, is topping the politics charts, even outselling a former Foreign Secretary’s diaries.
“It is my great honour and privilege to welcome to The Westmouth Union, Doctor Alexandra Bennett.”
Henry stepped aside and began applauding as Doctor Bennett strode to the front of the room. The audience joined in with the applause, and next to me, Lana rose to her feet and clapped very enthusiastically. A glance behind me revealed that everyone was on their feet, so I stood up too, applauding politely. She was very clearly more well-known and respected than I had realised. I knew it was likely that those turning up to hear her speak were among those who read her blog and watched her videos, but did she deserve a standing ovation before she had even spoken?
I had attended three of Lexi Bennett’s lectures for my elective course, and in each one, she’d been dressed in very stylish, professional attire. But this evening, she was dressed casually in blue jeans and a simple white blouse, and her long blonde hair, which was usually tied up in a ponytail or bun, cascaded over her shoulders and down her back in loose waves. She appeared calm and relaxed, sporting a broad smile as she shook Henry’s hand.
She stood at the lectern, waiting patiently for the applause to subside. Unlike Henry, she didn’t grip the lectern or attempt to look confident—she genuinely looked confident. It was the casual confidence that stemmed from doing this—standing before a group of people and speaking—every day.
“Thank you,” she said, when her audience was finally quiet. “Thank you.”
She smiled and glanced around the room. “Before I begin, I’d just like to state, for the record, that I am not, in fact, a communist.”
There was laughter around the room.
Lana leaned close to me and said, quietly, “People online are always calling her a communist. Even in the comments on her YouTube videos. But I doubt any of them have ever read Marx.”
I looked at her. “Have you?”
She nodded. “You haven’t?”
I shrugged.
“Nor,” Lexi continued, “am I an anti-capitalist. In fact, I recognise and acknowledge that since the Industrial Revolution, capitalism has enabled the human race to make more progress, at a faster rate, than at any other point in human history. The last two hundred years have seen marked increases in productivity and living standards, in health and life expectancy and technology so revolutionary that if someone living in the mid-nineteenth century were transported to Westmouth of today, they would probably believe aliens had taken over.”
I glanced at Lana and whispered, “That’s a bit much.”
She grinned.
“In 2014, I have the sum total of human knowledge available to me not just in the computer on my desk but also in the phone I hold in my hand.” She held up her phone, which she’d placed on the lectern earlier. “I can communicate in real time with people on the other side of the world. And progress isn’t slowing down. If anything, it’s accelerating.
“In the next ten years, we can expect communication to become even easier; we’ll have on-demand access to virtually every piece of music, television show, or film ever made, and Artificial Intelligence may finally fulfil the promises made by Science Fiction and make all our lives easier.”
I whispered to Lana, “Can AI do my exams for me?”
“And make no mistake, this is because of capitalism. It’s a system that has worked. Sure, there have been bumps in the road along the way, but for the most part, it’s been a smooth and comfortable drive.
“But there is a problem up ahead, and it’s not just a bump in the road. It’s an enormous gaping sinkhole that we’re hurtling towards with our foot firmly on the accelerator, and most people are completely unaware it’s even there. We need to slow down. Take our foot off the gas and gently apply the brakes so that we can carefully steer around it before disaster strikes.
“My job today is to explain what the problem ahead is and suggest ways we can apply the brakes and steer clear of the danger.”
Having been in her lectures in my elective, I already knew she was a good speaker. But this wasn’t a dry, economics-for-dummies lecture. This was her specialist subject, and you could tell. Her voice was measured, but you could sense the underlying passion behind her words.
“In a nutshell, the problem is this—although capitalism has increased wealth and improved lifestyles for the vast majority in the western world, there has been a slow accumulation of wealth at the top end of society.
“The One Percent, as they are often called, even though it isn’t strictly accurate.
“But that slow growth is accelerating. That is the nature of capitalism. The unearned income of those who already have money is outstripping the earned income of working people. As a result, the proportion of wealth held by the One Percent is increasing, which of course means that the proportion of wealth held by the rest of us is falling.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. She was speaking about me. Not directly. But I had money. And that money earned me more interest every month than some people earned in a year.
“Let me give you an example. Twenty years ago, the richest man on Earth had a fortune of approximately ten billion US dollars. That’s just over six billion pounds.”
I sucked in a breath. She wasn’t referring to me. She was referring to the super-rich.
“Now, before I go on, I want you to just consider how much money that really is. One billion is one thousand million. It’s such a large sum that it’s difficult to truly comprehend, so think of it this way ... If you were fortunate enough to be earning one million dollars a year, which itself would place you in the top one percent of earners, it would take you one thousand years to earn one billion. Life expectancy is about eighty years, so it would take someone earning one million dollars a year between ten and twelve lifetimes to earn one billion.”
There were audible gasps around the room as what she’d said sank in. The difference between a billionaire and a millionaire wasn’t something I’d ever really thought about, even though you heard about billionaires, particularly ‘tech billionaires,’ in the news more and more often.
I was a millionaire. But I’d need two hundred times more in the bank before I became a billionaire.
“Or, to put it into even more stark contrast with the ninety-nine percent, average earnings twenty years ago was about thirty-five thousand dollars. This means it would take the average person over twenty-eight thousand years to earn just one billion. That’s three hundred and fifty lifetimes.”
She paused and looked at the shocked faces in the audience. Then slowly and very deliberately, she added, “Now multiply that by ten.”
There were whispers around the room as people took in what she’d laid bare. There was one man whose wealth was so vast, it would take the average person three and a half thousand lifetimes to earn the same.
“But that was twenty years ago. Today, that same man is worth approximately seventy-five billion dollars, equivalent to about fifty billion pounds. That’s seven and a half times more. By contrast, average earnings are now about fifty-five thousand dollars. That’s about one and a half times more.”
Again, she paused so we could appreciate the difference. The inequality.
“So that means that where twenty years ago it would have taken the average person three and a half thousand lifetimes to earn the wealth of one man, today it would take over seventeen thousand lifetimes.”
I shook my head and looked at Lana. She didn’t look shocked by any of this. I questioned her with my eyes, and she leaned close to whisper, “If you’d clicked on that link I’d sent you, you’d already know all this.”
Lexi continued her lecture. “Quite frankly, it’s an obscene level of wealth. It’s more money than one person could ever need, more than one person could ever spend, even in a thousand lifetimes.
“Consider this...” She paused. “If a person had a net worth of, say, five million pounds—” Her eyes flicked down to me sitting directly in her eyeline in the front row. It was no coincidence she’d picked that amount. “—and he, or she, was earning a not-unreasonable five percent return on their investments, that would represent an annual, unearned income of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. That’s about six hundred and eighty-five pounds a day. Even after paying their tax, which would be in the order of one hundred thousand pounds, they’d be able to spend four hundred pounds every single day, and they would only ever be spending the return on their capital. Their unearned income.
“Four hundred pounds a day, and they only spend the money they receive for already having money. Sounds like a lot, right? Would you be able to spend four hundred pounds a day, every day, for a whole year? What would you spend it on? Even if you bought lunch and dinner for your friends every day, you’d probably still not spend that much.
“And that’s on five million, which is over nine thousand times less than what the wealthiest man on earth has. His income, at that same five percent return, would be almost two and a half billion pounds. Even after paying taxes in excess of one billion pounds, that’s still over three million pounds per day.
“Even if you thought you could spend four hundred pounds a day, how on earth would you spend three million?
“Is it any wonder that more and more wealth is accumulating at the top?”
Her voice had remained calm, quiet and measured as she told us this. I knew I was wealthy. I knew I had more money than I needed, but compared to the richest man on earth, I was a pauper.
Lexi went on to present more statistics that supported her position that inequality between the One Percent and the rest was not just growing but accelerating. She told us that, despite the number of billionaires and millionaires increasing, their growth had lagged behind that of the general population, resulting in them representing an increasingly small proportion, while their share of wealth was rising. She told us that the three wealthiest people in the West had a combined wealth greater than that of the poorest fifty per cent of people combined.
She showed us graphs. She gave us specific examples.
It was all quite shocking.
And then she got to the heart of the matter.
“The inequality I’ve demonstrated here will, if there is no intervention to stop it, continue to grow at an ever-increasing rate until, at some point in the next ten to twenty years, the system as a whole reaches a breaking point. This phenomenon will affect not only our capitalist economies but also our very democratic way of life.
“At some point, the younger generation—either your generation or the next—will ‘opt out.’ They will question everything about the system that worked so well for their grandparents, not so well for their parents, and isn’t working at all for them.
“There will not be riots or governments overthrown in violent coups. They will simply check out of society as they realise that the post-war Social Contract is failing them, and as a result, society will edge closer and closer to collapse.”
There was silence in the room at this point. She had everyone’s attention.
I didn’t know the protocols at these events—it was the first one I’d been to. I assumed that questions should be held to the end. But Lexi had wanted me to be here. She’d invited me. She wanted me to understand everything she had to say.
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