The Parable Of The Powerful

There was once a little broken piece of a machine and, because it was broken, the machine couldn’t work properly and had to stop.

“Look how powerful I am”, said the little broken piece, “I’ve forced the whole machine to stop”.

“You’re not powerful”, grumbled the other parts of the machine, “The machine working properly; all its parts working together; that’s real power. You’re just a malfunction; a mistake preventing something really great from taking place”.

“Huh!”, scoffed the broken piece, arrogantly, “Well, if I’m just a malfunction then fix me”.

At first the other pieces couldn’t fix the broken piece because they weren’t used to working without it but after many years went by they got so sick of being part of a malfunctioning machine that was no use to anyone that, eventually, they joined together to get rid of and replace the broken piece with a piece that worked.

Of course, then the broken piece was unhappy because he was just a piece of junk; of scrap metal lying on the floor while all the other pieces worked happily together and they were a truly beautiful, powerful and useful machine.

The Moral of this story: The machine in this story is human society and the broken piece represents the rich, greedy selfish people who willingly refuse to play their proper role within that society. They are powerful only as a malfunction has the power to prevent a machine from working or a sickness is

powerful that can cripple or kill a healthy body but think how powerful that machine or body would be if all the pieces were playing their part.

Another way of expressing the same thing is to compare the power of an individual or a minority with the power of a great majority. How impressive is the power of a tiny oligarchy compared with the empowered masses; a powerful nation or a powerful world. A powerful minority diminish the power of the many; they disable society, preventing it from performing its proper function which is to serve the needs of everyone.

Of course the greedy rich often try to blame the honest but disadvantaged or disabled poor; those who would happily serve the common good if they had a chance to. This is like a traitorous but very healthy soldier blaming an injured one for not fighting.

However, the day that the common people unite together; just as the pieces in the story united together to fix the machine; we can fix our society and then what a beautiful, powerful and useful society it will be.