The metaphor of the lifeboat was evidently chosen with great care, for the persuasiveness of the story (and it is exactly that, a story) rests entirely on the image of a few rich lifeboats staying afloat while vast hordes of poor, drowning people clutch at their gunwales.
This is the essence of Anglo American capitalism. In some sense this is Darwinian with a cruel twist. Survival of the greediest (nolt only the fittest).
