Good things to know

Great people worth knowing about



* Umar II (682 – 720), an Umayyad caliph, was greatly helping the poor by cutting their taxes and the rich people killed him because they could not digest his policies of justice, simplicity and equality.



* Johann Sachs von Harteneck (1664 – 1703), mayor of the German city Hermannstadt (today's Sibiu, Transylvania) was killed because he was asking the rich to pay taxes.



* Agis IV (265 BC – 241 BC), the 25th king of the Eurypontid dynasty of Sparta - killed for implementing land reforms.

* Cleomenes III, one of the two kings of Sparta from 235 to 222 BC - He first handed over all his land to the state; he was soon followed in this by his stepfather and his friends and the rest of the citizens. He divided up all the land and gave an equal lot to every citizen, a unique achievement. The land was pooled and redistributed in equal portion to some 4,000 citizens.



* The Gracchi brothers - Tiberius and Gaius, were Romans who both served as tribunes in the late 2nd century BC. They attempted to pass land reform legislation that would redistribute the major aristocratic landholdings among the urban poor and veterans, in addition to other reform measures. After achieving some early success, both were assassinated by enemies of these reforms.



* Kavadh I was the Sasanian king of Persia from 488 to 531. He gave his support to the communistic sect founded by Mazdak, who demanded that the rich should divide their wives and their wealth with the poor.



* Thomas Sankara, the president of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987. Sankara seized power in a 1983 popularly supported coup at the age of 33, with the goal of eliminating corruption and the dominance of the former French colonial power. He immediately launched one of the most ambitious programmes for social and economic change ever attempted on the African continent. His foreign policies were centered on anti-imperialism, with his government eschewing all foreign aid, pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalizing all land and mineral wealth, and averting the power and influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nationwide literacy campaign, and promoting public health by vaccinating 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever, and measles.

He was overthrown and assassinated in a coup d'état led by Blaise Compaoré on 15 October 1987. A week before his assassination, he declared: "While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas."





* Henry Ford - as the owner of the Ford Motor Company, he became one of the richest and best-known people in the world. He is credited with "Fordism": mass production of inexpensive goods coupled with high wages for workers. Ford had a global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace. His intense commitment to systematically lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system that put dealerships throughout most of North America and in major cities on six continents. Ford left most of his vast wealth to the Ford Foundation and arranged for his family to control the company permanently.



* Samuel Insull invented the regulated monopoly, a uniquely American institution that included utility companies and later, AT&T. This came from a combination of his business persona and his political one. On the one hand, he abhorred the waste of competing power producers, whose inefficiency would often double the cost of production. On the other hand, he believed in the citizen's right to fair treatment. So while he bought up rival companies and created a monopoly, he kept his prices low and campaigned vigorously for regulation.




Other good people:

* José Mujica (born 20 May 1935) is a Uruguayan politician who was the 40th President of Uruguay between 2010 and 2015

* Emanuel Bronner - the creator of the famous Dr. Bronner's Soap — Rational Wiki — OrganicConsumers.org

David Bronner decided early on that he'd rather feel good about his job than worry about making a ton of money. In 1999, he capped the company's top salary at five times that of the lowest-paid warehouse worker—Bronner now makes about $200,000 a year. (MotherJones.com)

David Bronner: We work with our Ghanaian partners to improve soil quality and yields through organic farming practices; respect and promote endemic species’ habitats; ensure safe working conditions; and pay fair wages. No exploitive middle men skim the profits from farmers’ coffers. Dr. Bronner’s also pays 10 percent into a Fair Trade fund, which is used for community development projects in the area. (Huffington Post)