Okay so this will be my first official blog post. I will see how this changes over time, but for now I want to talk about something that is at least kind of political! The reason we should care about what the rich do with their money!
So, upfront, as a freedom loving American I initially want to say, "who cares? It's not my money!" However, thinking more about this fact, it really *is* my money to some degree. First of all, I pay for their goods or services and the extra they charge me for themselves is what I'm giving them...so yes it does kind of matter. If I know you're taking that money to buy a gold-plated SUV to drive into the ocean and let it sink I don't really want to be paying for that!
This becomes a much more important focus when I think about the fact you're making money off the labor I provide you. Now, yes I understand that in a philosophically pure world we are able to match our ability with income and all that nonsense. However, let's be realistic here for a moment. The real world places great constraints on ability to move jobs, negotiate, wait for getting paid what you are worth, etc. This becomes even harder in the event that you are raising a family. And I want to point out that nobody here would be reading this ever if it wasn't for someone deciding to have a baby so we should probably respect the whole process of creating new citizens regardless of our own personal place in the family raising process. So in this light I am not going to be able to really get what I'm worth especially with all the competition from other very similar human beings (as much as we'd love to think we are all unique and different, most jobs can be performed by the average person who has had adequate training). Furthermore, for me to be employed the person above me wants to make more from my labor than it costs to employ me. (or in other words you must make more than enough to pay for yourself only to be employed)
So yes, I do care what you spend your money on to some degree because you are getting that money directly from me. Now if I lived in Sweden, where there is not as much of a difference between the rich and poor, I wouldn't care what you spent your money on. I would work hard for my employer knowing that, while he's probably making more than me, he's not making so much more that I should care. If Americans lived with the attitude "I believe the guy under me should make good money along with the business and I shouldn't make grossly more than him or her" then we'd have a much fairer and verdant democracy. As long as the pervading attitude is to get as much as you can from the other guy then we will always have problems not only motivating all of our citizens to reach their full potential but also fully developing them. (ironically economics tells us that this attitude actually maximized the performance of an economy, but I have come to believe that it does not motivate human beings)
On a tangential note, it also does matter what business leaders make for political statements. Because if I am patronizing your business I am paying you to be able to use your profits from my money to push your own political agenda. So once you go public with your views, you better be prepared for me to now use that information when spending my dollar.
No comments:
Post a Comment