How About A $1000 i-129f

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Do a little research and you'll find that there are actually other economic systems besides communism and capitalism (WOW!). America was founded during a time when Mercantilism was the major world economic system. Capitalism as we know it in the modern world began taking shape after World War I. It peaked in the 1950's, and has been slowly but surely dragging us down ever since. If you're still living the illusion that you can be wildly successful if you just work hard, you're joking yourself. I know people in their 70's who can't afford to retire and are STILL working hard, with very little to show for it. Capitalism makes the rich richer off of the labor of the poor, and keeps the poor working under the delusion that they might one day become rich. It would be highly amusing, if it weren't so sad.

You're right, Capitalism is at the very core of this nation, and it is tearing it apart.

The old adage that you can be successful if you work hard has always been a simplification of the facts, but it serves as an adequate counterpoint to the fact that you'll get nothing if you do nothing. You can work exceedingly hard at moving boulders from one side of your property to the other, and you can dedicate your life to this hard labor, but you'll never be successful at anything other moving boulders around.

On the other hand, if you have prepared a viable plan for accumulating personal wealth, and you apply yourself at achieving your goals, then you most certainly CAN be successful in the United States. It takes a lot more than just sweat to be successful. Your labors have to be applied towards achieving your own personal goals, and not simply helping to make your employer wealthy.

A statement like "Capitalism makes the rich richer off of the labor of the poor, and keeps the poor working under the delusion that they might one day become rich" demonstrates not only a naive idealism, but also a fundamental misunderstanding of how capitalism works. You're either very young, or you've never seen anyone build a business from the ground up and become successful. Nobody promises a laborer that they'll one day become rich from working for someone else, and if they're under the delusion that they will then they've created that delusion themselves.

Socialists all too often operate under the premise that there's a pie of fixed size, and that the wealthy are hording the bulk of it for themselves and not leaving enough to the people at the bottom. The truth is that the pie is constantly changing in size, in direct proportion to the total value of the products and services produced. Create a new product or service, sell that product or service to the world, and you will personally make that pie bigger, and get a nice slice for yourself without taking anything away from anyone else. Depending on what sort of business you operate, you might even create some jobs for people who don't have the intellectual steam to create their own business.

If you're expecting someone to hand you a job with a fat salary and an equally fat pension, and all you've got to do is show up every day and do the same thing, then you may be one of those deluded people. Those sort of jobs exist, but they're relatively rare and are reserved for people with one of three magic ingredients:

1. Exceptional skill (e.g., a craftsman).

2. Exceptional talent (e.g., a sports star).

3. Exceptional knowledge (e.g., a brilliant scientist).

In other words, an employer only hands over large amounts of money to an employee if that employee is worth a lot of money to the employer. For everyone else, either build your own money making machine, or accept that you'll always be a cog in someone elses.

[GringoD 33]

in other words: learn to work smarter, rather than harder

Edited November 14, 2011 by GringoD