Recently we have learned about a time period in America where certain people got rich and some people worked for the rich. Powerful people we have learned about such as Andrew Carnegie, J.D Rockefeller, J.P Morgan, and the Vanderbilts all started as an average working man, and with knowledge, strategies, and frankly, good luck, made their way to be the top richest people in the country. In their time, they owned about 18% of the entire countries wealth. That is a lot of money for only four people. I would like to discuss the downsides of a system like this.
In theory, our system is supposed to be a fair system to where each person has an equal opportunity to become successful, however, this is not the case. For example, a shepherd from Scotland immigrates to America for a better future. He uses his skills of farming and shearing sheep to start his own wool company. With the money he makes, his family no longer has to raise and sheer the sheep themselves, he starts to hire people to do that for him, producing more wool in less time than he would have himself, lowering the prices of his wool, causing him to sell more and make more money. After a number of years, he is the most successful wool business in the country and has millions of dollars to himself. He now has enough money to pay for his son and daughter to go to elite schooling, where they can learn business skills of their own to one day manage his wool company or start their own business. This family is successful in life.
Now, take another example. A young boy now working in the wool factory with horrible conditions and wages as low as one can fathom, struggles to eat and pay rent. His father, in huge debt, because his wool company was put out of business because of the other man's cheap prices. This young boy has no time to study for school, so he drops out and continues to work in the wool factory doing the only thing he knows how to do. This boy and his family are barely living, while the other man and his family live in luxury, each member having their own pony and car, 6 dogs and a 17 bedroom mansion with a ballroom. Is it the boy's fault that his father could not pay for his education? The boy grows up and has his own family, with the same fate because he could not pay for his children's education either.
In this system, the rich only get richer and the poor only get poorer. We can apply the same concepts to today's society and companies like Walmart, and Google. Though working conditions now have regulations and it is not as extreme, there is still a problem to the American economic system.
Much of what you said above regarding economic opportunities is true to some extent. However, it is often not as clear cut as you make it out to be. In your second example, the young boy may have had to overcome many obstacles, but even without education there was definite potential for him to make his way up the financial ladder using street smarts and a natural-born business savvy. For example, Ben Carson grew up in a very unstable situation but managed to educate himself, and eventually become a neurosurgeon and a presidential candidate. Another example is J.K. Rowling, who was financially and mentally struggling before she used her imagination to create the Harry Potter series that made her a billionaire. Keep in mind that these are just two of many different people that could be used as examples of this situation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point as well. There are no definite limit to how a person becomes rich or poor because it's people themselves' hard work and mindset that pays off in the end. If a person thinks that they won't be able to get promoted, then they won't work as hard because they know that there won't be any benefit for them to do so. But if that person knows that they'll be able to get reward from working hard, they'll more likely be able to work harder. But aside from people who have extrinsic motivation to get what they want, there are also people who try their hardest to work, even if they're not able to get what they want at the end. It's not based on what the people are doing, but rather how they're thinking that leads them out of or into poverty or somewhere in the middle class.
DeleteI find your opinion on wealth and poverty very interesting. I think much of what you said in this post is applicable today. Luckily, with minimum wage and laws that protect workers from hazardous working conditions, that system has changed a little. However, I think the system we live in today still favors those who are wealthy and put them at an advantage so they are more inclined to remain wealthy. This is similar to how it was at the time of JP Morgan, just at a smaller extent.
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