A Procrastinator’s Musings

I was inspired to write this post after reading a blog post penned by my friend Roz – “In Defense of…Orangy County?” This post isn’t meant to support or repudiate Roz’s post. Rather, I want to put on paper (screen?) the transformation of my ideas about “wealth” over the past six months or so.

A lot of liberals (not all, but a lot) see “wealth” as a scarlet letter. The wealthy are automatically classified as self-satisfied and corrupt. They are seen as uncaring about the community, unappreciative of society, and interested only in their own bank balance. More critically, they are seen as brats with fortunes passed down as heirlooms.

This view has been met head on by many before me. Roz, in her post, does a good job of exemplifying how there are those who aren’t absorbed by their own wealth, and those who were not meant to be wealthy the day they were born.

However, after my parents got to know them, and after they told me, I found out that all of their new friends’ wealth was self-made. There is a family who came to America with no more than $1,000. There is another family that went from rags to riches, back to rags, and, once again, came to riches.

The argument is also made that the rich do not keep their wealth by drinking wine all day. They have to work tremendously hard and run small business and large corporations.

Our society nowadays reacts so quickly to the label “rich” and “wealthy” that I think sometimes we don’t give enough credit to those self-made men/women out there. For them, their workdays are nonstop. Their stress levels are constantly high, because not only did they have to and continue to have to worry about everyday life and all that comes with it, but they also have to worry about managing their small businesses, which can be anywhere from 5 employees to 50 employees. That’s a hell lot of people and weight on their shoulders.

Both arguments are very valid. Not all “wealthy” people inherit their wealth, and they work tremendously hard to build and maintain their wealth. So shouldn’t they be spared of the criticism? More practically, shouldn’t they be taxed less and allowed to spend more of their money as they will?

No.

While the “rich work hard to build their fortunes” argument is made repeatedly, the other side of the coin is very rarely talked about.

To equate wealth with hard work by default is a huge disconnect in reality. Yes, the CEO of Goldman Sachs puts in 15 hours a day and manages thousands of employees. But is he really working harder than the single mother, living in East Los Angeles, working three jobs at Walmart, McDonald’s and 7-Eleven? There are millions of people who work incredibly hard across this country – the auto workers in Michigan, many of whom have second jobs; the masses of Hispanics that inhabit Los Angeles, many of whom have to not only feed their families, but send money to relatives back home; the civil servants that keep the government functioning on a daily basis – that don’t wind up with ten million dollars in their bank account at the end of every year. To say that the rich deserve to keep more of their money because they work harder is, quite simply, absurd.

Why the disparity? How does the CEO of Goldman Sachs work hard and earn millions of dollars while the single mother from East LA has to work three jobs to barely survive? The answer is opportunity. Economic disparity in our society is defined by an inequitable spread of opportunity.

Many claim that Bill Gates is the perfect example of self-built wealth. I would claim otherwise. They say that he dropped out of Harvard and still built the largest fortune in the world. I argue that his parents had the resources to bring him up in a decent Seattle neighborhood, send him to an exclusive preparatory school, and then fund his education at Harvard. Even when he dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft, it was never life or death for him. Had Microsoft been a miserable failure, Gates’ parents would undoubtedly have been there as a safety net. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a huge fan of Bill Gates and his work. But to say that he is entirely responsible for his wealth is betraying the opportunities that Gates had access to through his entire life.

Contrast that with the son of the single mother living in East LA. He is growing up in a neighborhood infiltrated by gangs and crime, learning that selling drugs is the only way to upwards economic mobility. His mother does not have the resources to send him to a private school, so he has to attend the local public school – over 5000 students in a school built for 1800 and not enough textbooks or desks for all the students. As soon as he graduates, he has the choice between going to college or getting a job at McDonald’s to support his mother and siblings. For him, the choice is between an education or feeding his family. He could be as brilliant as and work as hard as Bill Gates, but he will most likely never see the $1,000,000 figure.

Just like every other rule, there are exceptions to this rule. Sometimes, a combination of committed parents and childhood brilliance can buck the odds. But largely, it is a systemic inequality of opportunity – the chance to live in a crime-free neighborhood, access to a quality education, access to basic health care, exposure to a culture of hard work and progress – that provides the impetus for progressive political and economic policies.

My take away from this revelation is not to dismiss the humanity of wealthy people. Rather, it is a recognition of the fact that they were not alone in getting where they are today. It is only fair for them to contribute in providing such opportunity to those who do not even know what they’re missing out on.

Finally, consider that the “rich” are called that for a reason. By definition, they have more than the average, and are comfortably stocked with the necessities of life. It is only logical to conclude that, just like any other resource, the utility of each additional dollar decreases for them. When it is a choice between someone being able to buy a yacht (and if bought in California, they won’t even pay taxes on it!) and an entire school being funded, I know where I’d stand.