Tag Archives: wealth

Stop Hating the Rich

February 27, 2013   Jason Hughey   No comments

Ok.  Pet peeve.

I’m tired of hearing people talk about how the rich game the system and take all of our money. Certainly, corporate welfare and cronyism play a part of the present injustices in society. It’s evil and it has to stop.

But this general hatred of the rich and of their wealth absolutely has to go. I keep hearing people complain that the rich have gamed the system and taken everything from us. They are out to get the middle class, to turn us into their personal serfs, they exploit labor, etc., etc., etc. We’re told that it’s not fair that they are rich and we are not. Our president literally banks his political rhetoric off of the assumption that most Americans accept this attitude.

If you’re one of these people, stop it. Just stop it.

Chances are, if you were to take one random day from a rich person’s life (Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Truett Cathy, Charles Koch, David Koch, Warren Buffett, etc.) I would bet that in that day, they provided more value for the rest of society than either your life or my life in total. Their various political viewpoints aside, in their day to day lives, these people have taken risks, launched new ventures, failed many times, tested many ideas, and figured out newer and better ways of serving you and me.  For that, millions of individuals have voluntarily given them lots of money.

Instead of thinking about how greedy and evil rich people are, instead of being angry that they have more money than others, instead of worrying about income inequality, instead of complaining that the system is rigged against us, ask yourself just one question:

“What value have I created today in service of others?”

Let’s stop ripping at the speck in the eye of the rich and start realizing the log of envy that is rammed fast into our own eye.  It’s a really humbling thought to realize that the reason that you’re not wealthy yet is not because you’re young, old, unlucky, tired, perpetually busy, or a victim of circumstances.

It’s because you’re just not as good as the rich at giving the world a lot of value.

This isn’t an insult.  It’s just a fact.  The only person that can change this reality is you.  The Internet has transformed many of the old ways that people used to run businesses and make money.  It’s given us all a platform from which to think and to explore new ideas.  It’s provided us with the ability to each figure out how we can contribute to a dynamic and changing world.  At the same time, that means that none of us have an excuse for an inability to provide value to the world.

I ask again:

“What value have I created today in service of others?”

If more people started asking themselves this question whenever they heard someone complaining about corporate greed, wealthy elites, and the 1%…

…then maybe, just maybe, the world might change a little bit for the better.

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The War On The Poor And Why It Matters

September 29, 2012   Shaun Connell   No comments

It’s time we end the story that the media paints about the radical leftists who are trying to bring socialism to the world. Their party platforms claim to be “for” the poor, and the mainstream media bends over backwards to help defend this idea. But it’s a lie.

The only way they’re “for” the poor is in the sense that their policies create more poverty. Their welfare program creates poverty, their business regulations push people from the middle class into poverty, their inflationary economics keep people poor, their subsidies stop the poor from easily learning, and yet the media defends them every election on almost every issue.

Rampant poverty shouldn’t exist in America, but it does because of the violations of capitalism. And the worst perpetrators of all have been those leftists and socialists who bribe the impoverished for the sake of political gain.

The welfare system literally pays people to stay poor, and I know people who respond to that incentive. A walk through almost any ghetto will see this. Anyone who disagrees is ignoring reality.

The business regulations that exist slow the creation of new wealth, and the people impacted the most in terms of lifestyle are those without the capital to spare. The rich will still eat duck, and that’s fine. It’s the poor and middle class who lose their homes and cars.

Taxes take from the economically productive and blows up half overseas, burns a quarter in interest, and spends the rest on programs that end up hurting the poor. Cut taxes, cut spending, and watch the poor shoot to the middle class.

The inflation of paper money, big government, and the Federal Reserve makes it almost impossible for the very poor to save money to buy a house or car without debt. It kicks them while they’re down.

The left attacks the poor through economic warfare. They tax them into poverty, enslave them with regulations, rob them through inflation, and control them with lies in public schools.  The greatest enemy of the poor in all of history have been those lying tyrants who seek to control them with socialist policies. 

At the same time, no social system has done more for the poor than capitalism.  Capitalism enriches the poor, quenches the thirsty, and feeds the hungry. It lifts people out of the streets, helps them cheaply feed their families, and climb to any economic peak they want if they just have the guts to try.

Down with the narrative that we hate the poor. We’re the only one’s bloody fighting for their right to make it in this world, we’re the only ones ignoring emotion to focus on economic reality, and we’re the only ones willing to say what’s politically incorrect because it’s true.

If we want to help the poor, we need to fight for capitalism, and consequently make food cheaper, housing cheaper, education cheaper, jobs common, pay greater, and income mobility hit an all time high so that anyone can achieve the American dream.

Here’s to the poor and to ending their poverty through capitalism.

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What Should Libertarians Do About Mitt Romney?

July 17, 2012   Shaun Connell   No comments

romney the corporatist Mitt Romney is a corporatist. He supports the existence of the Federal Reserve. He supports drastically increasing our military spending. He once gave a speech about shutting down coal plants as governor outside of a coal plant. He is absolutely not a libertarian.

Barack Obama, however, is obviously no better. The valid arguments against Mitt Romney aren’t arguments that Obama can use, because they would be suicide. Barack Obama can’t exactly bring up Ben Bernanke or foreign policy, because they’re so similar in those areas.

Because of this, Obama is simply going to demonize Romney for being rich. He’s going to demonize his investments. This is the simplest reason any self-respecting libertarian should defend Romney from the wrong attacks by Obama, without becoming blind or partisan. This is true for anyone, even if the person being attacked for being “too rich” was George Soros or Michael Bloomberg.

Barack Obama is going to demonize his job as CEO — as an “evil rich man”. He’s going to fabricate some aspects of his attacks, but this should be clear:

Obama’s arguments against Mitt Romney will be for all of the wrong reasons.

And yes, the reasoning behind attacks matter. Reasoning always matters.

The Libertarian Response: Ignore or Defend?

The greatest temptation for the libertarian would be to just look the other way while the Democrats attack Romney. To ignore Obama’s attacks on Romney for being “too” rich. For the attacks on Romney for “outsourcing”.

It would feel good on some level, because few libertarians feel anything but contempt for Romney because he’s, well, absolutely not a libertarian.

I’ve noticed this to some degree on popular “liberty” pages on Facebook. For almost all of them, there is a deathly silence when Obama attacks Romney’s investments, his overseas banking, or his “low” tax rate. This is missing a huge opportunity.

I passionately believe that ignoring the attacks and not defending Romney is the worst thing possible for the liberty movement, because it essentially allows the demonization of the rich to be even more prevalent and without a coherent, principled answer — and the anti-rich rhetoric is the most dangerous rhetoric of all, because the downfall of the honest rich is the downfall of us all.

Why we believe is just as important as what we believe.

In other words, reasoning matters. If someone votes against Romney because he’s rich, that is absolutely not a victory for liberty — that’s economic bigotry and is why Obama is able to destroy so much of this country in the first place.

It’s not, of course, either/or. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are both fundamentally wrong about an incredible amount of economics and political theory. To be against one does not mean we must be for the other.

Why We Should Defend The Rich

This isn’t just about Romney. This is about the rich overall. When people bash “the 1%”, including many libertarians and anarchists I’ve seen, they are being intellectually lazy. “The 1%” is not meant by them to refer to statists — those are more common than one out of a hundred. It’s not even about people getting government paychecks — that would be more like “the 50%”.

No, when people bash “the 1%”, it’s because they’re taking part in an absurd narrative that a huge portion of the American population — people making pretty good money — are all part of some conspiracy movement and get away with anything, don’t pay much in taxes, and rule over the rest of us.

This is absurd and sheer foolishness. It’s simply age-old anti-rich bigotry. It’s about hating the Romneys of the world because of success — it’s about as close to upside-down philosophy as we can get.

And it’s dangerous. And it won’t end with Romney. The rhetoric and the philosophy of anti-wealth and resentment will still be there when Romney is long gone. And it will impact policy, and taxes, and the economy — and everyone will pay for it.

Libertarians Should Fight All Bigotry

If someone says we should vote against Obama because he’s black, they should be ashamed of their ignorance, and hopefully libertarians and conservatives alike will put them in their place.

In the same way and for the same reason, if someone demonizes Romney because he is rich, then they should be ashamed, and libertarians should respond just as strongly as if there was an attack on Obama’s race.

The defense shouldn’t be because they like Romney — but because they know that blind resentment of prosperity is another form of bigotry that is just as divisive and destructive as any other form.

Never forget that politics isn’t just about making people win or lose. Politics is about philosophy. And essentially all of Obama’s philosophy is wrong.

The exact same thing goes for people who hate the rich. This is the ultimate battle for America, because it’s revealing. People who don’t care about the rich are revealing that it’s not equality under natural law that they care about, it’s not the rights of men, it’s not actually property, it’s not even “rights” in general that motivates them — it’s something else.

And libertarian or not, that wrongful motivation is incredibly dangerous and destructive. This is going to be awkward, I know. I’ve made such a big deal about this — because I’ve seen so few defenses of Romney in libertarian circles — that I’ll likely be criticized by those who would rather just ignore the attacks. But that’s wrong, and I will have no part in it.

Here’s to the war against bigotry, no matter who it’s against.

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