Yeah so I needed a little extra time to find that spark, but I've got it.
Arguing with conservatives online, I've run many times into a quite preposterous and insidious argument, which is usually used by rich people (or, more often, their idiot lackeys) to defend upper class tax cuts and killing benefits for lower income people.
"Well, rather than asking for a handout from CEOs, just start your own business, and become one of them! BLEEGHHHH!!!"
(This kind of statement is usually said in response to a comment that we should hike the minimum wage, or anything related to employers paying their employees more, or raising taxes on the upper 1%, you get the idea.)
Ok. Sounds great. Want to be rich? Just take advantage of the free market, start a business, make good decisions, and beat the CEOs at their own game! Easy!!!
There's about a hundred million things wrong with this so I'm not even sure where to start. I'll do my best.
So great! Great idea! I'll just become a millionaire on my own pluck and moxie!! No problem!!
So, ok, there's a lot of money in pharmaceuticals, that'd be a good industry to get into. Soooooooo, I'll just get a loan to build a huge chemical plant and hire some scientists to develop drugs for me! I'll only need, I don't know, 100 million dollars to get rolling? I'm sure a bank will be more than happy to lend that to me.
Or, ok, I'll get into the oil industry. All I need is a loan to hire some engineers and build some offshore derricks or buy drilling equipment or refinery plants to turn crude into a product I can sell. And buy the land or whatever oil holdings to drill into.
Oh wait. There's no way in fuck I could generate the capital to do anything like that.
So, well, maybe I should just start on a small scale! And work my way up! Compete with those big guys and teach 'em who's boss!!!
OK, I think it should be clear how stupid this is now. I mean, I might be able to get a loan to start a small business, but if you want to become a real billionaire, you've got to inherit the resources to do so (i.e. a chemical or oil company, or a media empire, or whatever. Oh great! There's another example. I'll just take out a loan to hire some reporters and buy some broadcasting equipment and I'll kick those mainstream media outlets' asses! YEEEEEEEEAAAAHHH!!!!)
OK so no, none of that is possible.
But hey! What about Bill Gates? He started out with nothing, and became the richest man in America. I can do that too, right?
Oh wait, I'm not a computer and marketing genius who is capable of creating a revolutionary operating system. That might make it tough. But this is America! I can get the education to learn how to do it, right? Wrong. I took a computer programming class and couldn't do it, and had to drop the class to avoid failing. So I think I can forget making billions in computers. But Bill Gates did it! So that justifies everything.
1 in a million people making it big DOES FUCKING NOT justify the million struggling and being ground down to nothing so that the 1 can keep a higher percentage of his money, which he is directly taking from everyone else. As it happens Bill Gates is a pretty generous billionaire, but hey, not so generous that he's not still basically the richest guy in the world. Or Mark Zuckerberg! He became a billionaire overnight! I could do that!! In case you forgot Zuckerberg went to fucking Harvard, the best and most selective school in the country. He is the POSTER BOY for 1 in a million.
Anyways, the point to be distilled from this is, the argument "oh, well if you don't like it, just become a CEO yourself" is completely fraudulent and ridiculous. The biggest industries, where the most money lie, are on fucking lock.
Hey, you know what I'll do, I'll just start my own bank!! YEEAAAAH! Then I'll be rich in no time. BOOYEAHHHHH MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!! WHY DIDN'T ANYONE ELSE THINK OF THIS??????
You think big oil companies are going to let you find a way in there? Even if you manage to put together the millions necessary to even be able to start? The answer is no. What's the evidence? That we still have the same handful of oil companies that we've had for decades and decades. That a company like BP can spill millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and still make big profits.
Yeah there's the one Bill Gates who became the richest guy on a shoestring. But guess what? Not everyone is a fucking genius. And even plenty of people who are geniuses, aren't geniuses in something that can make them millionaires or billionaires!! Bill Gates just happened to be a genius in an incredibly valuable way!! And be incredibly lucky!
So, yeah, why don't I get into precious metals? Easy! I'll just buy a gold mine. Or why don't I get into salt production? Easy, I'll just buy a salt mine or a huge salt flat and the machinery and labor to harvest it! Easy!!!
I don't know if I have, but I hope I have adequately illustrated how fucking moronic this argument is. Asking people to be poor in exchange for the promise that they could be millionaires one day if they just STICK TO IT!!! is incredibly immoral and terrible and wrong. The truly confounding issue is not how millionaires and billionaires could try to sell this horse shit, but rather how fucking poor people could try to sell it with just as much vigor and determination! Now THAT is stupid. That is so stupid that I can't think of anything more stupid in the whole world.
And here's the really awful, fundamental truth that underlies all of it. All these resources I've talked about, the land and the oil reserves, and the money to create a company to take advantage of them, are on lock. Feel me? What I mean by that is, the people who already own these things aren't going to loosen their grip on them, no matter what. Like, they'll kill all of us and destroy the whole world before they loosen their grip even a little.
So, this so-called freedom we have? It's in name only. Technically, I could become a media magnate or an oil tycoon, but well, really no I couldn't. Because the people who are have a lock on the business, and it's not going to maybe pass to me, it's going to go to their families, and their bullshit spoiled children are going to become the next them. It's been happening, it's going to keep happening. And there's nothing ordinary people can do to break the cycle or even stick a foot in the door. Nothing. And the fact that the rich assholes in charge are selling this bullshit idea to morons, that they could somehow become part of this, in order to fatten their pockets even ridiculously further, is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
And there's nothing any of us can do about it. Because, like I said, they'll take the whole world down before they even surrender 1% of their power or wealth. So even if normal people were able to seize some kind of political power, as I've said in the past, the power the government has is miniscule compared to the power this ruling upper class has. So political change, which is impossibly difficult to affect anyway, still would not be enough to significantly change the distribution of wealth. I mean for God's sake, they've got these idiots believing BARACK OBAMA is a fucking communist! There is no hope. So I guess we just ride this rocket train all the way to hell and try to scavenge a few moments of happiness along the way.
So, once again, rich people, fucking fuck you. "Oh, don't hate me because I'm successful." OK, I won't. I'll hate you because you're a manipulative fuck and lying is as easy to you as breathing.
I wish there were actually such a thing as class warfare. Because there's nothing I'd like more than for everyone to get a piece of what this planet has to offer, instead of nations of people starving to death so 9th generation motherfuckers can fly around in fucking private jets.
Will enough ever be enough? I'd like to hope so, but it really, really super doesn't seem like it will be. So fuck me. But, even more so, fuck you.
Oh wait. Bill Gates went to Harvard too. Whoops! Forgot that factoid. But, he dropped out, so that doesn't count. He was an underdog, I tell you!!!
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