Saturday, May 05, 2007
The Imaginary “Lotto of Life” and the Thing Gap
I've known more than a few “left-leaning” people who buy lottery tickets. I've never quite understood why, to them, its okay for someone to fork over a few dollars and, figuratively, roll a dice and become rich through no effort, thought, or sweat, yet its perceived as bad for someone to work long hours, shoulder responsibility and stress, take risks, and become rich. I believe such people's rationale for their skewed appraisal of wealth acquisition stems from a belief in the fable that common capitalist wealth could only be attained from life's “roll of a dice” -- success as mere “lucky” chance. Then, there's the other popular assumption that wealth is merely "distributed" and thus somehow taken by some to enrich others. If that were the case it would mean that poor countries once had multi-trillion dollar economies and every time a rich person gets rich, I and everyone else gets poorer (the old axiom that isn't even vaguely true).
Of course, in the real would, incompetent or lazy rich people loose fortunes and smart or practical poor people become wealthy all the time. “The poor” sounds like some static group, forever bound to their chain of “lottery” losses. In fact both poor and rich (and all in between) are individuals most of which can and do rise and fall in status largely based on personal choices and decisions. Don't finish school and have a baby at age 16 -- buy the loosing ticket. Think smart, get an education (or at least the piece of paper that says you have one), bide your time in the less than perfect job...climb the ladder -- win “life's lotto.” Many people can and do, over time, rise above adversity while others can take a stroke of good fortune and loose it all in in remarkably short time. There are some good and bad dice rolls for all of us but neither are the standard of our existence and certainly don't operate independently from our own choices.
Climbing a ladder, attaining a higher income, or becoming rich means you can purchase a higher standard of living. Now you've got the latest plasma screen T.V. while lazy Bob is channel surfing on his aunt's old “regular” T.V.; Oh, the injustice! -- a thing gap!
There's is no doubt that a thing gap as well as a “wealth gap” exists in free societies (and the real world in general) – so!
In a market economy “the rich” (higher income people) are always the first to buy new and better products and services (i.e. Cars, T.V.'s, computers – maybe even open-heart surgery). The fact that evil Mr. rich dude buys a new experiment in capitalist marketing means a company can make enough money to cover the product's development and move forward to make more cheaper models, which is why very expensive computers are now affordable computers to the masses. There's still a thing gap of course. The rich guy's got more RAM and a wider screen, but the toiling unwashed aren't exactly destitute (most aren't even toiling or unwashed) while surfing the web on a computer dinosaur purchased six year ago. We're continually told by the socialist PR apparatus (media, entertainment, and "education") that things are "getting worse" yet I don't remember the average home of my youth with a computer or cars with guidance systems. The poor of America who supposedly "go to bed hungry" are among the fattest people on the planet ("insensitivity" intended).
Marx played the stock market (as his contemporary spawn like Noam Chomsky and Micheal Moore do today). Most left-wing people I know buy lottery tickets. I never hear of their disdain for film directors, sports personalties, or lotto winners who are “rich,” yet businessmen, capitalism, and the wealth generated by innovation, and higher standards of living and leisure all continue to be seen as evil by the socialists among us – an “evil” seen as magically bestowed by mere luck. But, for all their hatred of “materialism” and wealth, the critics of advancing capitalist society still like their toys...and still hope they'll win the lottery (the real one that you buy at a government stand).
Do such posing hypocrites really think they're fooling anyone?