Yes. There is more to life than money. But it sure does help us along the way. Can it bring you the ultimate joy, happiness, zen… whatever? Contentment! Contentment? Can money fill the gnawing, nagging hole at the center of humanity?
No. Or maybe it can.
On some level, a lot of us peoples understand, that after spinning around this rock a few times, material acquisition isn’t the be all, end all for how we find meaning, peace, or the very will to live. Or does it?
Because money isn’t just for buying stuff. Money can give you time. The more money you make, typically the more time you have to fulfill aspects of growth and development. Sure, you can learn to maximize your time management skills and adjust your overall life expectations, to where you own next to nothing, maximize your free time, and behold to those around you in very minimal ways - and still live a meaningful existence.
But if you have a relationship, a family, dependents (children, aging parents) it’s a lot harder to minimize your lifestyle because needs vary - and sometimes significantly. It’s not just about choosing how you do this thing called life. Needs require assets on some level. And life is becoming very expensive, even if you live simply.
Every time the topic of wage disparity and economic suffering comes up, I’m used to seeing a litany of responses that try to discourage the conversation. There are a lot of anecdotes used to simply shut people up and keep people in line.
I don’t like that. I think it’s pretty apparent that there is a hierarchy. A class system that’s been in place for most of, if not all recorded history. It seems like selfishness and greed resides at core of those who believe they are entitled to tremendous, astronomical amounts of financial wealth (because yes there are different kinds of wealth). But those that hold access to these unruly amounts of monetary power are gatekeepers.
There are systems and gatekeepers. And some of those systems suck and some of those gatekeepers are kind of assholes. Minimalism has value. It’s also kind of trendy. Our climate sure could benefit from us practicing minimalism, in a lot ways. But I digress. Or I did digress. Did I?
At its core, money is currently how we survive. And it certainly doesn’t hurt us to have our needs met in fundamental ways. Having a safe place to call home and rest. Food. That’s a need or right, right? Clothes. Need those or at least some of the time. (If COVID taught me anything it’s that shoes and pants are dumb. And shirts.) To have sleep, food, and clothing… the most basic things to subsist, survive and maybe even thrive, are not a given. They cost money. And a lot of it.
“Get a job!” They say. “Pull up.” They’re still talking. “If you want to get ahead you have to work and hard.” Now they’re singing?
I think Brittney had a song about this. Rihanna had one I liked even more. Bitch better have my money, indeed. I think the writers strike rallies start and end with that anthem. If they don’t, they should!
Cue the billionaires. I think they are the…. THEY.
There is an element of truth in the anecdotes that are hurled from the mighty mountain of the financial elite. We DO have to work, on some level to survive. And oftentimes DO really hard work for very minimal return. For a very long time. Our whole lives in fact. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Working that is. Hard work is good! Working ties into a lot of things. A sense of purpose, products and services rendered, the sick made well, children cared for, science, art, writing, architecture… you know all the stuff we do and make and be.
But if you go over the list of things that people do on the daily for money versus living - there is a disproportionate balance.
I don’t think we’re supposed to just work until we drop. That’s where the imbalance is. Hard work is good… but it shouldn’t be everything. And yet that’s where a lot of people are. Working. And working. And working.
We are spending more time trying to meet our basic needs than just living. But we should work hard because that’s what good people do, right? Right.
When did our ethics get tied to basic human dignity? Seems like that goes back with the since recorded history thing too.
Not wanting to work yourself into exhaustion, only to have to work more to have the basics isn’t being lazy. And wanting to have a lot of time to rest, relax, pursue personal interests isn’t selfish. But it does seem to be the “right” of only those who have enough financial flexibility to do so.
I think most people, really want to contribute in some fashion. Sure. Some more than others. But most of us aren’t just laying around waiting for money to fall out of the sky because we’re owed it? Wait a minute! Isn’t that the picture the wealthy paint though? When you’ve worked smarter, not harder, the money starts to print itself?
So which is it. I’m not working hard enough. That’s why I’m poor. If I just pull myself up by my bootstraps and earn my way to the top by hard work, supplemented by an intelligent plan that shifts my working smarter and not as hard so that other people can do the work for me, that will allow me to lay around and watch money fall out of the sky?
Isn’t that where monarchies and tyranny come from? Taking knowledge to build up wealth and power, secure your family as an institution, and make the community subservient to your families needs.
Billionaires, oligarchs, monarchies…. kind of interchangeable on a philosophical and tangible level.
It’s smart to not work hard for your money if you’re rich. But it’s lazy if you're poor.
That’s propaganda and a real mind fuck. Talk about gaslighting. Poor people work really hard. And the wealthy love it. Or they really love exploiting it. They preach it to the masses as the secret of their empires. Because it is! They don’t work for it. They make other people do it for them.
So if at this point, you’re mad because you want to have a lot of money, don’t be. I’m not saying it’s wrong to educate yourself, look for efficiencies, and try to maximize how much you can make. But I think there’s a line that’s crossed when that goal comes at the expense of other people’s livelihoods, mental and physical health, and general well being.
I definitely have goals to provide a safe life with opportunity for my family. I have no desire to be a billionaire or hundred millionaire. I don’t want to climb those mountains. My goal is to make enough money to meet my families needs and give freedom to those I love to have time, energy, and desire to pursue their interests and passions. To be warm, well fed, and loved.
That pursuit is getting a lot harder to do.
We believe in working hard but that’s kind of relative. Today’s definition of hard works means 3 jobs for a lot of people. The 60-70 hour work week has become acceptable. Depression, anxiety, and suicide are all on the rise.
It’s not that people don’t want to work or work hard. We are. Most people are working a full time job and giving it everything they’ve got. And that should garner a living wage. Whether that’s a stay at home mom (which takes every fucking skill in the book) raising what becomes society. Or the developmentally disabled fulfilling unskilled, menial tasks.
Yes, some jobs require specialization, education, and have great value.
But since when does it mean that if you work at a fast food restaurant, you aren’t worthy of having enough to pay your bills at the end of the month. It’s actually been awhile now. I’d venture to guess leaving the gold standard behind during the Nixon era, and the Reagan economics adopted in the US during the mid 80s.
Interesting fact! As of May 2023, there are an estimated 2,640 billionaires in the world. Since 1987, the global increase in the number of billionaires has grown an estimated 19 percent.
What isn’t growing is the middle class. That’s shrinking. Meaning more and more people are sliding into poverty every year. And poverty isn’t good. Ask the poor!
Healthcare, rent/mortgages, some viable form of transportation (not everybody has access to mass transit), some kind of shirt, shoes and pants that GET you that job much less keep it, and some kind of food that isn’t going to put you in that hospital or an early grave - these are not accessible to the poor.
The gap between the haves and the have nots, is ever growing.
There is a direct relationship, dare I connect the two dots between more billionaires, the shrinking middle class, and astronomical inflation. Wait, that’s 3 dots. Or maybe 2 dots and line. Sure.
The extremely wealthy have a lot of money and power. But they are missing some things the world really needs right now. Nuance not anecdotes. Insight that is shared to elevate the success of the people who bring them their riches, shared experience instead of ivory tower condescension. Empathy for their fellow humans. And oh, wait for it… Money. Pay people a fair, living wage.
The average rent in the US is $2,000 a month now. Most full time jobs cannot pay for rent when you add in all the other needs. We’ve tipped the precipice.
It’s not greedy for the people to look at their pay stubs, clench their fists and yell, “I worked harder than this!” There’s a Modest Mouse lyric about this.
Inflation mixed with wage stagnation for over the past 40 years creates a pandemic level crisis that is affecting everyone now. Except billionaires.
Where is all the money? Hmmm. I wonder.
The cost of living is egregiously expensive. And we aren’t the price setters. Or at least most of us aren’t.
Wherever we fall on the scale of monetary wealth, looking at the current global and our national state of affairs, I see an ever increasing throng of voices becoming a more singular voice. One that is crying out for something to be done. It’s expensive. EVERYWHERE. Well, virtually everywhere.
Unchecked capitalism is the modern day realization of the Midas myth. The oligarchs and corporate overlords have a system where everything they touch, turns to gold. And a helluva lot of it. But of the nearly 8 billion people on this planet, there are roughly 2700 billionaires.
That’s a lot of wealth spread across a teeny, tiny little fraction of a percent of the global population.
It’s actually 3.3 × 10-5%.
Uuuuh. Let’s look at that as a decimal.
0.000033 of the world’s population owns a currently estimated 12.2 trillion in wealth.
But work harder :-)
Tim. Tim! We can’t ALL be billionaires.
I don’t want to be a billionaire. I want the billionaires to pay their people. BEFORE they are taxed.
Pay people a fucking living wage. Nowadays, that means a 6 figure income. Think that’s crazy? Then you were probably born in the 1950s.