Rich and Poor: When Questions Answer Other Questions

Rich and Poor:

Questions Sometimes Answer Other Questions 

By Lawrence W. Reed

I recently reposted an old article of mine which was critical of John Lennon and his famous song, “Imagine.” That’s the one in which he fantasizes about a world with “no possessions” and where everybody just lives “for today.” Childish egalitarianism and destructive class warfare put to music. In the comments, one person posed three questions he said that people who sympathize with Lennon’s message are asking.

Sometimes, as Socrates suggested so long ago, the best way to answer a question is to ask another one, or a series of questions. The point is to encourage the person who asked the first question to examine his premises, consider alternative viewpoints, and arrive at logical conclusions. In other words, to think. Using that method, I decided to address the three questions the commenter raised. Here you go:

Do rich kids earn anything by being born?

Are you saying that wealthy parents should not be allowed to share their wealth with their children? Are you saying that all “rich kids” automatically stay rich in later life? There are endless examples of those who did not because of poor judgment, bad investments, lousy character, etc.

You seem to be focused on money. What about “riches” in terms of other things that matter hugely in life? Is it somehow unfair that a kid is born with more talent, more initiative and resourcefulness, more brains, more judgment, more work ethic, more self-discipline, more character than others and if so, should we penalize him for that?

John Lennon was not born rich. He was born to a working-class family with minimal financial means. Should he be penalized because he became rich even though (despite some dumb lyrics), he did it through perseverance and talent? He had vast numbers of accomplices in making him rich, namely, customers and fans who bought his music and purchased tickets to his concerts. Should they be arrested for making him rich?

Do billionaires work a billion times harder than poor laborers?

You seem to be suggesting that how “hard” somebody works should be measured (a near impossibility) and that physical labor should be the sole factor in determining his income. What if it takes me the same amount of labor to make a mud pie as it does to make an apple pie? Would they both sell for the same price? Should they? How much should a person be paid if he works hard all day long, digging ditches and then filling them up again, pleasing no customers in the process?

In free economies (and I’m not talking about instances of people getting favors from government, which I am against), you are generally rewarded for the value you add to society. Create something that millions want at an affordable price, and then smartly market it so they know it’s out there, and you can become rich.

Do poor laborers provide jobs to millions of other people? Do they take huge investment risks to create products and services? Do they capably grow small enterprises into big ones and then manage them well enough to avoid bankruptcy? Do they donate millions to charitable causes? Just asking, not to denigrate poor laborers but to get to the bottom of things here and get the full picture in front of us. Do poor laborers always stay poor? Some do, but an awful lot do not (at least in capitalist countries, not so in socialist ones.)

People who hate the rich often speak as though there’s an evil-doing rich person under every bed. Do you even know how many billionaires there are in America, a country of 340 million people? About a thousand. That’s it. You could seize every penny that all of them have in cash, property, stocks, etc. and run the federal government for about eight months. Then next year, you’d get nothing out of them and the millions they employ would be looking for work. Furthermore, the top 5% of income earners already pay about 60% of all income taxes.

Do laborers producing multitudes more wealth for the idle rich than they themselves get to keep sound fair?

Are you saying all laborers are productive and virtuous while the rich are all “idle”? I know some rich people who, long after they became rich, still work long, hard, and smart. John Lennon didn’t quit after his first successful song, did he? Sitting around a pile of cash is a cartoon caricature, not typical reality. Besides that, you seem to be comparing apples and oranges here—that is, you’re putting all the wealth of all laborers on one side of the scale and in the other, you’re putting some unnamed “idle rich” person so as to absurdly stack the comparison to fit a preconceived narrative.

Were any of the laborers you refer to forced into employment at a wage they would have rejected if they hadn’t been coerced at gunpoint to accept it? Do laborers ever start out at low wages (perhaps because of no references, inexperience, minimal skills, etc.) but then work their way up the ladder, even move from place to place, from job to job, earning more as they gain life skills? Do any laborers ever become investors or entrepreneurs themselves and then become rich because of it? Aren’t you glad that can happen in a free economy? Does that happen in North Korea?

When a “rich” person invests in a job, trains a worker, and then the worker later leaves to accept a better job (happens every day), does that laborer then reimburse that employer for the investment he made in him?

There’s a lot of stereotyping going on with this egalitarian stuff. It’s superficial and infantile, a substitute for truth and specifics. The “rich” (often not defined) are bad while the “poor” are saints. The truth is that like every income group, rich and poor are made up of good and bad. I personally have no problem acknowledging that some rich people are bad people, especially the ones that use political connections to secure special favors, for example. But why can’t the egalitarian Left ever admit that some poor people are poor because they’re lazy, or they addicted themselves to drugs, or they resorted to crime instead of work, or they’d rather depend on welfare than take a job? Why is every poor person entitled to something that belongs to somebody else?

Conclusion: I think you’re too focused on counting other people’s blessings. Spend a little more time counting your own and then put them to good use. Do an introspective, self-examination. Try to find out what motivates you. Is it envy? Is it revenge? Do you get more satisfaction out of dragging others down than pulling yourself up? How much value have you added to society lately?

Ask another question and I’ll probably have a few more to ask of you.

For additional information, see:

John Lennon: No Model to Emulate by Lawrence W. Reed

A Robber Baron Who Never Robbed by Lawrence W. Reed

Are You for the Rich or the Poor? by Lawrence W. Reed

The Myth that the Poor Get Poorer and the Rich Get Richer by Daniel Mitchell

As the Rich Get Richer, the Poor Get Richer (video) by Daniel Hannan

Here’s What Would Happen if We Seized All the Wealth of America’s 800 Billionaires by Jessica Riedl

Three Cheers for Dolly Parton by Lawrence W. Reed

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(Lawrence W. Reed is President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Global Ambassador for Liberty at the Foundation for Economic Education in Atlanta, Georgia.)