Hi
I was listening to the “Richest Man in Babylon” audio the otherday, and it had an interesting point. That everyone could become rich if they wanted to. I’ve never really thought about it, but subconciously assumed that there must be poor people. But the example in the tape was, if a rich person had a house build, spent their money on builders and material etc. This money doesn’t disappear, but circulates in the community, and the house is there to stay. So even though a rich person buys something and spends their money it doesn’t disappear, but stays in the community.
It is obvious really, but I had never thought about it before.
So what do you think? Could everybidy be rich?
Terryw
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I’d say yes, everyone can be rich! Sure, the money circulates in the community, but it’s what the people do with the money that counts. If they put the money to good use, i.e. invest and make the money work for them, then they on their way to financial freedom… however if they blow it on useless luxuries, then their hard earned cash goes to someone else… and so the cycle begins again.
It does make you wonder though… is there enough money around for “everyone” to be rich?
Regards,
OziTerryW,
Good question.
I would think that it is possible for everyone to have a high standard of living and live comfortably, but in practice this is very difficult to deliver. Whether this would make them “rich” is really a subjective question based on “how much is enough”. I also think “rich” is a relative term, in that one person can be “richer” than someone else who is “poorer”, so if everyone was rich, then noone is rich as we’re all the same.
Delivering equality is limited by our economic constructs. Capitalism allows for gaps to appear between the haves and the have nots. It is fundamentally a very powerful social construct, but does create inequality when unregulated. This is one of the reasons why governments typically intervene in markets in the form of taxes to maintain minimum standards of living for those at the bottom of the heap. (There’s other reasons they intervene too like merit/demerit goods and tariffs to protect growing industries etc.)
Socialists argue that wealth should be spread equally amongst society. The equal pay for equal hours worked approach attempts to ensure gaps don’t open between the haves and the have nots. The problem with this model is that there is little incentive to try harder as the incremental gain is fixed by the fixed rate. So there is a net social loss in reduced workforce output. For this reason capitalism produces greater output but at the expense of social congruence.
My thinking is that so long as we operate within a capitalist framework which is moving more and more towards deregulation, there will be more and more of a gap between the haves and have nots. Or in other words, nope, not everyone can be rich.
Cheers,
Michael.If the question is can everybody be rich at the same time, I agree with Michael 100%.
If the question is more along the lines of does everyone have the capacity to be rich, I feel the answer is yes. The Richest Man in Babylon quotes somewhere that “Where the determination is, a way can be found”. (Just reading it!) Not everyone has this determination, and unless luck or other circumstances intervene, there is always going to be that gap between the haves and have-nots.
Good post by the way Michael.
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