Hello Mr. Tony,
The fact that not everyone can be rich is very well known and it has been the de-facto rule since the dawn of humanity, proved through all political systems of history and even some ancient nations decided to make it their standard system (i.e., plutocracy).
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Originally Posted by Wayne Holland
Did you know that it is virtually impossible for everyone to be wealthy? To understand why, just think for a moment about what it really means to have a lot of money (which is what most people think of when they hear the word wealthy).
Essentially, it means that you can have a lot of stuff, like cars, houses, land and so on. Money, you see, no matter what the economists say about it, is access to resources, the media from which all that stuff is made.
But here's the catch: resources are not endless. In fact, they become more limited with each passing day. In case you haven't been paying attention, the earth's population is now over 7-billion. The planet itself, however, has not increased in size. The earth is pretty much the same as it has been for the last 4 billion years.
The math is pretty straightforward. A lot more people are clamoring for fewer and fewer resources. As a result, only a few may gain the advantage of having excessive access to the ever dwindling storehouse. There simply is not enough of the excessive variety to go around; necessary resources for everyone, yes, but excessive, no.
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Much like limited resources, there is also a limited range of people able to make money with their skills. This is why we see unemployed professionals such as lawyers or doctors that have to take odd jobs depending on their countries' economic situation due to a plethora of social and political phenomenoms. Mark Zuckerberg was highly influential and it was right to say luck ruled in his favor, alongside his skills, charisma and being at the right time at the right place. Following this idea, we can claim that being "rich" by the common definition means that you're worth a lot more than the average person around you in monetary value. If everyone in a country had $100 million in assets, then no one would be considered rich within that country. However, they might be very rich compared to citizens of another country. So, being considered rich is always relative to others around you. Therefore, we can never be all "rich".
Additionally, in a parallel universe where everyone was rich, inflation would take over. It's not that there is a limited amount of money in the world--most governments can print money at will. This is called fiat currency. The problem is that as the amount of Dollars (or Euros, or Rubles, or whatever) increases, so do prices. A simple way to think of it is if the US government were to suddenly give everyone in the US $1 million, everyone who ever wanted a Porsche (for example) could suddenly afford one. As a response, dealers would then increase the price so that only people who (a) can afford it AND (b) valued it enough to spend that much money would then buy the Porsche. This increase in price is inflation and it would happen with all products, luxury and necessity.
Another pertinent question to ask is "can the planet sustain everyone being rich?" Rich here being used to define a typically North American or western household, and poor by comparison being about the other 90% of people on the planet. The answer to this question is a most resounding no. You cannot have everyone living like kings and queens in a finite world with finite resources and not expect shit to hit the fan in terms of environmental degradation and destruction. It is simply not sustainable for all 7 billion of us to live the top 10% of rich people.
This article explains the global income inequality a bit better than I can. Basically the gist is, Americans and other westernized countries are living like the top 10% (a rough approximate). They are very wealthy and rich compared to the vast majority of people living on this planet. Even the lowest income earners in the states (the bottom 10%) are in the top 30% globally. If the other 90% wants to live like them,they are going to need a bigger planet. There are just not enough resources to go around like that sustainably.
Now that I have cleared the reasons why not everyone can just become "rich" without issue, let me hop on the problem of how not everyone has the tools or the right access to become rich. Many factors play a role in how likely a person is to become rich in their adulthood. One of them is our childhood and what is most interesting about this is how it shapes our ability to succeed. Monkeys can teach us a lot about economics. Emotionally, their brains are very similar to ours. As fellow mammals, monkeys and humans both develop strong emotions that set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom — emotions that govern our lives, our society, and our economy.
In the early 1990s, a team of psychologists set out to determine how a mother’s attentiveness affects her children as they grow up. They took two groups of monkeys and placed them in two different environments. In the first environment, the mother always had access to food. She didn’t have to spend any time looking for it. She could focus all her attention on her baby. In the second environment, the food was harder to find. The mother had to spend so much time looking for food that she often neglected her child.
The results were tragic. The second group of babies grew up with noticeable despair and anxiety issues. Their brains literally looked different. Their brain cells couldn’t regulate emotions like their healthier peers’. Once they became adults, the second group of monkeys was shy, clingy, weak and socially awkward. They had trouble making friends, and they never became leaders.
In a way, the same experiment is taking place in American society today. Some mothers have easy access to the basic necessities of life; food, shelter, clothing, transportation, health care, but many do not. Millions of mothers live paycheck-to-paycheck, working multiple jobs and long hours, leaving them too busy and too exhausted to give their children the same attention as their wealthier peers. The difference is so drastic that children raised in poverty have brain activity that looks like it’s been damaged by a stroke. Study after study show that these early scars last long into adulthood, affecting everything from job prospects to marital happiness.
It would be cruel and illogical to argue that these children are responsible for their lot in life, but every time I write about income inequality, that’s exactly what I hear. “I strongly disagree with your statement that more people ‘deserve’ the opportunity to succeed,” one reader told me recently. “Success is in everyone’s face. One has to reach out and grab it.” But clearly not everyone is staring success in the face after childhood. In fact, many children are raised not to reach out and grab it.
Psychologists have spent decades studying the different attitudes that people develop by living in different social classes. According to a recent article in the Annual Review of Psychology, they’ve come to some striking conclusions.
First, higher-income parents encourage their children to follow their dreams. They encourage critical thinking and support expression of likes, dislikes, feelings, and thoughts — and then give them opportunities to pursue those interests. Lower-income parents tend to emphasize toughness and pride in the face of adversity. They emphasize rules that must not be broken — and then let the children figure out the rest on their own.
From there, the children go to school, where higher-income children are given opportunities to work independently, think creatively, and ask questions. Their parents take an active role, challenging practices that they disagree with. Their teachers treat them like adults and reward students who speak up and take initiative. Lower-income children, on the other hand, usually find themselves in a more regimented environment. They walk through metal detectors and aren’t trusted with basic classroom equipment. Their parents want to be involved, but they don’t assert themselves. Their teachers demand respect and reward students who show deference.
By the time they enter the workforce, it isn’t hard to see how these two groups have been ingrained with two different attitudes toward success. The higher-income children have learned leadership skills like taking initiative, treating authorities as equals, and thinking outside-the-box, while their lower-income peers have learned to keep their heads down and do only what they’re told.
For those Americans who have been materially successful, it may seem like everyone else simply chose not to follow the same path, but the reality is that most Americans don’t know how to find that path. And in the greatest tragedy of all, for many Americans in today’s economy, the path may not even exist as long as they live.
Sadly, as I have explained, most of us do not have access to this series of connections, influence, or circumstances to allow us to reach our financial potential and independence. However, I do think it is a bit disrepectful of you to think that all of us are failures and to act self-righteously about our life choices and the circumstances that have settled us to our current socio-economic terms. I kindly suggest you to drop this attitude, because I find it very insulting and I am sure the SA-MP community does too.
If you have any concerns, I warmly invite you to pick a book about basic economic concepts or articles in the Internet where you will find the answers you are looking for.
My best regards and wishes for you, Mr. Tony,
We all have the internet so why haven't we made it ? Come i really wanna know this...how come script here script for little few bucks while a younger in terms of age went deeper and became rich, why ?
