My son, Cory, was having an online conversation, probably on Facebook, about Capitalism. Here is an excerpt from that conversation by someone who goes by the handle “AM”:
“Self-made is a fallacy, I’m a firm believer in the concept of “Ubuntu.” That I am because we are. This notion of self-made has encouraged millions of people to believe that they did it all by themselves. This allows them to disregard everyone that’s helped them along the way. Regardless of how minuscule the help is/was, you have benefited from it in some way, shape or form. Self-made forces us to indulge in our ego and value our accomplishments more than the lives and conditions of those around us. Even worse…Self-made is also a key concept in the bourgeoisie community that upholds capitalism. These individuals have been indoctrinated to believe that with hard work, anyone can become a millionaire. This is true to an extent. Except the reality is that in a capitalist society, majority of the wealth that we see comes from privilege – not earned. And the horrific truth is that this privilege is due to the exploitation of the lower class and under supported communities. Self-made is a myth.” AM
And although I believe that there are a lot of arguments that could be made against AM’s claims, I really like Cory’s response regarding the ideas of “self-made” and “privilege”. Here is what he had to say:
It seems to me that all the fuss about whether someone is “self-made” or not all comes down to semantics… And I don’t know that we benefit anybody by defining the concept in such a way that we create a problem… I believe that personal responsibility is a notion of the highest value (and I want to give the benefit of the doubt to many of those who are trying to encourage the notion of personal responsibility by using the phrase “self-made”… even if it’s sloppy and doesn’t include a full and necessary context…)
I don’t think anybody could reasonably say or believe that they created their wealth “ex nihilo”… Of course it takes the inclusion of other people and other resources in order to achieve absolutely anything… Of course it takes privilege…
And what is privilege? It’s an advantage… Advantages are only relevant when applied toward the particular endeavor in which they are advantageous, so simply having them doesn’t make anyone more valuable than another… And if the variety of endeavors is wide enough, there isn’t a person alive that isn’t privileged in some way or another… And it is absolutely (emphasis added) something with a permanent place in reality… No one is ever going to successfully dispense with privilege, no matter how altruistic their intent…
Human genetics are on the spectrum of privilege… The relative health a person has is in large part due to their genetics… A healthy person is privileged… When an endeavor takes IQ into account, a person with a high IQ is privileged over a person with a low IQ (and that’s A LOT of endeavors)… The best athletes in the world are privileged thanks to their genetics… Inherent personality traits are on the spectrum of privilege, and while they can be learned by anybody, there is no denying some are born with more than others (leadership, organization, determination, patience, integrity and on and on, etc. etc.)… How absolutely privileged is a person gifted with a high IQ AND athletic genes AND inherent personality traits like determination and patience? It could easily be counted as completely unfair if one was inclined to suffer needlessly like that… Should we not allow those people to thrive and produce in the endeavor that suits them? Seems like we would all suffer tremendously if we didn’t allow that…
There is no denying that organizations will fail without good leadership… And in the end, leadership in an organization comes down to one person… Not just anybody can be that one person (and although there are certainly multiple people who could be, it still comes down to one person)… They are as singularly valuable to the success of the organization as any of the rest of the organization… And that one person will undoubtedly be privileged in many, many, many ways…
I would like to see you contend more directly with Pareto distribution… Wealth accumulates in fewer and fewer hands as a natural consequence of mere existence… It isn’t something that you can place at the feet of the corrupt bourgeoisie… And it isn’t something you can dispense with…
Pareto distribution and privilege are facts of reality… I think it’s incredibly important to take that into account before trying to organize society (especially if we want to allow for the most success across the board)…
Don’t get me wrong: I firmly believe there is a problem of corruption and I don’t believe that we have a perfect system figured out… And I think, in order to properly contend with these problems, we HAVE to take the facts of reality into consideration…
This post provided the first time I’ve ever been afforded the privilege of hearing about “Ubuntu”, and I love it! Of course “I am because we are”! Cory Sharp
And since this blog site is mostly about displaying photos, here’s a photo for your viewing pleasure:
The cool thing about my using this photo for a blog post written mostly by Cory, is that Cory pointed out these trees and asked me to take a picture of them while we were playing disc golf at Shawnee Mission Park in Lenexa, KS.
