my friend Algernon DAmmassa commented to one of my posts earlier in answer to a guy complaining of spongers living off others. i thought he made some brilliant points here: Spongers are bad, people right? They sit there and passively absorb (like sponges) other peoples labor. Thats what David is worried about with public assistance: people feeling entitled to live off the wealth of others. I can identify with that. I work hard! To hell with those spongers. No one likes a sponger, right? The problem is, sponging is also one of our definitions of success. Rich people will often tell you the secret to wealth is getting your money to work for you. We do this through investments and management. Its key to being a highly successful capitalist: owning stuff and collecting rents, whether its physical property or intellectual property. Capitalism is a game and this is key to playing it very, very well. You own businesses and properties, and profit off of other peoples labor and rent. Thats considered successful. Our society exults people who are able to live well without working -- as long as they are rich. So we have different kinds of spongers. Working class spongers and poor spongers are bad people because they allegedly WANT to live off other people; meanwhile, wealthy capitalists are exalted, idolized, and envied for their ability to do exactly the same thing. Think about this. Apparently, we dont really have a problem with the idea of some people living off of other peoples industry. What we are concerned with is WHO gets to do that. And on that WHO rests a great deal of political power. Shocking, isnt it.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 19:43:31 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015