So here goes. This has been a long time coming, starting with me being in my early twenties and sharing an asbestos shingled 4 room farmhouse with a friend and 3 dogs. It might be that the walls held memories. There was at least one ghost living there, a woman. She mostly haunted the kitchen.
But anyway, I was in my room with the sun coming in the one narrow window(the on in the picture), because that house was in a field and got very sunny, when I understood that you can’t get rich without either exploiting the environment or labor. It wasn’t a complete theory that came at me out of those old walls. For one thing, it didn’t define rich. Was there a point beyond which one became exploitative? Did we all have to make the same amount? That didn’t seem right.
But the seed was planted. In order to get rich, you have to pull more out of the system than you put in.
Being an art student, I invented a simplified example based on a craftsman. My mythical craftsman made wood picture frames from sticks found in the woods near his home. He made a decent living going to craft shows and selling at craft galleries. And then the latent writer in me killed him off.
His six children jumped in to fill his orders. And liked it. They booked more craft shows, added some new designs. They worked together, and they split the take equally. But they weren’t all equally skilled.
Bill, Mack, and Sarah were excellent craftspeople. Peter was great with customers, but he kinda had two left thumbs. Melissa had always been a math whiz, although her frames were passable. And Nick, with his botany degree, had more fun sourcing natural woods than making anything. So they split the work. Peter got them new accounts. Melissa kept the books. Dan collected sticks. Business flourished, and all was well.
Until they began to marry and have kids. And bigger bills.
“Salesmen make more money than crafters,” Peter’s wife said at a family dinner.
“Accountants make more than salespeople,” Melissa’s husband replied. “All Dan does is tromp around in the woods and get stoned. My wife works longer hours than anyone.”
“We can do some of that work if it’s all falling on Melissa,” Bill said. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s not the time,” Peter said. “It’s the worth. I’m not making as much as a salesman should.”
So they decided to give Melissa and Peter raises. They tried raising prices to cover it, but people will pay only so much for a picture frame. It’s not a necessity. So ultimately, the other four made less. Two of the siblings had large houses and sent their kids to summer camp, while the others lived check to check.
What happened here is very clear, which is why I made this so simple. There was an income source split evenly. When it was changed so that two people got rich, the others didn’t have enough. The labor of the other four was underpaid so that two could get overpaid.
While one could argue that an accountant is worth more than a crafter, that’s something we’ve come to accept. Lawyers salespeople, white collar workers are paid more than people who work with their hands. But should we accept this? How do we know what someone is worth?
It all comes down to where wealth comes from in the first place, and it isn't the top. More to follow.
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