The growth of the fortunes
Really, how do you think these assets
grow every day (at the horrendous pace
we have seen in the first part of this text)?
Through the work of the
billionaires themselves?
Or do you still believe in the fairy tale that
money multiplies by itself, just like that,
without anybody needing to work for it?
It’s our work which increases
these assets daily by billions.
We are convinced that if we do not buy the
brand-name shirts which our children beg for,
it is as if we let them go hungry.
And if we do not send them to expensive private
schools,
we condemn them to spend their lives in poverty.
The truth is, however, that thanks to the work of
the grandfathers
that we mentioned (and all the others that we haven’t
mentioned)
at the present time nobody on earth needs to work like
a slave and
no one should go hungry.
― But
in the third world the people are indeed hungry.
Of course they are hungry.
They must be hungry.
If we do not work as we do and if they are not
hungry,
how will the futures we mentioned be created?
And how would Mr X, the actor, as I recently heard
on
television, spend 5,000 dollars on a dinner for two in
a
restaurant in Beverly Hills?
If you still find you don’t understand, please,
have a look
back at Figure 2, and all your questions will be answered.
― And
we will work only as a hobby?
Only doing the jobs
that we like?
Are there no jobs that
nobody likes?
Who will do this work?.
If we haven’t yet got a machine for this
unpleasant work,
be assured that it will soon be built. Until then,
however,
we should do it ourselves.
In the current system the problem is solved by
paying.
If I do not like the job which must be done, say
collecting
the trash, I pay someone else and he does it for me.
This causes absolutely no ethical problems
to the existing individualistic system.
Consider, however, the same problem of sharing
tasks
in an environment where everyone cares for everyone
else and not for himself.
There, would it be right to make another
do what you do not want to do yourself?
Really, in a family or in a group of friends why
does nobody
think about asking payment for doing something?
Even under the inhumane individualistic regime in
which we live,
no one comes up with the idea of charging fees for
bringing the
rubbish down, or washing the dishes.
― But
there I do it for my
brothers, for my
friends
When we move from
"me" to "we" will
we not feel the same for all
people?
Why should I ask for
payment? By the way,
the work that I perform is a
work which
I have chosen myself, a work
that I like.
I imagined three cases of highly successful
professionals
who in three hypothetical letters refuse to accept
money
"for services rendered":
• A very great doctor, who accomplishes "miracles" and
saves lives. Does he not find satisfaction enough in
his work?
Is it not for him reward enough that he saved a child?
• A very great inventor, who has such great ideas that may
change the way we work and further relieve people’s
toil.
Is the satisfaction from the success of his Invention not enough?
• A very important banker, who runs a very large bank. Doesn’t
he love his job and isn’t he satisfied if he manages
correctly the
huge amounts entrusted to him, providing what is needed
to buy
a tractor which will increase the production of wheat?
Why should they all ask for a reward?
Is their job itself not reward enough for them?
A job that they love
(otherwise they wouldn’t be so successful),
is it not something like a hobby?
Does anybody demand payment
to pursue his hobby?