I think that's where liberals really struggle. Because the Bootstraps Theory of American Capitalism is that you work hard and get lots of surplus income, then invest the surplus at a profit. The capital was supposed to be something he created. He built the lemonade stand and made money and then he built a second lemonade stand and hired a retail worker. And then he used the profits from the second stand to build a third stand. So that's why he's CEO of Coca-Cola, earning $100M/year. He just worked smarter and harder than every other lemonade stand operator on the block.
And if you don't support his plan to install lemonade stands on every street corner or the $20B federal aid package intended to facilitate that development, then you are just a hateful, anti-lemonade communist who wants to deprive hard working Americans of their delicious fruity beverage.
A large part of the problem is that there has been an ongoing effort by the bourgeoisie to obfuscate just how big an impact generational wealth clearly has. Just think of how many times you've seen an article that has characterized Gates or Zuckerberg as a "college dropout". The stories of how basically all the oligarchs built their empires gets a lot less inspiring when you realize how much of a leg up they had.
Just think of how many times you’ve seen an article that has characterized Gates or Zuckerberg as a “college dropout”.
Sure. I remember getting a full biopic on Bill Gates in high school and never once hearing that his mother was on the board of United Way with the Chairman of IBM's own executive board. The fact that he was magically able to land a lucrative contract bid for the next generation IBM operating system just seems to be tossed out there as a product of his exceptional guts and gumption. Never a consequence of nepotism.
Even then, nobody asks why IBM was such a successful business (government contracts) or how Microsoft leveraged its relationship with IBM to rapidly expand its brand (government licensing / patent litigation to crush competition / huge injections of private equity) or what the consequence of a Microsoft-dominant OS market has been for developers (paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees paid just to remain system compatible with other enterprises).
Bill Gates was just a smart guy who did smart things and now he's rich.
And god forbid you mention that the great philanthropist and lover of humanity Bill Gates was party to one of the biggest anti trust suits of the 20th century for his company's illegal market suppression.
Oh sure. Incidentally, I'm always amazed a movie like "Antitrust" ever got made. Seeing Bill Gates and Jeffery Epstein together really put that pulp thriller in a whole new context.
I think that's where liberals really struggle. Because the Bootstraps Theory of American Capitalism is that you work hard and get lots of surplus income, then invest the surplus at a profit. The capital was supposed to be something he created. He built the lemonade stand and made money and then he built a second lemonade stand and hired a retail worker. And then he used the profits from the second stand to build a third stand. So that's why he's CEO of Coca-Cola, earning $100M/year. He just worked smarter and harder than every other lemonade stand operator on the block.
And if you don't support his plan to install lemonade stands on every street corner or the $20B federal aid package intended to facilitate that development, then you are just a hateful, anti-lemonade communist who wants to deprive hard working Americans of their delicious fruity beverage.
A large part of the problem is that there has been an ongoing effort by the bourgeoisie to obfuscate just how big an impact generational wealth clearly has. Just think of how many times you've seen an article that has characterized Gates or Zuckerberg as a "college dropout". The stories of how basically all the oligarchs built their empires gets a lot less inspiring when you realize how much of a leg up they had.
Sure. I remember getting a full biopic on Bill Gates in high school and never once hearing that his mother was on the board of United Way with the Chairman of IBM's own executive board. The fact that he was magically able to land a lucrative contract bid for the next generation IBM operating system just seems to be tossed out there as a product of his exceptional guts and gumption. Never a consequence of nepotism.
Even then, nobody asks why IBM was such a successful business (government contracts) or how Microsoft leveraged its relationship with IBM to rapidly expand its brand (government licensing / patent litigation to crush competition / huge injections of private equity) or what the consequence of a Microsoft-dominant OS market has been for developers (paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees paid just to remain system compatible with other enterprises).
Bill Gates was just a smart guy who did smart things and now he's rich.
And god forbid you mention that the great philanthropist and lover of humanity Bill Gates was party to one of the biggest anti trust suits of the 20th century for his company's illegal market suppression.
Oh sure. Incidentally, I'm always amazed a movie like "Antitrust" ever got made. Seeing Bill Gates and Jeffery Epstein together really put that pulp thriller in a whole new context.
Oh dang...good point. I need to rewatch that one now.