A totally free market reduces freedom of the people. Business, like government, is authoritarian.
As a general point, none of this counters what I said. The richest's wage should rise more than the lowest.
Secondarily, people aren't free. They are driven by need, and exploited by greed.
I have this same argument with my very liberal daughter. I tell her that
anyone (any
one person)
can succeed in America. She hears
everyone should succeed. Not the same.
There is much more new 'old money' in our economy as businesses mature and their wealth increases. This money isn't idle, it continues to purchase more and more assets, right out from under the noses of most people. For example,
I bought an apartment building in 1994, paid it off in ten years, and could have leveraged the equity to buy several more buildings on the same street (I didn't as I only needed one to provide for my later retirement). If I had been a younger man I would now own every apartment building on that street, and be one that you are criticizing, with net worth in the millions.
Those other buildings have been bought by other investors, who had prepared themselves for ownership by saving money over the years, or by leveraging assets already owned. Something that anyone can do. My building was bought by a Korean fellow who along with his wife had amassed $100,000 for that purpose, and waited for a 'down' market to look for an investment (I sold below what I wanted but I wanted out. I also had bought the building in a down market).
I have a friend who over the past ten years has bought fully twenty distressed 8 and 16 unit apartment buildings in a troubled neighborhood. He is a carpenter and along with one other employee does virtually all the maintenance work. His Latina wife does the books and the renting, mostly to Mexican families, who both they and I have found to be very good tenants overall. He already has a net worth in the $millions from these properties.
Just to flesh out this story. My friend learned basic carpentry and masonry skills working for a friend who started a small "sunroom addition" business (that has since flourished). Seeing that an ordinary man could do these things he bought an old country school building and along with his wife remodeled it into their first home. He later sold it for a modest profit and moved into a small apartment (they had no children). He then bought a beautiful wooded country hillside lot and over a period of five years or so built a beautiful 3000 sq. ft. home. As soon as the roof was on they moved into it and pitched a tent on the main floor and slept in sleeping bags until the house was insulated and the furnace was installed. He leveraged the equity in that house to buy the first of those 20 apartment buildings.
In the meantime his wife had started a successful house cleaning business that she only gave up when the rental business needed her full time. Both drove older vehicles for years, she a VW Beetle, he an older pickup truck, while they were building up these businesses.
Now that his rental business is running well he has branched out again, buying a farm, actually farming it, and collecting and restoring vintage tractors, of which he has about two dozen. He is building a large pole building to house his 'tractor museum' (shades of Jay Leno).
That is one way you get rich in America (and although he is not religious the value of a dedicated 'helpmeet' isn't lost on him either).
Of course my point is that anyone, any one person, who had saved enough money could have purchase one or more of these properties and started down the path to substantial wealth. Sadly (or happily for my friend) no one came forward to compete with his bids (the banks were more than happy to get rid of those foreclosed properties). Not surprising at all. Few want to do the work needed to make such an enterprise successful.
Most people won't accumulate wealth working one job for current wages. They need some kind of investment apart from their job, but most just won't make the sacrifices needed to do this. They plod along on just wages while at the same time enriching others by buying every shiny new widget that comes down the pike. It is the failure of workers to make the sacrifices needed to become wealthier, not the supposed injustices of the economic system.
