Two very different ways to get ahead

 

Source: National Action Network website

In a society based on centralized control (leftist, socialist, communist, whatever), there is really only one way to get ahead.  You must figure out who has political power, befriend them, and do favors for them.  There is no reason for you to help the common man, so you focus on those in power.  Everything is in one pie, and if you want a piece of that pie, you must serve those above you.

In a free society, you get ahead by serving those below you.  Figure out what people want, then figure out how to give it to them.  Lots of people.  If you can serve more people, and serve them better, then you’ll gain more wealth and influence.  It’s the opposite of leftist societies – political leaders can hurt your business through regulation & taxes, etc., but they really can’t help you.  Not much.  So you serve everybody except them.  Your only interest is in improving the life of the common man, because that’s how you get rich.

There are a lot of reasons that leftist governments make life worse for everybody in their country except for the politically well-connected.  But this is a big one.  The smartest and most ambitious people spend all their time trying to figure out how to make life better for political leaders, instead of spending all their time trying to figure out how to make life better for everybody else.  And guess what happens?  Life gets better for political leaders, but life gets worse for everybody else.  Imagine that.

Source: CA.gov.com

When Democrats talk about using government to make people rich, most people just sort of roll their eyes.  But it gives me the creeps.

What if Democrats really believe in that sort of thing?  Perhaps they’re stupid or ignorant.  But what if they’re not?  What if they really want a world where the population suffers so the politically connected can live well?

That’s simply evil.  I don’t use that word much.  But I can’t think of another way to describe leftist government systems.

About half of the voters in the last election voted Democrat.  I hope they’re stupid or ignorant.

I really do.

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  1. Macho Grande' Coolidge
    Macho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    AMD Texas (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    AMD Texas (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    It is possible to get ahead by exploiting those below you, you know. You can be a slumlord. You can sell booze. You can extend usurious and even extortionate credit.

    You can buy businesses, leverage them with excess debt, then declare bankruptcy when there’s a downturn and cancel pension and health care obligations. There are many other possibilities.

    That’s if you’re rich.

    If you’re not, then you probably have to suck up to your boss. It’s probably been a long time since you’ve been in such a position, Doc, if ever. Me too. But I think that it is the reality of the lives of most people.

    By suck up to your boss, do you mean do the things that your boss requires of you for your job?

    No, I also mean live in fear of your boss, having to put up with a boss who is a jerk or a petty tyrant. This is quite common, I think. I don’t suffer it myself, for which I am thankful.

    I think that the Ayn Randian glorification of capitalism is quite inaccurate.

    I have had bosses that I like and those that I didn’t. I would even go so far to say a couple that I didn’t like could be classified as jerks. That isn’t the same as living in fear or being impelled to suck up to them which I believe is much less common than you might given your job.

    No one is compelled to suck up.  You don’t like the boss?  Get a new job.  Start a business and become your own boss, and reward employees for sucking up to you find out for yourself what happens if you can’t make payroll this week.

    • #31
  2. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Macho Grande' (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    It is possible to get ahead by exploiting those below you, you know. You can be a slumlord. You can sell booze. You can extend usurious and even extortionate credit.

    You can buy businesses, leverage them with excess debt, then declare bankruptcy when there’s a downturn and cancel pension and health care obligations. There are many other possibilities.

    That’s if you’re rich.

    If you’re not, then you probably have to suck up to your boss. It’s probably been a long time since you’ve been in such a position, Doc, if ever. Me too. But I think that it is the reality of the lives of most people….

    I’m a civil litigation lawyer. I’ve been doing it for 26 years now. I’ve seen a lot.

    What I see, day in and day out, is how people mistreat each other. They lie, cheat, steal, exploit, and manipulate. It’s very common.

    A major purpose of the legal system is to regulate that sort of behavior. I think that it is essential to the preservation of civilization.

    I don’t think you have seen as much as you think you have. There is far more lying, cheating, stealing, and exploiting of people on the bottom rungs of our society than at the top. If you’ve ever worked at menial jobs or lived in crime-ridden neighborhoods, you will see low-wage workers or neighbors lying to people, cheating on their time cards, stealing from their company or neighbors, exploiting the less fortunate to gain advantage, and manipulating people.

    These are not phenomena that only occur at the top of our socio-economic system. Greed and arrogance occur at all levels of society, and probably more on the bottom than on the top. I’ve seen people who are below the poverty level express more contempt and racism toward other people than I’ve seen it from CEO’s of large companies. It doesn’t matter where you are on the food chain, bad human values express themselves at all levels. Feeling superior to others is only a relative thing. It doesn’t matter if you are the richest man in the world or have nothing to brag about, you can always find somebody lower than you.

    My experience confirms your experience Steven Seaward. Amazingly, if you watch t.v. or movies, they never show this reality.

    Adam Carolla does talk about it. Please ignore the commentary afterword.

    The guy doing meta-commentary on a partial snip of an interview, calling him an idiot, is the idiot. Carolla’s worked as a day laborer, framing houses, he didn’t just casually walk past a poor guy and derive his entire worldview looking at a poor guy over a cup of coffee, sauntering past him.

    Carolla’s been talking about this stuff for a long, long time, and he’s correct. There’s a million ways to get ahead, staying in the same gig without working toward a future, and spending time in that gig complaining about it and that rich people are evil never once, and never will, change the individual situation.

     

    Corolla is really sharp and he is giving out great advice. 

    My favorite thing he said is the local government out in California doesn’t care about anybody that doesn’t have a checking account. If you have a checking account, they are going to try to get money from you. If you don’t have a checking account, they leave you alone. It’s insane. He’s told so many crazy stories about the regulation of building contracting. Crazy. 

    • #32
  3. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Macho Grande' (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    What I see, day in and day out, is how people mistreat each other. They lie, cheat, steal, exploit, and manipulate. It’s very common.

    I can see how that would give one a jaded view of humanity . . .

    Sounds like law school.

    And being a lawyer. 

    I am a lawyer.

    The professional life of most lawyers is either cleaning up messes when things go wrong (litigation; often because people have behaved badly), or trying to anticipate where things might go wrong and preparing for the possibility that people will behave badly (detailed contract drafting, counseling and advising, etc.)

    In both cases (cleaning up messes, and trying to anticipate minimize future messes) we lawyers see mostly things that go wrong. Being cynical or jaded is an occupational hazard. 

    • #33
  4. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Macho Grande' (View Comment):

    No one is compelled to suck up.  You don’t like the boss?  Get a new job.  Start a business and become your own boss, and reward employees for sucking up to you find out for yourself what happens if you can’t make payroll this week.

    •  

    I watch videos about the business of some different industries that are very different from the industries in which I have worked, to learn more about how the economy works. One category I watch is about the long-haul trucking industry, mostly by truck drivers who range from employees to independent owner-operators. 

    Many trucking companies have terrible reputations on how they treat their drivers. Turnover is high.

    One driver got tired of being treated badly by trucking companies and decided to start her own trucking company that would treat drivers better. The company lasted less than two years. She (the owner) was very disappointed at how, despite her efforts to be “driver-focused,” so many drivers were dishonest with her, and how much they abused the company equipment. It became too hard for her to make money. 

    One of the owner-operators (a married couple who both drive) had a short-lived experience running a fleet with contract drivers. They also found many of the contract drivers were dishonest and abused their equipment. 

    Yet another who is an employee documents a schedule I would find intolerable, but he loves it. He has figured out how to work with the company’s systems to get the company what it wants, and to maximize what he the driver wants. 

    Dishonesty and abuse have been in human nature for a very long time. In a free economy that dishonesty and abuse can be manifest all over – up, down, and sideways. 

    • #34
  5. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):
    Dishonesty and abuse have been in human nature for a very long time. In a free economy that dishonesty and abuse can be manifest all over – up, down, and sideways. 

    My “sideways” comment reminded me that in my professional life. Abuse and dishonesty do not just go up and down the employer – employee hierarchy. They also infect transactions among peers. 

    As noted above I am a lawyer. I practice in business, and have always done preventative law – trying to anticipate and head off problems. Often by ensuring that business contracts are clearly written so all parties understand their obligations and what they should expect, to minimize the likelihood of a dispute arising later. 

    On a few occasions a business executive client would tell me that he didn’t trust the other party -that he was a lying scum who cheats everybody – and so my client wanted me to write an “ironclad” guarantee into the contract. I would tell him no matter how “ironclad” the contract, it is not going to turn a dishonest person into an honest person. If my client didn’t trust the other party, he was probably better off skipping that business transaction. 

     

    • #35
  6. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Macho Grande' (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    What I see, day in and day out, is how people mistreat each other. They lie, cheat, steal, exploit, and manipulate. It’s very common.

    A major purpose of the legal system is to regulate that sort of behavior. I think that it is essential to the preservation of civilization.

    This is the purpose of the government regulation that is criticized in the OP. Left to their own devices, we know what capitalists will do. They will rape the land, clear-cut the forests, pollute the waters, pump poisonous fumes into the air. They will exploit their workers.

    But I distrust you more than capitalists and I distrust the government slightly more than I distrust capitalists.

    That’s because capitalists are rational.

    For the most part.

    Rationality imparts a measure of predictability. The government and Jerry don’t have that going for them.

    Let’s not confuse capitalists with marketing.

    Ah, but the marketing department is supposed to be composed of uber-capitalists. Give the people what they want. Lately, they seem to have devolved into telling the people what they want, and as Lucasfilm execs can tell you after their extended box office bombing campaign, that ain’t easy.

    • #36
  7. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Percival (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    What I see, day in and day out, is how people mistreat each other. They lie, cheat, steal, exploit, and manipulate. It’s very common.

    A major purpose of the legal system is to regulate that sort of behavior. I think that it is essential to the preservation of civilization.

    This is the purpose of the government regulation that is criticized in the OP. Left to their own devices, we know what capitalists will do. They will rape the land, clear-cut the forests, pollute the waters, pump poisonous fumes into the air. They will exploit their workers.

    But I distrust you more than capitalists and I distrust the government slightly more than I distrust capitalists.

    That’s because capitalists are rational.

    For the most part.

    Rationality imparts a measure of predictability. The government and Jerry don’t have that going for them.

    Capitalists can fail, too, especially through being stupid.  That didn’t make them not capitalists.

    • #37
  8. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Macho Grande' (View Comment):

    AMD Texas (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    AMD Texas (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    It is possible to get ahead by exploiting those below you, you know. You can be a slumlord. You can sell booze. You can extend usurious and even extortionate credit.

    You can buy businesses, leverage them with excess debt, then declare bankruptcy when there’s a downturn and cancel pension and health care obligations. There are many other possibilities.

    That’s if you’re rich.

    If you’re not, then you probably have to suck up to your boss. It’s probably been a long time since you’ve been in such a position, Doc, if ever. Me too. But I think that it is the reality of the lives of most people.

    By suck up to your boss, do you mean do the things that your boss requires of you for your job?

    No, I also mean live in fear of your boss, having to put up with a boss who is a jerk or a petty tyrant. This is quite common, I think. I don’t suffer it myself, for which I am thankful.

    I think that the Ayn Randian glorification of capitalism is quite inaccurate.

    I have had bosses that I like and those that I didn’t. I would even go so far to say a couple that I didn’t like could be classified as jerks. That isn’t the same as living in fear or being impelled to suck up to them which I believe is much less common than you might given your job.

    No one is compelled to suck up. You don’t like the boss? Get a new job. Start a business and become your own boss, and reward employees for sucking up to you find out for yourself what happens if you can’t make payroll this week.

    Very few people’s bosses are directly in control of the finances.  Only the top person/people is/are.  Even if their boss – who may have several layers of bosses above him/her – is totally stupid, it may take a long time, if ever, for that to seriously affect the bottom line and the making of payroll.  By which time that boss may have moved on to damage some other company, and their responsibility at the previous company may go unnoticed.

    • #38
  9. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    Macho Grande’ (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    What I see, day in and day out, is how people mistreat each other. They lie, cheat, steal, exploit, and manipulate. It’s very common.

    I can see how that would give one a jaded view of humanity . . .

    Sounds like law school.

    And being a lawyer.

    I am a lawyer.

    The professional life of most lawyers is either cleaning up messes when things go wrong (litigation; often because people have behaved badly), or trying to anticipate where things might go wrong and preparing for the possibility that people will behave badly (detailed contract drafting, counseling and advising, etc.)

    In both cases (cleaning up messes, and trying to anticipate minimize future messes) we lawyers see mostly things that go wrong. Being cynical or jaded is an occupational hazard.

    Right, and physicians don’t see a lot of healthy people.

    • #39
  10. Macho Grande' Coolidge
    Macho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    Percival (View Comment):

    Macho Grande’ (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    What I see, day in and day out, is how people mistreat each other. They lie, cheat, steal, exploit, and manipulate. It’s very common.

    A major purpose of the legal system is to regulate that sort of behavior. I think that it is essential to the preservation of civilization.

    This is the purpose of the government regulation that is criticized in the OP. Left to their own devices, we know what capitalists will do. They will rape the land, clear-cut the forests, pollute the waters, pump poisonous fumes into the air. They will exploit their workers.

    But I distrust you more than capitalists and I distrust the government slightly more than I distrust capitalists.

    That’s because capitalists are rational.

    For the most part.

    Rationality imparts a measure of predictability. The government and Jerry don’t have that going for them.

    Let’s not confuse capitalists with marketing.

    Ah, but the marketing department is supposed to be composed of uber-capitalists. Give the people what they want. Lately, they seem to have devolved into telling the people what they want, and as Lucasfilm execs can tell you after their extended box office bombing campaign, that ain’t easy.

    I didn’t say it was competent marketing.  Pretty sure no one has.

    • #40
  11. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Macho Grande' (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    I’m going to make a more generic comment.

    I’m a civil litigation lawyer. I’ve been doing it for 26 years now. I’ve seen a lot.

    What I see, day in and day out, is how people mistreat each other. They lie, cheat, steal, exploit, and manipulate. It’s very common.

    A major purpose of the legal system is to regulate that sort of behavior. I think that it is essential to the preservation of civilization.

    This is the purpose of the government regulation that is criticized in the OP. Left to their own devices, we know what capitalists will do. They will rape the land, clear-cut the forests, pollute the waters, pump poisonous fumes into the air. They will exploit their workers. They will hire thugs to beat up their workers when those workers organize for decent treatment. They will create company towns in which people will live a life similar to indentured servitude. They will sell adulterated food and fake medicine.

    All of this happened in our country. These are the reasons that we have many of the laws and regulatory agencies against which Republicans love to rail.

    Laws and regulations are not perfect. Government does create some problems. It solves other problems.

    You consistently conflate capitalism with exploitation. It’s like shorthand for you. Let me tee something up.

    When you go to the store and buy a loaf of bread, at a price you think is fair (and you have approximately 1,000 options under the header “bread”), you buy your loaf and whistle your way out the door. Now here’s the question:

    Who lost in that transaction? Was someone beaten up, exploited, forced to live in a company town, were thugs in the aisles forcing you to buy ONLY this one loaf of bread?

    A mutual benefitting transaction is capitalism, both sides gain. We tend to think of things as zero-sum, vs. net increase in benefit.

    To me, Capitalism just represents the normal trading or bartering that people do with each other when they are not constrained by some government entity.  It doesn’t matter if you are in a Stone-Age Society or a millionaire’s paradise.

    What Jerry completely ignores (or is not aware of) is that the lying, stealing, cheating, manipulation etc… is ten times worse in Communist, Socialist, and Dictatorship societies than in capitalist societies.  Perhaps he is unfamiliar with what life is like in North Korea, China, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Cuba, etc…..

    • #41
  12. Macho Grande' Coolidge
    Macho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    Macho Grande’ (View Comment):

    No one is compelled to suck up. You don’t like the boss? Get a new job. Start a business and become your own boss, and reward employees for sucking up to you find out for yourself what happens if you can’t make payroll this week.

    •  

    I watch videos about the business of some different industries that are very different from the industries in which I have worked, to learn more about how the economy works. One category I watch is about the long-haul trucking industry, mostly by truck drivers who range from employees to independent owner-operators.

    Many trucking companies have terrible reputations on how they treat their drivers. Turnover is high.

    One driver got tired of being treated badly by trucking companies and decided to start her own trucking company that would treat drivers better. The company lasted less than two years. She (the owner) was very disappointed at how, despite her efforts to be “driver-focused,” so many drivers were dishonest with her, and how much they abused the company equipment. It became too hard for her to make money.

    One of the owner-operators (a married couple who both drive) had a short-lived experience running a fleet with contract drivers. They also found many of the contract drivers were dishonest and abused their equipment.

    Yet another who is an employee documents a schedule I would find intolerable, but he loves it. He has figured out how to work with the company’s systems to get the company what it wants, and to maximize what he the driver wants.

    Dishonesty and abuse have been in human nature for a very long time. In a free economy that dishonesty and abuse can be manifest all over – up, down, and sideways.

    This last line is my point, basically – capitalism, communism, Jedi-ism, I don’t give a crap.  You can’t “ism” out human nature, no matter how brutally you try, and baby, they didn’t just try.  

    But the free market, transparent transactions, will lead to both or multiple parties gaining.  Not in every case, but most people or companies don’t buy something they don’t value.  The funny thing is, having worked at a non-profit for 5 years (a college), I saw the same idiotic human nature, some really ugly and selfish sides, and they’re the same clowns who seem to carry an air of superiority about them through the magical nature of working in a monopolistic industry.

    • #42
  13. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Macho Grande' (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Macho Grande’ (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    What I see, day in and day out, is how people mistreat each other. They lie, cheat, steal, exploit, and manipulate. It’s very common.

    A major purpose of the legal system is to regulate that sort of behavior. I think that it is essential to the preservation of civilization.

    This is the purpose of the government regulation that is criticized in the OP. Left to their own devices, we know what capitalists will do. They will rape the land, clear-cut the forests, pollute the waters, pump poisonous fumes into the air. They will exploit their workers.

    But I distrust you more than capitalists and I distrust the government slightly more than I distrust capitalists.

    That’s because capitalists are rational.

    For the most part.

    Rationality imparts a measure of predictability. The government and Jerry don’t have that going for them.

    Let’s not confuse capitalists with marketing.

    Ah, but the marketing department is supposed to be composed of uber-capitalists. Give the people what they want. Lately, they seem to have devolved into telling the people what they want, and as Lucasfilm execs can tell you after their extended box office bombing campaign, that ain’t easy.

    I didn’t say it was competent marketing. Pretty sure no one has.

    But they all started doing it at the same time. “If you don’t buy this, you are a homophobic, sexist racist bigot.”

    At which point, the market wanders off to watch a football game.

    • #43
  14. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    Macho Grande’ (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    I’m going to make a more generic comment.

    I’m a civil litigation lawyer. I’ve been doing it for 26 years now. I’ve seen a lot.

    What I see, day in and day out, is how people mistreat each other. They lie, cheat, steal, exploit, and manipulate. It’s very common.

    A major purpose of the legal system is to regulate that sort of behavior. I think that it is essential to the preservation of civilization.

    This is the purpose of the government regulation that is criticized in the OP. Left to their own devices, we know what capitalists will do. They will rape the land, clear-cut the forests, pollute the waters, pump poisonous fumes into the air. They will exploit their workers. They will hire thugs to beat up their workers when those workers organize for decent treatment. They will create company towns in which people will live a life similar to indentured servitude. They will sell adulterated food and fake medicine.

    All of this happened in our country. These are the reasons that we have many of the laws and regulatory agencies against which Republicans love to rail.

    Laws and regulations are not perfect. Government does create some problems. It solves other problems.

    You consistently conflate capitalism with exploitation. It’s like shorthand for you. Let me tee something up.

    When you go to the store and buy a loaf of bread, at a price you think is fair (and you have approximately 1,000 options under the header “bread”), you buy your loaf and whistle your way out the door. Now here’s the question:

    Who lost in that transaction? Was someone beaten up, exploited, forced to live in a company town, were thugs in the aisles forcing you to buy ONLY this one loaf of bread?

    A mutual benefitting transaction is capitalism, both sides gain. We tend to think of things as zero-sum, vs. net increase in benefit.

    To me, Capitalism just represents the normal trading or bartering that people do with each other when they are not constrained by some government entity. It doesn’t matter if you are in a Stone-Age Society or a millionaire’s paradise.

    What Jerry completely ignores (or is not aware of) is that the lying, stealing, cheating, manipulation etc… is ten times worse in Communist, Socialist, and Dictatorship societies than in capitalist societies. Perhaps he is unfamiliar with what life is like in North Korea, China, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Cuba, etc…..

    BINGO 

    We don’t even come close to Ayn Rand style capitalism, starting with all of the Fed interference.

    For what it’s worth I’m getting really skeptical of fractional reserve banking, and our ability to run it.

    • #44
  15. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):
    Dishonesty and abuse have been in human nature for a very long time. In a free economy that dishonesty and abuse can be manifest all over – up, down, and sideways.

    My “sideways” comment reminded me that in my professional life. Abuse and dishonesty do not just go up and down the employer – employee hierarchy. They also infect transactions among peers.

    As noted above I am a lawyer. I practice in business, and have always done preventative law – trying to anticipate and head off problems. Often by ensuring that business contracts are clearly written so all parties understand their obligations and what they should expect, to minimize the likelihood of a dispute arising later.

    On a few occasions a business executive client would tell me that he didn’t trust the other party -that he was a lying scum who cheats everybody – and so my client wanted me to write an “ironclad” guarantee into the contract. I would tell him no matter how “ironclad” the contract, it is not going to turn a dishonest person into an honest person. If my client didn’t trust the other party, he was probably better off skipping that business transaction.

     

    Great advice Mr. Tabby. My father, may he rest in peace, used to advise me. “Son, sometimes the best business you can do is the business you choose not to do.”

    • #45
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