Some people like to attribute the success of the wealthy largely to the efforts of the individual. Others like to attribute success to circumstances. But the stratospheric heights to which Americans’ wealth can grow are enabled first and foremost by a system that encourages a vast gulf between the richest and the poorest. Our socioeconomic system is based on people profiting not just on their merits and circumstances, but also at the expense of others.
It’s easier to see this principle at work on the international stage. Missives From Marx writes:
I pretty regularly hear people suggest how great America is compared to other nations. My initial response to hearing this sort of thing is the following: that’s kind of like saying that it seems a lot nicer to live in the plantation’s mansion, rather than in the slave quarters.
America doesn’t exist in isolation from other nations. Of course things are nicer in America, but that’s largely because of things like accumulation by dispossession (which I discussed here). We usually notice only one side of the coin—”America is great”—and ignore the other side—”what relations of exploitation and domination have we entered into that allow us to be so wealthy?”
People in America aren’t rioting because they have their bellies full and cable TV to watch—all thanks to an exploitative economic system that rapes the world to serve their interests.
So, you see a great plantation mansion, I see slave quarters.
You see $1 flip-flops, I see a sweatshop.
You can’t have one without the other.
It’s my belief that the pattern of exploitation that elevates America above foreign countries is also played out domestically, elevating the wealthy further and further above the poor. “As above, so below,” goes the saying. Patterns that play out in our interpersonal lives also play out in our communities, in the government, and on the international stage.
Capitalists sometimes argue against welfare or government-provided health care on the basis that poor people are poor because of their own choices, and therefore don’t deserve those things. Health care, food, shelter, and education must be the province of the rich, who have demonstrated their worthiness by becoming rich. And being rich means paying less to the people who produce the things that you have, so as to keep more for yourself. The concept of wealth cannot exist outside of a hierarchy in which those above deny control of resources to those below and keep those resources for themselves. So it’s incorrect to claim that those below are failing and those above are succeeding solely on their own merits. Or at least, it’s incorrect to suggest that those with equal merit have equal access to success.
Certainly individual merit factors in, but there is an overriding context in which individuals succeed or fail. In his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel
I believe that people are fundamentally compassionate, and that the “individual merit” argument is at least in part a means of rationalizing the act of denying basic necessities to others. If we truly operated in a system where people were free to succeed or fail based on their merits, then we would owe them nothing. But we operate in a system where each person’s gains are built on the enforced loss of others; where those who are higher up use their considerable resources and influence to reinforce their position even when they no longer earn it; and where the major role of merit is how high up on the exploitation-hierarchy you fall. Given all that, and given that we continue to perpetuate the exploitation-hierarchy system, what moral obligation do we have to those below us on the hierarchy?
