The Unreachable Carrot
Perhaps you’ve seen an old 1 panel cartoon showing a rider convincing a horse to move forward by dangling a carrot in front of it. Since the carrot is tied to the end of a stick held by the rider atop the horse, the horse will keep moving forward even though it will never reach the ever moving carrot. Today that cartoon seems to be reality as our post-industrial society moves through the end stages of Capitalism. The average American worker has one of these unreachable carrots dangled in front of him or her every single day of his or her life. The problem is that, unlike the protagonist in Camus’ “Myth of Sisyphus,” the American worker is never able to “rise above” ceaseless toil. Sisyphus was condemned to his fate for eternity, the average American worker, with any luck, will only have to chase that carrot for 30 or 40 years.
There’s another, major, difference between the average American worker and Camus’ Sisyphus, the worker toils away just to be able to survive. Sisyphus’ toil is an eternal punishment, the worker’s toil is the only path to survival and, if truly lucky, a bit more than needed to survive. To keep the mirage working, the 1% barrage workers with fantastic stories of “Captains of Industry” who managed to flourish under Capitalism without so much as a guilty thought (not that they ever mention that part). We’re regaled with fictions of men and women who pulled themselves up “by their bootstraps.” The truth is that there is, in fact, a word in the English language that fully explains the “success” of folks who didn’t inherit vast wealth - the word is “luck.”
People like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg were LUCKY. One of the reasons I know this to be true is every, single, one of them is devoid of genuine concern for their fellow humans and single-mindedly focused on extracting as much wealth from the workers as they possibly can. Put in more tender terms - they’re all but literally heartless. I do want to be fair to them as much as I can so I’ll add in the fact they’re all afraid, very, very afraid. Deep down they know they’ve never had to toil away doing physically hard work for a large part of their adult lives and the fact they are profiting off the hard work of literal millions never crosses their minds. Often, they believe some “idea” they had makes them worthy of receiving literal billions of dollars generated by the people who make the “idea” reality.
Having previously worked in the Information Technology arena for a number of years I’ve been lucky to meet some brilliant folks. One of them had the opportunity to do some work with Microsoft and meet Paul Allen - the OTHER founder of Microsoft. Their opinions of Bill Gates boiled down to agreeing that he could pickup a pizza and bring it back to the office still piping hot. Now, I’m not saying that trick has no value. More than once I had to work long hours into the night as some large, new program was being rolled out literally across the country and I can assure you that someone bringing in a great, piping hot pizza is important. It is also NOT worth billions of dollars.
The reality is that billionaires are simply NOT good people as, if they were good people, they wouldn’t be billionaires. NO ONE EARNS a billion dollars, just try doing the basic math involved if you believe otherwise. People certainly do find ways to accumulate billions however that process invariably requires underpaying workers, overcharging consumers or otherwise harming others and, perhaps most importantly, an utterly baseless belief that one is somehow better and more deserving than every other human being on the planet.
Billionaires are living proof that capitalism as an economic system is doomed to fail. The moment that “capitalists” start believing they are entitled to be compensated by those who work for them in addition to those who buy from them is the moment they become obsessed with “more.” More money, more yachts and, most recently, more rocket powered vehicles that will take them to space. They have no interest in bettering the life of the average human and will do nothing that threatens to reduce their unearned wealth. Billionaires are the ultimate narcissists and literally willing to increase human suffering to increase their wealth.
Billionaires and their ilk are not only like the carrot dangling rider mentioned above, they represent a rider who will never care for the beast of burden upon which they depend even if it means the horse will die from hunger and thirst. They are far too short-sighted to understand the obvious consequences of their failures. All that matters to them is getting AND keeping more, more, more. Unfortunately for them, with every unnecessary dollar they obtain, their humanity, their MOST important quality, decreases. I have little doubt they also typically suffer from serious feelings of inadequacy. Take away their billions and what’s left will be a hollow, broken shell of a human being with, almost literally, nothing to offer their fellow humans. Indeed, even of those who inherited such wealth, there is little they can offer as simple humans to the rest of our species. Perhaps it’s time for the rest of us to finally level the playing field.