Resenting the Rich Is Because There Are Too Few Rich People Like This ID!
2006/9/13 10:54:37
This is yet another title that will earn the hatred of everyone—a title that neither the rich nor the non-rich will appreciate, one that pleases neither side. But classifying people by wealth is inherently tedious to begin with. Wealth—you can't bring it when you're born, and you can't take it when you die—a quintessential product of human fantasy. If you can't even see this clearly, your life has been lived in vain. Of course, the non-rich will say this is easy talk coming from comfort—if you can't even afford to see a doctor or put food on the table, what's the point of saying all this? People must first survive. If society's wealth divide has already caused some people's very survival to be threatened, then "Down with the local tyrants, redistribute the land!" is absolutely not an impossibility. This piece is certainly not written to fill in the chasm of wealth disparity—an objective phenomenon cannot be filled by subjective will. It merely uses this topic to raise the question of what attitude the wealthy should adopt.
Very frankly, by any country's standards, this ID is already rich. There's nothing to be shy about. I've never felt that being rich necessarily comes with some kind of original sin. The notion that the rich must have blood on their hands is quite absurd. Apart from a small portion of assets in personally occupied properties in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other cities, all of this ID's assets are allocated in stocks and futures. All of this ID's wealth was earned from stocks and futures. Trading is automatically taxed—you couldn't evade taxes even if you wanted to. If such assets are considered to have original sin, then original sin must be a compliment. This ID knows many people whom others go to great lengths to meet, but this ID has never thought of exploiting their power, because this ID simply doesn't need to: this ID doesn't do real estate, doesn't do manufacturing, doesn't want to be an official. Stocks and futures—especially on overseas exchanges—rely on intelligence and experience. Power is useless.
This ID can thrive under the capitalist system, yet this ID will write posts like "Defending Marx," because the transformation of social systems is not a matter of preference but an objective historical phenomenon. The inevitable demise of capitalism is as natural as the end of a bear market leading to a bull market. This ID sees no contradiction between defending "the inevitable demise of capitalism" and making loads of money from capitalism. If everyone goes out and makes loads of money from capitalism, the demise of capitalism will come sooner! To destroy capitalism, you must vigorously develop capitalism, let capitalism exhaust itself to death, and capitalism will naturally perish! If you can't even play capitalism's game well, screaming about capitalism's demise all day only reveals your incompetence and fantasy!
Among the rich, the most contemptible are those who paint money on their faces, revolving around money all day, having become money's slaves. Nowadays, there are far too many such rich people. Keeping mistresses and boy toys, acting arrogantly, even raising packs of running dogs like mainstream economists who howl "The age of the rich has arrived!"—it is precisely the proliferation of such people that leads to the cycle of "Down with the local tyrants, redistribute the land!" In this world, there is probably nothing more nauseating than capital accumulation built upon feudal dregs. "Down with the local tyrants, redistribute the land!" is an objective possibility—and through history, the subjective initiative of this most contemptible class of the rich has, time and again, amply turned this possibility into reality.
There's another kind of rich person—the "wealth brings leisure" crowd. These people play with so-called refined things like culture. Even if they keep mistresses or boy toys, they do it in the world of opera. Nowadays there are even more things to play with: antiques, fashion, film, pop music, etc. They manufacture trend after trend, creating all manner of capitalist opiates, giving the poor something to dream about—like the so-called "American Dream" and other fantasies—a reason to have hope. The stability of capitalist society owes great credit to these people. If the first type creates resentment toward the rich, this type creates fantasies of wealth. But one fact can never be concealed: buying opium costs money! Capitalism's opium is no exception. From this standpoint, the latter is even more despicable than the former!
In capitalist society, money merely gives you the possibility of freedom—at least you don't need to worry about meals like Marx did. And even standing outside of society and politics, purely exploring the meaning of individual life, life has nothing to do with rich or poor. People are first and foremost people, and only people—not poor people or rich people. If we must talk about the nonsense of "human nature," a society that causes "first and foremost people, and only people" to differentiate into poor and rich is certainly not a society that accords with human nature—because even if there is such a thing as human nature, human nature knows no wealth or poverty. Capitalist society is inhuman; all class-based societies are inhuman. A rich person who cannot transcend wealth, who cannot transcend the rich-poor divide, is merely a slave bound by wealth. From this standpoint, any charity based on the dichotomy of rich and poor is nothing but hypocrisy to maintain the very system that produces the divide—because true charity is the elimination of all systems that create poor and rich people!
缠中说禅 2006/9/14 12:00:39
[Anonymous] 士敏
2006-09-14 10:54:42
The OP wants to "eliminate all systems that create poor and rich people!"? That's probably just talk. Something that hasn't been accomplished in thousands of years—you think you have the solution? Equally no chance!
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The Earth hasn't died in billions of years, but the Earth will die!