The Price of Entry

     Most of us like to think that the price of entry into society is our labor, mental or physical. Recently, I realized that you could just as easily argue that the price of entry into society isn't our labor, it's our money, be it in cash, land, or the services rendered. Everything costs money, so if you work for free that means that you can't have a house, utilities, or food unless you have another job that pays you. I know that money is the incentive to work, but if that's the case, then why do we charge for necessities. You could just as easily incentivize work by having luxuries that people want, but even in the United States land and food costs money. 

     Money, in my mind, reveals the truth behind out society; all work is not equal. I'm writing my thoughts right now, and posting them knowing that nobody will read them, and because I'm not getting any money from this, nobody considers this to be work, even though I'm using my brain to write coherent sentences. My mother does both sewing and accounting, but she only gets paid for accounting work, so that's the job she says that she has. All over the internet, I've seen people writing stories, making games, and doing other artistic endeavors knowing they aren't getting paid a cent, but because they'll never get rich, no one thinks of what they do as work. 

    In my mind, there's no excuse for building a society around money. It means that the jobs that need doing, menial jobs like cleaning and maintenance or blue collar jobs like construction, aren't popular because they don't pay as much as jobs like software designer or CEO. It means that the people who work the most, the poor people who don't have access to high paying jobs, get rewarded the least and excluded from society for factors that have nothing to do with work ethic or skill. It means that, ironically, the ones who get venerated are the ones who didn't work to earn their money at all. No billionaire in the world, living or dead, got their money through hard work or skill. They got it primarily through investing, by buying smaller companies and selling them once they got bigger, and from what I hear every billionaire alive had parents who were millionaires. The idea that anyone can become a self-made person anymore is a lie, and I don't think it was ever true in the first place. 

    I grew up in a capitalist system, I know that it can bring great luxuries, but at some point somebody has to point out that the entire system is based on a lie. The system is based on this idea that if you work hard and are skilled, you can accomplish great things. Nobody mentions, because nobody wants to know, that how far you're allowed to get in this system depends entirely on who your parents are and how much money you can inherit. What this means is that capitalism is a system where everyone can fail, but almost no one can succeed. It also means that for ninety percent of those trapped in a capitalist mindset, success, primarily in business, is the only goal worth pursuing, and if that means that you have to lie and cheat to get there, then so be it. 

     It shouldn't be controversial to say that we should all be guaranteed food, clothing, and safe housing. It shouldn't be controversial to say that in this day and age we shouldn't have homelessness or starvation. It shouldn't be controversial to say that we're entitled to a decent standard of living, no matter who we are or what we choose to do. I know that that varies from person to person, and that my expectations are a lot lower than most. I also know that isn't an excuse to do nothing, and nothing is all that we seem to be capable of doing. 

     I know that most of my posts amount to nothing more than screaming into the void until the void yells at me to shut up, but I truly believe that what we have now isn't just unsustainable, it's outright inhumane. I'm one of those who believes that we should have multiple paths to success, but there's only one path to success, and it's the path that used to look like it was painted in gold. This is me asking for more, for something that's not wealth or prosperity, but something that's meaningful, real, and meant to last forever. Surely we can dream of a world that doesn't cost money, time, and energy. Surely, there's something more for everyone.