Adam · Smith's invisible hand told us: mediocre people in the pursuit of private interests but also to achieve the maximization of social benefits. Our ancestors did not distinguish the crowds from the poor and the rich. Therefore, we can infer that the rich pursue their own private interests and realize the social interests. How do the rich get rich ? What? We can talk about why the rich are rich.
Economics believes that the elements get their marginal rewards. Therefore, apart from the non-mainstream reasons such as being rich and rich, illegally getting rich and relying on luck to win and gaining wealth, why the rich can become rich can think from the following three perspectives.
Hard work and getting rich is the first explanation for the emergence of the rich. Hard work makes one person work for two people. What they get is the reward of two people. It is a matter of course that it is better than others. And by diligence and getting rich, wealth is based on its creation of social wealth, is it beneficial to society or not to society? The answer is self-evident.
The second reason for the rich to appear is capital, that is, to make money with money. This is a way of getting rich that everyone is more resentful. It seems that these rich people are the parasites of society. They do not work, but they need to take away part of their social wealth for their own consumption. But we can use "counterfactual reasoning" to illustrate the value of capital. Suppose now that the rich man’s grandfather does not save himself and accumulate capital, then the rich will have no way to use the money left by his grandfather to make money. Of course, it is a great welfare loss for the grandson, but for the grandfather now For the workers who have accumulated capital for production, they will also face the employment of sub-optimal jobs and even unemployment. It can be seen that it is also beneficial to the country to make money with money.
The third reason why the rich become rich is because the rich have entrepreneurial talent or talent. The contribution of entrepreneurs to economic development, with the deepening of reform and opening up, everyone's opinions have become more consistent, and for the wealth of people with different talents, everyone can be calm, after all, bring Lenovo into the brilliant Liu Chuanzhi and Liu Xiang, an Asian flying man on the track and field, is a dragon among people. Who are they rich? If they are not rich, we will not enjoy the convenience of science and technology brought by Lenovo, and we will not realize the national glory that Liu Xiang brings to the people.
If the rich accumulate wealth in the above three legitimate ways and enjoy a much higher standard of living than the average resident, they will create incentives for other residents to work hard and encourage the whole society to form good competition and classes that are conducive to progress. A fluid atmosphere to avoid social stagnation.
While denying the above three ways to get rich, I hope to eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor from the root cause. The result can only be a big pot of rice, all of which are poor rather than equal, and China in the planned economy illustrates this point.
The rich people in China are not happy with philanthropy, and they spend a lot of money on conspicuous consumption. For example, the full house of Xi’an and the high-priced dinner in Hangzhou have been stirred up by the news media. They are rich and unworthy, and there is no sense of social responsibility. The hatred of the society has also become more and more fierce. There is no doubt that the rich are very important to the harmony of society. But the conspicuous consumption of the rich also has positive value to society. This is not something that many "angry youths" can recognize. The "conservation paradox" revealed by the fable's fables reflects the huge reaction of consumption to production, and the "high consumption tax on luxury goods" introduced in the microeconomics elasticity theory is the ones that are most hurt by the production of luxury goods. The workers also illustrate this from another perspective.
The value of conspicuous consumption is not only in the above two points, but it is also an important driving force for long-term economic growth. The theory of modern economic growth is to analyze the motivations that determine the long-term growth of the economy from the perspective of production function (supply side), and to regard consumption as a negative factor in the accumulation of capital. Conspicuous consumption is of course more negative. But when we enjoy the benefits of economic growth, we should consider who is paying for technological innovation (demand side)? Economies of scale, doing middle school, etc. are important reasons why we can enjoy modern high-tech at a low price. For example, in just a short period of ten years, mobile phones have become a popular necessity from the flamboyant products of the rich, and their functions have also increased. However, if there is no need for the rich to show off, and willing to pay a very high price for high-quality and high-grade products, the manufacturer will not have the incentive to invest in high initial cost to develop mobile phones and upgrade mobile phone functions. Economies of scale and middle school have become "water months". As ordinary people, we can't enjoy the convenience brought by mobile phones. In this sense, when we enjoy the benefits of technological progress, the rich are Pay for us. Therefore, Hayek believes that “as long as social stratification persists and every step of the income pyramid is occupied by people in a reasonable way, then it is difficult to deny that the poor or the disadvantaged will materially benefit. The fact that others are getting rich first (Principle of Free Order, p. 51). The goods and services enjoyed by the general population are now much higher than the rich people of 20 years ago and even 10 years ago, which are influenced by the supply and demand factors that promote technological progress.
Therefore, conspicuous consumption is also driving social progress while causing waste of social wealth. Excessive restrictions on the consumption of the rich limit the motivation for social progress.
While we are sure of the value of the rich, we cannot afford to move to the rich. We mainly oppose the following two rich people.
First, the source of wealth is not justified, that is, the accumulation of wealth through violence, power and private. In layman's terms, it is a way of accumulating wealth by dividing the cake rather than increasing the size of the cake. This approach is very harmful to society.
For those who are hardworking and rich, if their hard earned income will be robbed by others with violence and rights, then it will reduce the level of their efforts, or increase the protection of their income, the result of both is a cake Getting smaller and smaller.
The power of example is endless. When young people in society see that there are ways to obtain wealth through improper means, many of them will give up the idea of hard work and put these improper means into practice. In this way, the society will fall into the turmoil of “violent violence” and less and less wealth.
In order to eliminate the uneasiness of entrepreneurs, many economists have proposed not to pursue the legality of the existing Chinese entrepreneurs' first bucket of gold, but focus on the current operation and future development. This view has certain rationality, because from the current perspective, the “speculation” of a large number of entrepreneurs in the initial stage does not conform to the law under the planned economy, but it is consistent with the requirements of entrepreneurs in the market economy. The law will pursue the responsibilities of these entrepreneurs, and their enthusiasm will certainly be affected. But there are also some entrepreneurs who started their lives through violence and power for personal gain. If they are not held accountable, they will give future generations the expectation that even if I start by violence and power for personal gain, I will be able to escape for a while. Naturally whitened. Therefore, no one can be tolerant of those who start by violence and power for personal gain.
Second, use the wealth you have to gain unjust enrichment, such as restricting competition and restricting the flow of social classes. The value of money lies in its purchasing power, and purchasing power is not only reflected in the purchase of legitimate goods and services, but also in its ability to purchase power. Buying power through money is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when property rights are not protected. For example, some rich people do not rumor that they are trying to become members of the CPPCC or NPC deputies to protect their legal property from illegal infringement, but Mastering power (both legal and illegal) also means that it also has the ability to gain greater economic benefits through power, which is clearly unfair to other members of society and can cause The unfairness of the starting point of competition limits competition and the survival of the fittest, which in turn hinders the rational flow of social classes. Therefore, while strengthening the protection of the legitimate income of the rich, we should also be alert to the act of purchasing power with money.
“ Blocking the progress of the leader will soon become a hindrance to the progress of all the followers ” (Hayik). Blind enemies will ultimately harm the interests of the rich and the blind, and the rich will blindly make the whole society in a state of poverty. But we must also pay attention to the legitimacy of the source of wealth of the rich and the legitimacy of the use of wealth, and promote the rich to become the driving force of social progress.
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