Our country seems obsessed with celebrities and stardom. I know I’m not the first to make this clichéd observation, but some minor research into this subject really convinced me. With a little help from a website called Celebrity Net Worth (http://www.therichest.org/celebnetworth/), I tracked the estimated wealth of our nation’s finest.
Reality TV favorite Kim Kardashian, for
instance, is worth an estimated $38,000,000 while Miley Cyrus, the 19-year-old Hannah
Montana star, is worth just over $100,000,000. Justin Bieber, the 18-year-old
Canadian tween sensation who released a total of 3 albums in his lengthy career, is
worth around $110,000,000. Rapper Jay-Z is worth an
estimated $475,000,000 while Madonna, the quintessential 80s it-girl is worth a
mere $200,000,000 more than the Queen of England. With these numbers, our
current President wouldn’t even make the cut, possessing a mere $11.9 million.
Now I don’t mean to harp on these few particular individuals
because there are so many fitting examples out there, but do you honestly think that
their contributions merit these kinds of earnings? I understand self-made businessmen like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin who made their fortune
while somehow benefiting society, but
I cannot understand those who struck it rich because of a technicality.
Many of my generation's celebrities have had one or more of the following factors that "made" them in our society:
1) A PR team that could make buzz from a guy refueling at a 7/11
2) A manager-parent who vicariously lives through their
child’s successes while reaping 10% of the profits (Kris Kardashian, Joe Simpson)
3) A keen ability to
appeal to our guilty pleasures (Our voyeuristic fancy of reality TV)
4) A depressing need
to obsess and follow someone or something (How else do you explain Justin Bieber's 25,000,000 tweet followers to Bill Clinton's 9,000?)
You all probably know the saying, "Show me who your friends are, and I will show you who your are." Could that saying not be modified to say "Show me who you reward, and I will show you who you value?" If so, then what does our society value?
Mmm...."self-made billionaires" are not exactly major contributors to the society (I call them bloodsuckers.) Most of their "cool-liberal-techie" billions are made from engineers who slave away to design new ideas for the company without reaping a profit or the actual slaves in countries with no labor laws who make the products with no reward. Both "self-made billionaires" and celebrities are on the same level - they rob working people/middle class people of the money they deserve for their ideas and labor and they profit from this. Mmmm I take that back, at least celebrities are entertaining, while businessmen are simply there to make money of ideas they don't have just because they got start up capital at some point. I say any society organized around "profit making" over the hard labor and pure intelligence, and that lets any people starve starving and shelterless in the street is not worth living in.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, perhaps I didn't give the right examples of people who earned money while benefiting the public. I had a tough time of coming up with examples. However, I don't think its completely right to say that businessmen and tech innovators bring no advantages to society. Individuals like Sergey Bren, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did revolutionize technology and create processes that were virtually non-existent. Even if some of them did practice unfair competition, etc., they still delivered a viable, concrete product that is used by many. And even if it wasn't them but the workers beneath them who created the mentioned products, Bren, Jobs, and Gates were still the ones with the insight to harness these people's abilities. An engineer may be a brilliant innovator but he needs somebody with the business acumen to find funding for, promote and ultimately sell the product. As to your claim that celebrities are entertaining, I would like to argue that that is a very subjective statement. What one person may find entertaining the other may find dull or in poor taste.
DeleteI would also like to counter this comment which you made: "(their) millions made from engineers who slave away to design new ideas for the company without reaping a profit or the actual slaves in countries with no labor laws who make the products with no reward. Both "self-made billionaires" and celebrities are on the same level - they rob working people/middle class people of the money they deserve for their ideas and labor and they profit from this". I would like to point out that a) nobody is forcing these engineers to work for these tech billionaires. They do so of their own free will and because they feel that the salary which they are offered outweighs the benefits of working for themselves. Many tech companies such as Google are actually incredibly good to their employees and are consistently ranked as some of the best companies to work for.
ReplyDeleteb) The third world "slave" labor which you refer to is likewise not involuntary. The Chinese workers who work for Apple Inc., for instance, do so because the wages are higher than they would earn working elsewhere. Granted, workers' rights may be severely lacking. However, you cannot say that they are forced to work under these conditions. These people do so because under the economic cost v. benefit model, the monetary compensation outweighs the job's drawbacks.
Finally self-made billionaires don't rob the middle class/working poor of their hard-earned money in Capitalist Democracies. Last time I checked, anyone is able to start a business in the U.S. and make a profit. If people choose to work under someone, they have to live with the consequence of giving over one's work/innovations to their employer. This doesn't just happen in tech companies but places like public universities, as well. If you are a professor who makes a scientific breakthrough while working at a university, a large % of the profits from that discovery will go to the university. That's just how it works.
People working in countries where the regime does not allow them to ask for higher wages don't have the ability to garner higher wages. They have always lived in this inherent communist society where the common people have little say and the corrupt politicians who are supposed to be representing the people instead have secret stash funds that no one knows about until they get caught. How can you explain a country that has the 2nd largest economy in the world having a per capita GDP less than Peru.
ReplyDeleteAlso when talking about all these billionaires it sometimes is forgotten that they don't actually are billionaires in real dollars, but based on the worth of their stock.
Also, forgot to mention that all these companies that are hardware based don't have actual factories in Asia. Instead they are contracted out to companies such as Foxconn where because of the poor socio-economic conditions there was a time a year or so ago that factory workers turned to committing suicide because it would allow their families to receive death benefits. In the end China is still a communist regime and while the jobs at a company that makes products for the Apple's and Google's of the world does pay better than they would make working in their hometowns it truly is not voluntary as you have stated. Desperation can be a very persuasive force when making life decisions but instead of being a billionaire or a celebrity whose sources of income include endorsing products of companies that were founded by billionaires wouldn't it make sense to increase the economic balance of quality of live of its workers, whether directly employed or working for a subcontractor, so they can enjoy a similar standard of living. Here is an interesting article:
ReplyDeletehttp://sacom.hk/archives/947
While it can be said the world is not perfect, we here in the United States are somewhat to blame since mostly being oblivious to the rest of the world and the conditions that citizens of impoverished countries try and live just so we can get the newest electronics gadget. Are you going to be the one to tell Jay-Z that he shouldn't accept that 20 million dollar endorsement from Hewlett Packard because their factories in Malaysia are basically just sweatshops where management only cares in meeting production quotas no matter the cost? In the end-run do you think that they really care?
Orwell stated in 1984 that his vision of a utopian society is one where everyone has a equal distribution of wealth, but until we can remove corruption and the inherent greed that faces a vast majority of the politicians of this planet there is little chance that there will be a change to the better of the common man.
Dear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteYou make many valid points in your argument. I have checked out your claims that Peru has a higher avg. GDP per capita than China and they seem to be dead-on. However, that difference is only about $1,000.
In regards to the state of China's workers, I will not pretend to be ignorant about the inherent injustice of their plight. However, as unfair as these companies' practices may be, you cannot ignore their positive impact on China's economy. Due to their investments, China has steadily developed a strong middle class and improved the general quality of life of the masses (Compare their current standards of living to those under the Maoist Regime. Moreover, this growth in the economy led to a less direct though no less evident promotion of a free economy in the Communist state.
Overall, although a lot of your arguments make sense, I feel that they are a tad bit idealistic. Yes, it would be a pretty picture if poverty and corruption were eradicated from this Earth, but to be honest, what are the chances of that occurring? How common is it for those in power to step back and say, "Whoa, maybe I should stop being such a schmuck and give the underlings a chance to succeed?" Generally, very rarely if ever. There are some economic realities that we do have to face and which we cannot wish away. As long as there is a market for these products, they will continue to be produced at the cheapest cost possible.
Its very easy for us to proclaim our sympathy for the plight of the Chinese worker, but what are any of us really doing to stop it? Do you realize how difficult and financially burdensome it would be to live for just one year without products made in China? Our economy is so globalized that this option is realistically no longer feasible.
And yes, I agree that we are to blame for our overzealous consumerism in the Western World. However, this behavior is not a rare occurrence. All great powers have taken advantage of others at one point or another (Rome, Imperial China, British Empire, etc.). If were weren't taking advantage of China, some other state would.
Despite their many faults, you cannot deny that entrepreneurs and innovators have been of some use to society and the world at large. Many of their inventions improved or in some instances, saved lives across the globe. Most celebrities today, however, are for a lack of a better word, pretty useless entertainers who leave as quickly as the arrive, leaving very little of importance behind them.
Also,
ReplyDeletehere's an interesting article about Foxconn from the Economist you might like.
http://www.economist.com/node/16231588
I agree with several of your points and wanted to check some figures and that the Chinese middle class in about 20 years will be around 1.4 billion people. While there are always going to be exceptions to the norm in terms of entertainers who have become "extinct" and have no lasting value you might forget that because that one Chinese doctor saw a picture on some website (probably censored) where the entertainer is wearing a Rolex watch and sporting a Louis Vuitton purse that strives that doctor to spend her discretionary income to purchase the same purse in China the entertainer is in fact helping out the middle class because the want (not need) of high-end items has caused the middle class of China to demand higher wages.
ReplyDeleteIt is not bad being idealistic either.