[QUOTE=thomas;47520]Huh?
I can prosper by providing an amazing service or product that causes others to also prosper and have less suffering.
You say you come from a very wealthy family. Is that at the expense of the poor? Are others suffering because of your wealth?
If so, I think you know what you need to do.[/QUOTE]
Well, my entire family back in India had two sources of wealth. Our first was our ancestry. My father’s side of my entire family is descended from a line of Hindu warrior kings called Rajputs. My mother’s family is descended from a line of wealthy landlords. Our ancestors were wise enough to not squander our wealth. This doesn’t have to do with capitalism.
The second source of our wealth was one of my relative’s (some complicated sort of relation) business. He was a bright man and got a full ride to Harvard. Unfortunately, he couldn’t go since his family (not directly related to ours) didn’t want to pay for it. So eventually started some sort of steel industry. And this Thomas, is where capitalism begins. All that hoopla involving the production of steel and so forth requires that one provides some sort of cheap labor, someone provide a cheap source of materials, and so forth. This creates an uneven distribution of wealth and monopolization and etc, etc. Now he was an honest man and tried to conduct as fairly as possible, but I do not doubt that he had to make some underhanded deals at certain times. Thats the nature of doing business. Out competing your competitors…
Are others suffering because of my wealth? You misunderstand what we are saying. At the moment, no one is suffering because of me having a few extra $$ in my pocket. We are saying the [B]entire process[/B] involved in your parents getting that $$ and $$ getting into your pocket has immoral foundations.
As for my relative (if you have been keeping track of my posts on my family history), he is the person who sent my dad to America to make him realize the value of hard work, integrity, education, and etc. He is the one that is responsible for the well being of my entire family. But guess what? He was influenced by some greedy “friends” (well after the success of his business and his great accumulation of wealth) of his who convinced him to operate some sort of underhanded sugar/molasses business, where the illegal product was to be distributed cheaply among the masses (it was a harmful one) in order to profit. I am sad to say that such a man with high morals and ethics agreed…and if I remember correctly, the night that he decided to go somewhere to finalize the plans was the night that he had an accident…and died. And I was a little boy when this all happened; I remember the anguish, the shock of discovering the nature of the business he was about to get into, the rites…All sentimentalism aside, such is the nature of capitalism and the cycle of suffering…