Didn’t The Rich Help Make America Great, Too?.?
Didn’t the Rich Help Make America Great, Too?.
In a recent campaign speech, Sen. Hillary Clinton said, “It is not rich people who made America great, it is hardworking Americans.” If you are rich, or know someone who is rich, this statement might strike you as extremely odd.
When used in the same sentence, the terms “rich” and “hardworking” make for redundant prose. The rich are frequently driven by a relentless work ethic that causes them to toil extremely long hours in their chosen professions. Successful entrepreneurs, in fact, are rarely successful retirees, given the certain high they get from working hard. And unless they’re among the small percentage of Americans who inherited their wealth, they have become successful — and rich — only because they have solved previously unmet market needs.
Indeed, contrary to the perception that the rich exploit their way to wealth, the surest path to riches involves fulfilling the desires of the vast majority of people who are not rich. For that alone, the rich are central to what has made America great. If you are in doubt about this fact, why not revisit a little business history.
That John D. Rockefeller, forever synonymous with the word “rich,” named his company Standard Oil was no accident. At the time, the kerosene that Americans used to light their homes claimed an average of 6,000 deaths per year. But his consolidation of the previously inefficient and unwieldy kerosene industry made for a commodity that was increasingly accessible and safe for all Americans to use. Safe and efficient became the new standard.
And while Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb, he created the first commercially viable incandescent bulb for the masses. In founding Edison Electric, thanks to financing from the very rich J.P. Morgan and the affluent Vanderbilt family, he made plain that “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.”
Edison’s electricity innovations of course threatened Standard Oil’s kerosene products with obsolescence, but with Henry Ford’s founding of his eponymous car company in 1903, there was soon an even greater need for oil byproducts. Ford, who died a very rich man, created the Model T in 1908 with the average American in mind. And sure enough, the $825 price tag in 1908 fell every year thereafter, thus enabling more and more Americans to experience the freedom that comes with motorized transportation.
See the progression? One entrepreneurs’ innovation leads to more innovation and more rich entrepreneurs. The story continues . . .
With Americans increasingly traveling by car, Howard Johnson created a roadside restaurant chain of the same name in 1925. By 1952 it was the largest restaurant chain in the world — one that included affordable lodging for an American population on the go. Recognizing that there was room for more entrants in this space, Ray Kroc bought the small McDonald’s chain of restaurants and arguably made it the best-known brand name in the world.
Then, as America’s middle class grew, consumer needs expanded, opening the door for Sam Walton who in 1962 founded the first Wal-Mart in Bentonville, Arkansas. While Walton’s creation made him America’s richest man, he enriched his customer base by offering previously inaccessible goods not only at low prices, but eventually the lowest prices possible. To this day, Wal-Mart shoppers get a “raise” every time they walk into one of these stores.
More modernly, we have our mega-moguls in the technology space. Bill Gates’s creation of Microsoft made computer-operating software available to the masses while enabling both individuals and businesses to become exponentially more efficient. And the fact that computers are increasingly the norm in businesses, classrooms, and homes is in no small part due to Michael Dell’s innovations with inventory management. Dell made hardware that was once unique, ubiquitous.
Notably, our rich entrepreneurs didn’t stop improving our lives with their commercial genius. From Rockefeller to Ford to Gates, they have established foundations that have and will continue to tackle the problems of education, poverty, and health that vex us to this day. And for tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, the wealth accumulated by our business forebears will serve as capital for new innovations that will continue to make our lives better and more fulfilling.
Hillary Clinton wants to distinguish between the rich and the hardworking. But the two are not mutually exclusive. And while the senator is correct in lauding the efforts of industrious Americans, she is unwise to demean the staggering efforts of the vital few rich who have done so much to make America great.
Hillary is simply trying to win the election by appealing to the voters. Yes, the rich helped too. How do you think the hardworking average American got a loan or got paid? The rich helped others develop things that we wouldn’t otherwise have. Your car wouldn’t work without the rich. It is very expensive to get that hard to reach oil or natural gas. It is expensive to research the materials needed for the latest advances in hard drives and computer components. Someone needed to invest in all that. No, I wouldn’t vote for Hillary. She stifles investors, doctors, engineers by wanting everyone to live off the government. Russia already found out that doesn’t work.
Many rich people supported the revolution for economic reasons. One of my ancestors was very active in financing the revolution, and you will find his signature on a lot of continental currency. He risked his life but he did it in hopes of reaping rewards himself every bit as much as for a new nation.
I don’t like Hillary, not even a little, but she is correct on this one.
Those who become rich do so more by random happenstance than any other reason with the possible exception of those who disregard the law and human values. Many are good people. Had fate decreed that some other person end up with the chain of events that made them rich, that person might have been good too.
Your concept of the staggering efforts of the rich is really kind of funny.
Two things…
First: Stop talking about Hillary. I grow weary of the name and so long as you and people like you continue using it, we wont hear about anybody else.
…and…
Second: Yes, the rich helped make this country great. People who worked hard and became successful became rich. Not everyone who is rich in America was born that way- even Oprah.
Americans, rich or not made this country great!
Yes, and they will make it great again when we tax them to pay for our nationalized healthcare…thanks guys.
You’re darned right they did!
You are leaving some facts out of your story.
To start with, Henry Ford was a communist or a Nazi, I forget which. But his political tendencies were anti-American.
Rockefeller dumped his entire fortune into buying all the oil reserves in America. He had done so to monopolize the lamp oil industry. Whale oil had been used for centuries as lamp oil because it burned clean and odorless. But, whales were disappearing, and he saw an opportunity to corner the market in lamp oil. Edison and the lightbulb killed his scheme.
Because of Edison, Rockefeller faced financial ruin. That is until the advent of the internal combustion engine. It’s a little recognized fact today that the first internal combustion engines were originally designed to run on corn oil, not refined crude oil.
Rockefeller, in order to create a market for his oil, bought up every patent on every internal combustion engine that did not run with refined crude oil. He buried those patents, making them unavailable for production.
Rockefeller’s company, Standard Oil, became the first company broken up by the federal government as a monopoly. Rockefeller was well known as being very underhanded in business and would stop at nothing to eliminate any of his competition. He was not a good person to highlight in your question as an ideal of the upstanding rich who contributed to America. Rockefeller destroyed the fortunes of many people while building his own. It was because of Rockefeller and his practices that major laws like the Clayton act were passed.
Yes they did.
I believe however, that John Tamny stated it better.
You make a valid point, and the quote was less than ideal to be sure. However, there is an increasing divide between the haves and the have nots in our country. This is not solely attributable to “hard work”. Some of the hardest working people in our nation’s history have never been successful economically. However, this should not detract from the contributions of our nation’s miners, construction workers, teachers, etc. I do not appreciate Sen. Clinton’s divisiveness from the opposite angle, but I agree with her that policy has been skewed too far in favor of the wealthiest Americans. It is a spectrum, and to call Hillary a socialist is to ignore the realities facing our nation. A valid question though.
We are constantly reminded that the gap between the rich and poor grows ever wider, and the middle class is shrinking, mostly downward. A bottom-line profit that used to satisfy the top tier in industry is no longer satisfactory for the greedy ones. When management makes over 400 times that of the lowly laborer, the gap is truly extreme. Unions that have, in the past, been necessary for safe and equitable laborers now is much like the corporations. Of course we need the rich to own the corporations that hire, but we need them here, where Americans work. We are getting a good taste of cheaper products coming from China that we can’t even safely import to eat or use! Tell me, for instance, how much cheaper “Barbie” and her lead-painted accessories are such a boon to America. And then, count how many people lost their jobs when Mattel moved to Mexico and China! I don’t think the Republican party can do anything about it…maybe the Democrats can. We’ll see!
The rich is why we are great. they reinvest into the economy at profound levels. they create the jobs for other hardworking Americans, and the competition between companies is why the “hardworking” Americans can demand more money. Capitalism works by allowing people to become rich.
Hillary is a socialist!
KFC is running a Hillary Special
Two big thighs, Two Small Breasts and one LEFT wing.
After Neil Bush was banned from banking activities for his role in the Savings and Loan scandal in the late 1980s, he decided to bank on education and founded Ignite Incorporated. Ignite sells software to help students prepare to take comprehensive tests required under the No Child Left Behind act that was pushed through by Neil’s older brother – President Bush
You mean good ole hard working rich people like those characters .
In just 15 years, Enron grew from nowhere to be America’s seventh largest company, employing 21,000 staff in more than 40 countries.
But the firm’s success turned out to have involved an elaborate scam.
those rich folks are winners also and how about these rich guys .
Founding Rigas family collected $3.1 billion in off-balance-sheet loans backed by Adelphia; overstated results by inflating capital expenses and hiding deficits
Shredding documents related to audit client Enron after the SEC launched an inquiry into Enron. Done by no other then ARTHER ANDERSON .
We had people working in the penny stock scams who made hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions and they bankrupted and stole the savings of thousands of people .
Get rich at any cost is beyond me and yes someone who invents the better mouse trap deserves a reward just not 40 billion dollars worth .
The rich do not do the work anyhow they just take a portion of the work done by others and retain it for their own use .
So you can move on about the rich deserving it and how this nation would be nothing without them .
Most of the rich are involved in stealing what they can from the working people of this nation .
Quit dreaming about becoming rich and being taxed 80% like we use to and get back to work making me some more money .
Your history lesson is admirable to say the least…and when you speak of such gentlemen as Thomas Edison and Henry Ford and the contributions that were made to our society, their “richness” made it possible for men to prosper. There is a difference between those people whose innovative ideas benefit the country as a whole compared to those who have become “rich” by devouring the middle man, cutting corners at every stop to increase the profit line regardless of worker safety or conditions, and those who have chosen to take their business to a foreign land for cheap labor – again in the hopes of increasing the profit margin.
For every product that is made in America (the number of those items are continually decreasing) there is the labor of the person who produced it (assembly line, hand) and then there is the person who sold it (sales manager, sales clerk, waiter, waitress etc) and it is the labor of these people who make America what it is. The “rich” have become greedy and want nothing more than to be able to snap their fingers and get what they want, not because they worked from the ground up to earn it, but because either by inheritance or private education payed for by “rich” parents they feel they are entitled to it.
But ford was a smart enough man to know for the car to be affordable for the average workman he needed to make enough to buy one!Which is why he started to pay his workers $5 dollars a day!Because he knew he needed a prosperous middle class to sell his cars to!
Dude, have you ever even taken a ******* history lesson??
Maybe at one point in time. The rich of the past invested in the people of this country. Now its invest in the politics and other countries to obtain media attention. They are rich at our expense. I am American, and this country has homeless, no housing, lack of schools, children on the street. and orphans. The rich invest in foreign countries, help the poor, and adopt foreign children, when there are children here wanting parents. You decide your view on this, I have mine.
If about a dozen rich men didn’t care enough to spend themselves into poverty back in 1776, we would still be kissing the Queen’s bum.
This is typical Lib/Dem class warfare talk. It’s aimed mostly at the most gullible in our society, those that equate “rich” with “evil”. I don’t know what it is about Lib/Dems that make them so envious of others – it’s a personal failing in my opinion.
Hillary is just trying to get her voters to be complacent: she’s reminding them if you work hard and follow the American dream, she’ll knock you back down until everyone else can catch up. This is America, we all gotta be equal after all, right?
Not rich white liberals. There’s nothing more evil on the face of this earth than rich white liberals.
Yep… many hardworking Americans have become rich due to their efforts. Many rich Americans have contributed to our country – Andrew Carnegie, for instance. Many rich Americans are hard working, too. I totally agree with what you are saying.
Clinton continually digs little holes for herself that will be very hard for her to get out of come election time.