I was having an extremely interesting conversation with the young African at our annual African Liberation Day commemoration in Oakland last May. He followed me outside to express his excitement about the presentation I had just given the audience about practical ways that Pan-Africanism will benefit Africa, Africans, and all of humanity. He followed me out to let me know that his father had lived in Ghana working directly for then President Kwame Nkrumah in the early sixties. The young person told me that his dad worked as an accountant for Nkrumah. Now, I get emotional when talking to people about Nkrumah's enormous personal sacrifices in leading Ghana as Africa's base for liberation from 1957 until he was viciously overthrown in a CIA (criminals in action) coup in 1966. So, I was moved when this young man began to get emotional talking about the love and respect his father held for Nkrumah. The passionate point this person wanted to make to me was that people accused Nkrumah of being a dictator and of stealing all of Ghana's financial resources. The person was so agitated in talking about how his father, being responsible for doing the books for Nkrumah's government, was adamant in stating over and over that Nkrumah's accounts were constantly overdrawn because of his ongoing commitment to using whatever resources were available to help the struggling people of Africa. The exact opposite of someone who is stealing resources.
And that's exactly why a basic understanding of how capitalism works makes it abundantly clear that the fantasy image of the huge hearted millionaire is not based in reality. The concept defies the logic of capitalism. You start a business and that means you have to produce a product or service. Whether you are producing cell phones or BBQ dinners, the people who do the work to produce what you produce have to get paid. In a capitalist system, it will cost you so much - say $30.00 USD to make a cell phone or 30 cents to make a dinner, but you will charge $500.00 for that phone or $13.00 for that BBQ dinner. So, for anyone who passed basic math, here's how the formula works: You as the worker produces 20 BBQ dinners per hour. That means in an eight hour shift, you produce $260.00 for your employer. That's $2,080.00 per day while they pay you, let's say $12.00 an hour, or $96.00 per day. This of course means they make almost 50 times the profit each day from your labor. Now, despite the fact they do manage the work conditions you exist in to make all this money for them, is there anyone out here who is actually stupid enough to try and argue that they are taking 50 times the risk and 50 times the effort than you are as the exploited worker? And, more important to this question, is there anyone who would actually argue that anyone who can exploit someone to that degree is a person with a strong human foundation? A person who values people over money? Nothing more needs to be said there.
That model above is exactly how people become millionaires and billionaires folks. And, don't waste your time talking about the exception to try and make it the rule. Don't use professional athletes in the U.S. because that is only a few hundred people at best. Rich people get there by cutting costs, paying people less, cheating people, having no conscious, and being 100% focused on making money, not solving the problems of society. Don't agree? Show me a person who got rich through business in the capitalist system and I will show you a person who has a trail of wage theft against workers, poor working conditions, exploitation, racism, patriarchy, and all forms of oppression lining the pavement where their money was made. This is true because the super rich don't own the labor, the worker does and the people who have money in capitalism got it by benefiting from this system which was seeded and launched through the ultimate exploitation - the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the theft of Indian lands. Most of the large landowners today didn't get that land from working for it. They got it from illegal settlement programs that discriminated against brown people and benefited rich Europeans thus propelling them into access of the stolen resources that they were able to parlay into these riches. This is undeniable and ill refutable. And, this is the reason all of you black power pimps who continue to attempt to put make up on capitalism and pretend as if your money making scam is actually something designed to benefit our people are either fooling yourselves or you are just as morally corrupt as the real capitalists. Even some well meaning people are convinced that starting small hand to mouth businesses is the way to accumulate wealth. How is that working out for all of you who believe that? Don't even bother answering because we already know. You are struggling every day to keep the lights on and gas in your car, despite your high flying rhetoric. Without exploitation there is no wealth, period. And we can prove that in any and every scenario because we understand economics.
So for all you people who are waiting for some millionaire/billionaire to create wealth for you. To provide you with a plan to enrich your lives. You should just go ahead and buy that swampland someone is trying to sell you also. The minute you choose money over people your values turn wack and once that happens, you lose the right to claim goodness.
When we have a society where systemic obstacles are eliminated and education is universally free. Health care is universally free. When everyone who wants a job is guaranteed by law the right to have one. When all the systemic obstacles are eliminated like racism and patriarchy which prevent people's movement and upward progress, then we can start talking about life being about choices. Then we can say that those who have acquired more have earned it. But, until we have all of that - which is socialism by the way - then what you have here is the same old master slave system. And no matter how people try to reinvent it and justify it and those who benefit from it, most of humanity is never going to be fooled. People are openly expressing their desire for socialism every day. The millionaires try desperately to fool us with their propaganda for the time being, but their time is running out and all the things they are doing in the world today are clear evidence of that.
The true role models, the real people you should want your children to emulate, are those who choose justice over wealth and fame.
And that's exactly why a basic understanding of how capitalism works makes it abundantly clear that the fantasy image of the huge hearted millionaire is not based in reality. The concept defies the logic of capitalism. You start a business and that means you have to produce a product or service. Whether you are producing cell phones or BBQ dinners, the people who do the work to produce what you produce have to get paid. In a capitalist system, it will cost you so much - say $30.00 USD to make a cell phone or 30 cents to make a dinner, but you will charge $500.00 for that phone or $13.00 for that BBQ dinner. So, for anyone who passed basic math, here's how the formula works: You as the worker produces 20 BBQ dinners per hour. That means in an eight hour shift, you produce $260.00 for your employer. That's $2,080.00 per day while they pay you, let's say $12.00 an hour, or $96.00 per day. This of course means they make almost 50 times the profit each day from your labor. Now, despite the fact they do manage the work conditions you exist in to make all this money for them, is there anyone out here who is actually stupid enough to try and argue that they are taking 50 times the risk and 50 times the effort than you are as the exploited worker? And, more important to this question, is there anyone who would actually argue that anyone who can exploit someone to that degree is a person with a strong human foundation? A person who values people over money? Nothing more needs to be said there.
That model above is exactly how people become millionaires and billionaires folks. And, don't waste your time talking about the exception to try and make it the rule. Don't use professional athletes in the U.S. because that is only a few hundred people at best. Rich people get there by cutting costs, paying people less, cheating people, having no conscious, and being 100% focused on making money, not solving the problems of society. Don't agree? Show me a person who got rich through business in the capitalist system and I will show you a person who has a trail of wage theft against workers, poor working conditions, exploitation, racism, patriarchy, and all forms of oppression lining the pavement where their money was made. This is true because the super rich don't own the labor, the worker does and the people who have money in capitalism got it by benefiting from this system which was seeded and launched through the ultimate exploitation - the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the theft of Indian lands. Most of the large landowners today didn't get that land from working for it. They got it from illegal settlement programs that discriminated against brown people and benefited rich Europeans thus propelling them into access of the stolen resources that they were able to parlay into these riches. This is undeniable and ill refutable. And, this is the reason all of you black power pimps who continue to attempt to put make up on capitalism and pretend as if your money making scam is actually something designed to benefit our people are either fooling yourselves or you are just as morally corrupt as the real capitalists. Even some well meaning people are convinced that starting small hand to mouth businesses is the way to accumulate wealth. How is that working out for all of you who believe that? Don't even bother answering because we already know. You are struggling every day to keep the lights on and gas in your car, despite your high flying rhetoric. Without exploitation there is no wealth, period. And we can prove that in any and every scenario because we understand economics.
So for all you people who are waiting for some millionaire/billionaire to create wealth for you. To provide you with a plan to enrich your lives. You should just go ahead and buy that swampland someone is trying to sell you also. The minute you choose money over people your values turn wack and once that happens, you lose the right to claim goodness.
When we have a society where systemic obstacles are eliminated and education is universally free. Health care is universally free. When everyone who wants a job is guaranteed by law the right to have one. When all the systemic obstacles are eliminated like racism and patriarchy which prevent people's movement and upward progress, then we can start talking about life being about choices. Then we can say that those who have acquired more have earned it. But, until we have all of that - which is socialism by the way - then what you have here is the same old master slave system. And no matter how people try to reinvent it and justify it and those who benefit from it, most of humanity is never going to be fooled. People are openly expressing their desire for socialism every day. The millionaires try desperately to fool us with their propaganda for the time being, but their time is running out and all the things they are doing in the world today are clear evidence of that.
The true role models, the real people you should want your children to emulate, are those who choose justice over wealth and fame.
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