Society and your personal success (1 Viewer)

[rockaction]

And this question seems to be steering us into a frenzy of debt to society. What if perhaps the lack of debt that we owe society legally is the cause of our success? In other words, sometimes minimalism works. 

There was a premise here to elide us into a debtor's argument. Perhaps the question is best framed: What debt to we owe to society because we owe such little debt? 

Peace, dudes. 

 

[Politician Spock]

Would we consider the Cleveland Browns to be successful?

Success is not achieved without failure existing somewhere.

 

[rockaction]

Success is not achieved without failure existing somewhere.

Pardon my lack of sense of humor, but this is seriously a zero-sum game argument in an artificial setting. 

We all gain from our being together.  Regardless, that was funny.  

 

[Politician Spock]

Pardon my lack of sense of humor, but this is seriously a zero-sum game argument in an artificial setting. 

We all gain from our being together.  Regardless, that was funny.  

Conventional wisdom suggests that there are systems that are not zero-sum games, and when it comes to economics that card is frequently played. 

However, that conclusion is reached by ignoring things one does not care about.

A good example is tommygunz post above. A corporation such as walmart is simply a collective of many owners (stockholders) and as you said "we all gain from being together". Because of that collective society benefits with cheaper prices such as on hardware goods so there is the gain you speak of. However, one can only conclude it is not a zero sum game by ignoring that the personal success of mom and pop hardware store owners is lost. In other words we achieved collective success by sacrificing personal success. Now whether this is good or bad overall is a different topic than the thread. I am not making an argument that we should get rid of the walmarts of the world so we can go back to mom and pop economics. What I am saying is In regards to the thread topic, when society moves towards collective success, it makes it harder to achieve personal success. In general increased personal success results in higher prices. Increased collective success results in lower prices for society. So do I give 100% credit of my personal success to society? Of course not. Society does not benefit when I personally succeed. Society gains when society collectively succeeds. Many of the laws and regulations exist so that society does not suffer from the personal success of one. Now obviously we have not gone so far as to eliminate any and all personal success. My point is that success is not achieved without failure existing somewhere. Collective success is not achieved without personal failure. 

 

[moleculo]

Success is not achieved without failure existing somewhere.

Here's where I was trying to go by asking about the Browns:

It seems that a lot of folks are attributing a high percentage of success to society.  In other words, they are successful because they live in a successful society.  Well, the NFL is successful and therefore because the Browns are an NFL team, they are successful.  You could make the argument that they are: they share in NFL revenues, they sell 88% of their seats, I assume they are profitable, and they have not folded. 

That's obviously not the same as the Patriots level of success though.

I suspect that when you talk about what percentage of personal success is attributable to society, we first need to define success.  Does success mean a nice house in the 'burbs, a car in the driveway, and a chicken in the pot, or does success mean being in the top 1% of US earners?  I'd say the former is attributable to society whereas the latter is not.

 

[rockaction]

Conventional wisdom suggests that there are systems that are not zero-sum games, and when it comes to economics that card is frequently played. 

However, that conclusion is reached by ignoring things one does not care about.

A good example is tommygunz post above. A corporation such as walmart is simply a collective of many owners (stockholders) and as you said "we all gain from being together". Because of that collective society benefits with cheaper prices such as on hardware goods so there is the gain you speak of. However, one can only conclude it is not a zero sum game by ignoring that the personal success of mom and pop hardware store owners is lost. In other words we achieved collective success by sacrificing personal success. Now whether this is good or bad overall is a different topic than the thread. I am not making an argument that we should get rid of the walmarts of the world so we can go back to mom and pop economics. What I am saying is In regards to the thread topic, when society moves towards collective success, it makes it harder to achieve personal success. In general increased personal success results in higher prices. Increased collective success results in lower prices for society. So do I give 100% credit of my personal success to society? Of course not. Society does not benefit when I personally succeed. Society gains when society collectively succeeds. Many of the laws and regulations exist so that society does not suffer from the personal success of one. Now obviously we have not gone so far as to eliminate any and all personal success. My point is that success is not achieved without failure existing somewhere. Collective success is not achieved without personal failure. 

I'll agree with that, but it would seem that an artificial zero-sum game is not the way to judge society. There is no way our overall wealth exists without some form of collective cooperation and the refusal to interfere with that cooperation. Sure, there are losers in markets, and winners, relatively, but we're better off than...say...Angola.  

There may be some personal failure at the expense of success, but it's not enough to make it zero-sum. Zero sum happens in sports and in artificial settings. Cooperation and markets that best reflect personal gain through cooperation seem to increase the pie rather than have that pie reflected by an axis, if you know what I'm saying. 

In other words, o becomes 0 with cooperation and markets that reflect natural prices and wages. And generally, people benefit.   

 

[Politician Spock]

I'll agree with that, but it would seem that an artificial zero-sum game is not the way to judge society. There is no way our overall wealth exists without some form of collective cooperation and the refusal to interfere with that cooperation. Sure, there are losers in markets, and winners, relatively, but we're better off than...say...Angola.  

There may be some personal failure at the expense of success, but it's not enough to make it zero-sum. Zero sum happens in sports and in artificial settings. Cooperation and markets that best reflect personal gain through cooperation seem to increase the pie rather than have that pie reflected by an axis, if you know what I'm saying. 

In other words, o becomes 0 with cooperation and markets that reflect natural prices and wages. And generally, people benefit.   

I don't disagree with you at all, but again this is a topic of discussion that is not the topic of the thread.... unless of course you are making the point with this post that 100% of personal success is not attributable to the benefits of society. It's more likely some where in the middle. 

 

[mr. furley]

14 people voted 0 - 9%

 

[Politician Spock]

Here's where I was trying to go by asking about the Browns:

It seems that a lot of folks are attributing a high percentage of success to society.  In other words, they are successful because they live in a successful society.  Well, the NFL is successful and therefore because the Browns are an NFL team, they are successful.  You could make the argument that they are: they share in NFL revenues, they sell 88% of their seats, I assume they are profitable, and they have not folded. 

That's obviously not the same as the Patriots level of success though.

I suspect that when you talk about what percentage of personal success is attributable to society, we first need to define success.  Does success mean a nice house in the 'burbs, a car in the driveway, and a chicken in the pot, or does success mean being in the top 1% of US earners?  I'd say the former is attributable to society whereas the latter is not.

To me success is not having to answer to an employer. Having a nice house in the 'burbs, a car in the driveway, and a chicken in the pot is not success if it means being someone's ##### for 40 hours a week. And being in the top 1% of US earners is not success if it means being someone's ##### too.

According to how I define success, I achieved it in 2016 when I quit my $160,000/year IT job and started my own business. I make around $58,000 a year now and am 100 times happier. And it's not because I can afford food on the table and a roof over my head. It's because I wake up every morning and am not someone's ##### anymore.

However, the success I achieved is becoming more and more rare, because it's getting harder and harder for people to start mom & pop businesses. I am frequently approached about expanding through franchising. People commonly ask where our other locations are, and when I tell them this is the only one, they are shocked that we aren't a chain. The point being that mom and pop businesses have to produce goods and services on par with what corporations do in order to achieve success. If I didn't produce that, I probably wouldn't be doing enough revenue to pay the rent. And to produce that I'm paying a lot more for goods than my corporate competitors do, because I don't get the volume discounts they do. So even though customers see me as being as good as they are, it costs me more to produce that than it costs my corporate competitors. So even though I've achieved success, I don't reap the same profits as my corporate competitors. So even when success is defined entirely financially, as a mom and pop business I'm in the hole even though my goods and services are just as good. But again, I don't define success that way. I"m successful because I"m no longer someone's #####. But do I attribute 100% of that to society? Absolutely ####### not, as the society I live in makes it incredibly ####### hard to achieve that success. Year after year it's getting to the point where it will be assumed you are either employed by a stockholder owned company or you don't work at all. In my opinion that's a world with 100% personal failure. 

 

[moleculo]

To me success is not having to answer to an employer. Having a nice house in the 'burbs, a car in the driveway, and a chicken in the pot is not success if it means being someone's ##### for 40 hours a week. And being in the top 1% of US earners is not success if it means being someone's ##### too.

According to how I define success, I achieved it in 2016 when I quit my $160,000/year IT job and started my own business. I make around $58,000 a year now and am 100 times happier. And it's not because I can afford food on the table and a roof over my head. It's because I wake up every morning and am not someone's ##### anymore.

However, the success I achieved is becoming more and more rare, because it's getting harder and harder for people to start mom & pop businesses. I am frequently approached about expanding through franchising. People commonly ask where our other locations are, and when I tell them this is the only one, they are shocked that we aren't a chain. The point being that mom and pop businesses have to produce goods and services on par with what corporations do in order to achieve success. If I didn't produce that, I probably wouldn't be doing enough revenue to pay the rent. And to produce that I'm paying a lot more for goods than my corporate competitors do, because I don't get the volume discounts they do. So even though customers see me as being as good as they are, it costs me more to produce that than it costs my corporate competitors. So even though I've achieved success, I don't reap the same profits as my corporate competitors. So even when success is defined entirely financially, as a mom and pop business I'm in the hole even though my goods and services are just as good. But again, I don't define success that way. I"m successful because I"m no longer someone's #####. But do I attribute 100% of that to society? Absolutely ####### not, as the society I live in makes it incredibly ####### hard to achieve that success. Year after year it's getting to the point where it will be assumed you are either employed by a stockholder owned company or you don't work at all. In my opinion that's a world with 100% personal failure. 

I agree whole-heartedly.  My original point though, which I think you are agreeing with here, is that how much success is attributable to society (as per the OP) is largely dependent on how you define success.

 

[ren hoek]

I put 70-79% and that seems pretty fair.  There's no denying that being born in the US is a nice turn of fortune for anyone, no question.  Neither of my parents ever graduated college but my dad worked his way into an engineering job out of the military.  Mother grew up in 3rd world Mexico, quit school in the 3rd grade to help her family sell water and emigrated to the US when she was 14 to clean houses and send money back home.  I'm actually a pretty huge ####up relative to the circumstances I was given.  If I was born in a 3rd world country I'd presumably be an even bigger chump.

What I think this question is really getting at is how much we owe to government-provided services such as roads, schools, etc.  The US is everything it is today because it was allowed to flourish in a minarchist market economy for some 200-odd years.  What really irks me about these types of hypotheticals is they don't really leave room for what could have been if services the government had a monopoly on all those years were left to the imagination of ordinary people.  But that's probably a different thread.  

 

[adonis]

What I think this question is really getting at is how much we owe to government-provided services such as roads, schools, etc.  The US is everything it is today because it was allowed to flourish in a minarchist market economy for some 200-odd years.  What really irks me about these types of hypotheticals is they don't really leave room for what could have been if services the government had a monopoly on all those years were left to the imagination of ordinary people.  But that's probably a different thread.  

Not a different thread.  Do explain.

 

[Otis]

I'm not understanding this.  With the question as posed, it's like thanking the artificial turf for your having a good game.

 

[ren hoek]

Take education for example.  The US adopted the Prussian education model back in the 1850's.  Horace Mann figured, "if Prussia can pervert the benign influences of education to the support of arbitrary power, we can surely employ them for the support and perpetuation of republican institutions."  And so it's been for the better part of 150 years.  

Schools aren't really allowed to fail no matter how poorly they do or how inadequate they are for students.  Things don't really evolve because there's no reason for them to, or competition that would otherwise threaten to replace it.  The subject matter has changed over the course of time but the model hasn't.  A lot of people hear this stuff and think it's meant to trash the teachers which is unfortunate.  So I'm grateful to have had influential teachers over the years.  But we'd all be much better off if kids and parents were given some autonomy on how they learn and process new things.  There's a lot of interesting education stuff in this video.  The guy is odd but there are some fascinating ideas here: https://youtu.be/FR0_sZtCfJ0

 

[adonis]

I'm not understanding this.  With the question as posed, it's like thanking the artificial turf for your having a good game.

It's more like thanking organized sports for being able to be a successful professional athlete.  Imperfect analogy, but closer.

 

[Politician Spock]

It's more like thanking organized sports for being able to be a successful professional athlete.  Imperfect analogy, but closer.

99.9%+ of athletes fail to make a living playing sports, so yes that analogy is good. And it's imperfect because other careers have a better personal success rate than that.