Property And Competence

Someone quite close to me once said that people with property were competent, and that people without property were not.

This is wrong. This is dead wrong.

Many teachers, scientists, police and military do not have much property. That does not begin to make them incompetent. The world owes vastly from what these people have to give. And the people who think that they are incompetent are fooling themselves and others.

I used to make quite a bit of money in the software industry. After that crashed, I put in a lot of effort into making contributions to culture. I translated five books of classical Russian poetry. I put a vast effort into addressing various issues facing the world. I am not wealthy, but I have made significant contributions.

Now some people claim that real contributions are rewarded monetarily. Sometimes that is the case, and sometime it is not. Nikola Tesla made vast contributions, but he died in poverty. Thomas Jefferson also made vast contributions, and yet he died deeply in debt.

Sometimes contributions are rewarded in one's lifetimes. Sometimes they are not. Some people strike gold during their lives, and some people make contributions from which others make money. There is – and there always will be – the room for both.Is

The winners-and-losers ethic is completely wrong. It is not about whether you are a winner or a loser; it is about what you contribute. And once again some people will see their contributions rewarded in their lifetime, and some will not.

Is it rightful for people to pursue property? I see no problem at all with people wanting to better their lot; but they should not be doing wrong things in the process. They should not be poisoning the planet. They should not be destroying other ways of life. They should not be making an ideology of consumption to claim coercively that other people must have the same things or else they are losers or worse.

I was born in the former Soviet Union, and while the people around me did not have much money by Western standards they did not have the kind of psychopathology that we see for example in the American ghetto. They weren't wealthy, but they did not feel inferior. And many of them lead a quite fulfilling existence without having a Hummer and a huge house.

I have an education in economics, and I know that capitalist economics produces prosperity. However there are many other valuable things besides prosperity, and it is imporant that people understand such things. I am not driven in this by envy or anything of the sort. I have been wealthy myself. That does not keep me from appreciating what else life has to offer.

Is property the universal measure of competence? No, it is not. There are many valid measures of competence. And it is important that people understand such things so that they are less likely to be either deceived or be robbed of their contributions.