Anonymous wrote:I agree with OP. I don't have the same amount of vitriolic resentment towards the wealthy and privileged. I count some of them among my friends. But I do find the way people talk about wealth on these boards and just in general in society disgusting, and I also want us to change the tax code and build an actual social welfare state in this country. Ironically, I think real social welfare would best address many of the things the very privileged claim to care about plus actually reduce class resentment. It is harder to resent wealthy people if you know that you won't be bankrupted by a medical diagnosis or if you are guaranteed some baseline quality of life even if you lose your job, struggle with mental illness, or otherwise fall on hard times. It's so obvious to me that the better we treat those with the least in this country, the better off we would ALL be.

But all these posts about "ACTUALLY I'm self-made" make me laugh. My dad could say the same thing. He came from poverty, put himself through college, started his own business, and found a great deal of success. And he did work hard, that is for sure. He was also very fortunate in a dozen different ways. He was born white and male and able-bodied. He attended public schools his entire life, including an exceptional state university that was heavily subsidized by tax dollars. He was hired into a competitive industry at a time when white men had little competition from anyone else, because women and POC were all but barred from that kind of skilled work (even if they could obtain education in the field, which many were also barred from). And then his professional success occurred during the latter half of the 20th century, when economic conditions favored precisely the kind of investments my parents made. They bought a house in the 80s that was worth 6x what they paid by the late 90s. Subsequent real estate investments paid off equally well. The stock market skyrocketed during this period, and even through bull markets and the tech and subprime crashes, they came out ahead. While my dad did work hard, none of that was the result of his hard work -- it was just timing, privilege, and good fortune.

No one is truly self-made. It is not actually possible to succeed in our culture based 100% on merit. At a minimum, you have to get a little lucky. But most people also benefit from social programs that are specifically designed to help them, like my dad's cheap but high-quality college education, or the job opportunities he obtained in part because his competition was artificially limited by racism and sexism. That's why when wealthy people get mad about the idea of changing things to help those with less, I laugh. We've always helped people! It's just that we've helped a specific kind of person. And even the self-made among you got help, and if you can't see it you are blinded by arrogance.

You want more people to "make it on their own"? Well then make sure they have access to education, basic healthcare, and a social safety net. A strong welfare state produces a lot of "self-made" success stories, and the reason I know that is because every self-made success I've ever met had precisely the kind of support you now want to pretend is an unfair transfer of wealth.

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Anonymous wrote:This is just going to turn into a humble bragging circle-jerk for defensive so-called “self made” users here.

Yep. Lots of people explaining why THEY are super-rich because of their own hard work and good choices, and THEY deserve their good fortune, but THEY are super down to earth or aware of their privileges, and also everyone could be successful if they just worked hard enough, because that's definitely how life works.

But that is exactly how life works in the US. Not in many other countries, but definitely in the US. My mom came here when I was 6. She had $250 in her pocket, didn’t speak a word of English, and settled in subsidized housing given to her by the immigration agency as she was a refugee. She learned English, worked cleaning restaurants and offices, on weekends I helped. The school I went to wasn’t great by any means but if I brought home anything lower than top marks, there was hell to pay because “we came to this country for a chance and you have the chance to do better”. We didn’t own a TV, I slept on a mattress in the living room, food was pasta, so much pasta and whatever else was on sale. Clothes were all donations and books were from the library. I had no presents for my birthday, but she did make cake. No vacations, no camps, no lessons (though I did play an instrument after 6th grade thanks to music classes in school). For 10 years, she drove a run down car with peeling paint that was basically held together with duct tape. She got a couple of the ladies she worked with and they started a cleaning business. That business helped pay for college for me, along with Pell grants and me working. I didn’t go to a private college and lived at home to save money on housing. I didn’t get much choice in college major because I knew I needed to earn good money, I couldn’t just get my BA in Art History and intern for a year. I did accounting because it was practical and paid well. I got my masters. I married my husband (also from an immigrant family, he’s an attorney). We lived very frugally until his loans were paid off and then once he hit 35, his income really went up. Suddenly we are making serious money but we are investing it. We do own a $1m+ house, our cars are both under 50k and we paid cash for them. We took our first vacation after we paid off his loans. We have two kids (we can’t comfortably afford three), we help our parents out and they help us out with babysitting. The American dream is possible but what I see going on isn’t that the dream is dead, it’s that folks don’t want to work for it or they make dumb decisions.

Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt. I’m not talking medical debt (that’s it’s own separate issue and I very much support universal healthcare and would pay higher taxes for it). I’ve seen guys earning 100k and blowing it on car payments, buying houses they can’t afford, and other crap they don’t need. There’s a sense of entitlement to it, like they should be able to have everything. And then I also saw how little folks value education. Immigrant kids get a beating if they don’t bring home good grades, meanwhile you have American kids skipping school or talking back to teachers and parents support the kids! So all this crying about how life isn’t fair is ridiculous. Of course it’s not fair! Nothing is fair. Every country has its own problems, but be glad your problem is just debt. Where my mom is from, if you owed someone money, they’d come to your door in the middle of the night and you’d disappear. You wanted to start a business and it made someone upset, they could hire someone to shoot up your business. You got sick and didn’t have any money, there was plenty of hospital space but no medicine at all. And you can’t change anything about your situation. In America, you can change things. Your town has no jobs? Move. You can’t afford a house? Get a different job. America isn’t perfect (I’m not trying to sweep racial inequality under the table) but it’s got opportunities. It just requires you to actually work for the opportunities, instead of insisting on them just because you

This country is not perfect, but I think when you are an immigrant and lived in third world countries where there is slim chance for upward mobility, you appreciate it and see it in a different light. Many things are wrong with this country (guns, social justice, etc) but many things are great in this country if you have the grit, the hunger and the perspective of coming from a country where moving up financially or socially is almost impossible.

My story is similar. Big difference being that parents had college degrees before they came here as refugees, and were able to step into professional jobs fairly quicky. But the mindset was the same - 'we didn't claw our way out of that hellhole for you to waste your chance at a great and comfortable life'. Education was the top and only priority - they recognized that it was the way up, and held firm on us doing our best. Yes, I had to hustle too - three jobs in college (Ivy) alongside rich kids who partied all the time, knowing there would be a spot in Daddy's firm afterwards. I am very privileged, and I recognize that. My parents were privileged over people who immigrated to the US without degrees and a reasonable grasp of English. But everyone hustled like crazy, and took advantage of every spot of luck along the way. This is an interesting discussion, and a complicated topic. I guess we should all be grateful for the good things that come to us, and understanding of those with harder beginnings and/or less luck or innate drive for betterment.