I grew up poor. Not just "tight budget" poor -
real poor.
To this day, I barely hover above that line, but I made it. Barely.
I don't live by myself - that would be unsustainable, unaffordable. The privilege of having your own home is absurd.
People who've never known what poverty feels like... they're often unbearable.
Their mindset is obnoxious, offensive, discriminatory - downright disgusting.
And when someone says, "Anyone can make millions if they just work hard"?
I swear, I'd punch them in the face.
Here's the truth about capitalism:
To make money, you need money.
If you have none, then all the hard work in the world will only earn you pennies.
I've worked hard my entire life. The result?
We don't suffer anymore. We can pay rent on time.
I have a car - a 1998 model, named
Rebecca.
That's what "making it" looks like for me.
"Hard work" is an insult - a phrase the rich use to mock the poor. 😀
To be well-off, you need to be
born into money, or at least into a family with a middle-class income.
That's privilege, not the baseline.
And to be truly well-sorted, you need connections - ideally friends of your family who are already rich.
Choose your parents carefully I guess.
And yet, some privileged folks love to defend their position with nonsense like,
"Well, I paid for
[insert expensive thing] myself," or, "Sure, they helped with the small stuff, but I saved for years to buy my house."
That's the biggest privilege of all - to even be in a position to buy a home.
What an absurd argument. You don't get a medal for being born with a financial safety net and then pretending it doesn't count.
Starting from nothing and succeeding? It happens, but it's mostly luck.
Luck or people you meet.
Notice I didn't mention school, skill, or education.
Because in capitalism, those things matter
only slightly, and the effect always scales with your starting wealth.
Yes, I'm anti-capitalist.
I'm anti-consumerist.
But I'm not a socialist. I just hate privileged assholes who think their status actually
means something. Where some see class, I see only ego.
I'd punch a rich man with more nuance than a poor one, sure. But both can earn it. I don't discriminate.
And then there's gender privilege - oh boy. Don't stone me yet, women.
Hear me out.
Women, often - not always, but often - achieve comfort and property because society spoils them
(a lot, and if you don't feel it and realize, then you are part of the problem).
By men, by parents, by structure.
Men, on the other hand, usually get the opposite treatment. Again - not always, but often.
When a woman gets a car for Christmas, a man gets a mug. Or a sweater.
And that's
still among the non-poor.
Anyway, I just needed to vent.
A little rant about privilege, wealth, and the absolute bullshit illusion of "equal opportunity."
But to make this rant a little more grounded in reality, here are a few studies and references that support the point - or, if you prefer, you could try being poor like Mike Black did during his "Let's make million from nothing in a year" challenge.
He failed miserably, because life happened the way life happens. He gave up and returned to his wealthy and comfortable, safe life. Something poor people
can't just do.
We don't have a rich fallback, Mike. Anyway, here are the sources:
