General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: There is not a single business owner in this country who got where they are 100% on their own [View all]hfojvt
(37,573 posts)Suppose I built a house from the ground up - laid the cement, set up the walls, joists and put on the roof and siding and drywall. I did all that work and I am gonna be proud of what I built. For somebody who has never built anything to say "you didn't build that yourself" seems a) argumentive, and b) it belittles all of the work that I have done.
So now after I did all this work, society is going to take half of it just because other people cut the boards (and then sold them to me) and made the nails and hammers and saws and drills and levels (and then sold them to me) and paid for the highways (and so did I) that they were transported over and paid for the schools (and so did my parents) etc.
Myself, I just do not care to denigrate hard work, and starting and running a business can be hard work, as I know from experience. Further, when I went to buy services, I seemed to run into mosquitoes. The attitude seemed to be "you have a business, it is making money, we want a piece of it". Everybody wanted to sell me books, unless they were junk, in which case, I was supposed to take the junk off their hands. Other people were donating really nice books to the library (I know that because I snatched them up for a dime). Commercial electric rates were higher than residential. For banking services I got for free as an individual, I had to pay fees as a business. I could not get city trash service. I could not park in front of the building I owned overnight. Etc. Heck, I was generating revenue for the city, but was practically a second class citizen. I also got cheated out of my unemployment.
Also, my start up money - it came from my own savings. Savings that were largely gone after four years (or plowed into inventory where I could not get it back (after closing) except for pennies on the dollar).
So if people are proud of the hard work they have done, I don't think they should be disparaged.