A Little Competition

I believe in competition.
I believe in hard work.
I believe that society works best when it allows people to compete and rewards those who win.
I believe that competition is what drives an economy and produces wealth for a nation.  I believe competition is what makes a nation strong and keeps a nation strong.
Above all, I believe that while this competition needs to be fierce, it also needs to be fair.  I want success to be based on merit, and I'm completely against the idea of some people having an unfair, unearned advantage.

And that's why I'm a Democrat.

I'm a Democrat because while the Republicans are certainly in favor of an economy based on competition, they also favor policies that limit the number of people who get to compete.

Let's face it, while everyone in American has the opportunity to compete, some people begin the competition with a huge head start.  A child of wealthy parents growing up in a rich neighborhood has far more advantages than a kid growing up with middle class parents, and that middle class kid has many advantages over a kid who grows up poor.

It would best for our country if all three of the kids described above could compete on a level playing field.  It would be best for our country if the most talented and hard-working of those three was the biggest success and had the most impact on our country.

However, we all know it doesn't work that way.  We know that the further down you start on the socio-economic ladder, the harder it is to climb to the top.  We know that more wealthy kids are more likely to go to good private schools, more likely to live in a district with great public schools, more likely to have tutors, more likely to be sent to enrichment classed after school or on weekends, more likely to have successful parents who can give them both academic and career advice, more likely to go to schools where they can feel safe, more likely to grow up in a two-parent household,  and more likely to have friends and family who can get them valuable summer jobs to pad a resume and have connections that can help them land a job.

That's just a partial list, but I think you get the idea.  It's an idea that's been understood for centuries.  Thomas Grey expressed it beautifully more than 250 years ago ...

From Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard:

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 

         Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; 

Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, 

         Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre. 

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page 

         Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; 

Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage, 

         And froze the genial current of the soul. 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 

         The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: 

Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, 

         And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

Anybody who has been paying attention for the last century knows that Democrats believe in taxing the rich to help the poor far more than Republicans do.  Republicans won't even deny this.  They look disdainfully on "bleeding heart liberals" and often accuse them of being "socialists".

Well, I guess I'm one of those "socialists", but I'm no bleeding heart.  Heck, I don't even like most people I meet.  However, I am a patriot who wants America to be a stronger and greater nation.  And I don't think our nation will ever live up to its potential until we fully realize the talent of our human capital.  As Grey wrote, too often a great talent will "waste its sweetness on the desert air", and quite often that desert is poverty.  I want every one of our nations "gems" to be unearthed, and those gems in the most "dark unfathom'd caves" won't be unearthed without a little help.

I'd also like to emphasize that when I wrote "a little help" above, I did actually mean a "little".  I understand that there is no way to give a poor child every advantage a rich child has short of completely eradicating income inequality.   And while it may surprise those of you who think my liberal political views make me a communist, I'd never advocate completely leveling the playing field between the rich and the poor.  As I strongly implied in the opening line of this piece, I'm actually a strong believer in capitalism, and capitalism doesn't work without ample incentives. Providing a better life for your children is one of the most important incentives there is.  For capitalism to work, people need to believe that hard work and success will give them the opportunity to provide their children with a better life.  So, Mark Zuckerberg should be allowed to give his kids more advantages in life than his less successful Harvard classmates.  However, while Zuckerberg has made thousands of times more money than most of his Harvard classmates I don't believe his kids' chances of being successful should be thousands of times greater than the chances of his Harvard classmates' kids .  His kids' chances of "making it" should not be millions of times greater than the chances of a poor child just because Zuckerberg has more financial resources than millions of poor families combined.

You can't have effective capitalism if you mandate a completely level playing field, but in order for capitalism to work best going forward, the playing field needs to be MUCH more level than it is now.  Our nation and our nation's economy can't afford to lose the next Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg to the cycle of poverty.

I know some will say that a truly talented person doesn't need any help from the government to escape the cycle of poverty.  I know some people reading this will point to the many great Horatio Alger stories in American history.  There are certainly many examples in American history of people born into poverty "making it" and making it big.  However, these people are the exception rather than the rule.  There is no doubt that all these people are extraordinary individuals, because you need to be extraordinary to make it in America if you are born into poverty.  The average person doesn't need to be extraordinary to "make it".  I've living proof of that.  By most standards, I've "made it", but I'm far from extraordinary.  I would have never made it as far as I have in life without all the advantages I've had.

Now, don't get me wrong, I didn't grow up rich, and I worked my ass off every step of the way to achieve my current level of modest success, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy all sorts of advantages that I would not have had if I had grown up in poverty.

For starters, while I didn't grown up rich, my dad did make enough money that my mom was able to stay home with me.  I was lucky enough to spend every hour of every day of my childhood being nurtured. * Not every child is that lucky.

* I'm adding this note here to make sure you don't think I'm trying to imply that parents who use daycare, or nannys, or relatives to watch the kids are bad parents.  Having two working parents ( or a single working parent in a one-parent household isn't bad for a child at all as long as the person ( or persons )  providing the childcare provides the child with a nurturing and stimulating environment.  Unfortunately, poor parents who can't afford to stay home usually don't have the financial resources to afford top notch childcare service.  So, by having my Mom at home with me all day during my childhood, I had a big advantages over a lot of my peers. 

My Mom read to me every night without fail.  She starting reading to me at such an early age, that I could read children's books independently by the age of 4.  So, I started school with a big head start thanks to my mom.

My Dad gave me a big head start by buying an Apple II+ computer for the family shortly after I started 7th grade.  My junior high school offered courses in computer science ( once again, I was extremely lucky here.  Not many kids had the opportunity to start taking computer science as a 7th grader in the Fall of 1982 ), and my Dad decided that buying the Apple II+ ( the same type of computer we were using in my junior high school computer science classes ) would be a great thing for my education ( and my younger brother's education ).  I know that buying that Apple II+ wasn't an easy decision for my Dad to make.  It may be hard to believe, but back then an Apple II+ cost as much as a new compact car.  We didn't have a lot of excess money to throw around on just anything, so buying that Apple II+ was big decision.

My Dad had always been a bit of a car buff, and I'd sometimes hear him wax poetic about buying a Corvette if he ever had enough extra cash to spend.  Well, my Dad never did buy that Corvette.  The first and only time my family bought a new car was in 1975.  That car was a green Toyota station wagon ( this was back in the day when all Toyotas were cheap compact economy cars ) and we ran that thing into the ground until it gave out in 1988.  Actually, it's more accurate to say that my Mom ran it into the ground, because my Dad barely drove that car.  My dad would drive the Toyota on weekend family outings, but the Toyota was my Mom's car from Monday to Friday.  My Dad's car was always a used car, or rather a series of used cars he'd use primary for commuting.  Some were pieces of junk that would break down within a year and some were in good enough shape to occasionally handle the weekend family outing duties, but there wasn't a Corvette in the bunch.  Maybe if I'd grown up in another family with another Dad, our family would have had a sporty car for Dad rather than an Apple II+ for the kids.  My brother and I were lucky to have a Dad who cared about out education and made enough money to give us resources to improve our education.  I'm convinced that my brother and I would not be professional software developers today if we hadn't had that Apple II+ in our basement.

So, the point I'm trying to make here is that only a very extraordinary group of people can be a success without significant help, and very few of us can say we're one of those people.  When somebody tells you "I made it on my own.  Nobody ever gave me anything.", that person is either extraordinary or extraordinarily full of shit.  Almost nobody makes it on talent and hard work alone.  I'm a software developer today because I worked my ass off writing code on that Apple II+ in my basement, but none of that would have happened if I didn't have access to that Apple II+, or for that matter, a basement.

So, growing up a middle class kid with a pair of great parents, I was given the opportunity to compete in the world.  With the love and resources provided by my wife and me, our kids will certainly have the opportunity to compete someday.  However, as great as that is, that's not good enough for me.  I don't just want my kids to be able to compete, I want all kids to be able to compete.  I want every poor kid in America to have all the support he or she might need to succeed.  I want those poor kids to be competing against middle class kids, rich kids, and my kids.  I'm not afraid of that competition - I welcome it.  The competition will make all those kids better, and our nation will be better for it.

Speaking of making our nation better, I don't think our nation can reach its potential without a regular infusion of new blood.  Immigration has always been the lifeblood that leads to innovation and achievement.  40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or the child of an immigrant, and as of 2014, 28.5% of new entrepreneurs were immigrants.  I want immigrants to come to this country and compete for jobs.  I'm not suggesting that our country admit an unlimited amount of immigrants each year, because the pool of available jobs can only grow so fast in the short term, but I do think we need to admit enough immigrants to allow their spirit and drive to make our economy larger and our nation stronger.

I know that a lot of people are afraid of change and are happy with the status quo.  They don't mind if some people in our society are trapped in a cycle of poverty and they feel threatened by the idea of immigrants competing in the job market.  However, I firmly believe that we are a better nation if more rather than less people are competing to get to the top.  After all, a little competition never hurt anybody.

Rich