Getting rich together?

I recently had a debate with my housemate about a statement we saw on Astro. It was a short preview of a documentary which is being aired on the Bio channel on Astro. It was a documentary about Chairman Mao and one of the things was quoted saying a long time ago was "Let's get rich together!". I reckon it was one of the things that sparked the revolution in China.

I shared with my housemate that, the idea of 1 billion people getting rich together was rather impossible and had China succeeded in achieving that goal, the world economy could very well be in jeopardy. Why do I say so? In my opinion, for everyone to live in peace and harmony, there has to be a balance between rich and poor just as there are day and night, left and right as well as long and short. It's all about balance, yin and yang.

Say one day, everyone becomes rich and has a million dollars each. Would anyone want to work hard to make more? I doubt so because when everyone has enough to get by, nobody will have the will and determination to strive and work hard anymore. The services (no matter how big or small) we depend on in our daily lives will come to a standstill and even the providers of such services, such as buses, taxis, food stall operators, cleaners, security guards, nannies and care providers, policemen, fire-fighters would be sitting at home expecting someone else to do their job and provide essential services to them instead.

Furthermore, if everyone in the world became rich and had a million each, I wonder how much money would need to be printed to accommodate such a sudden influx of riches. The more 'millionaires' there are, the higher the demands would be for premium goods and when this happens, every producer in the market would be scrambling to produce goods to cater for this market. When this happens, automatically the price of everything in the market would have to be adjusted upwards because nobody will be eyeing low cost, generic or brandless products anymore. If everyone had a million each, I wonder how much a million would be worth then. It would probably be like Indonesia where a million rupiah is worth USD111. That is probably one of the countries where everyone is a millionaire. The question is, are you considered rich with a million there?

Producers would then have to find other third world (reads: poorer) nations to dump their products.  This would become a problem in terms of product pricing after deducting logistics and handling costs to export these products. But when everyone is rich, where do we find poorer nations to dump cheap products in?

When producers are not able to dump their cheap products, there would be a new problem of consumers being ripped off with low cost products being passed off as luxury or premium products.

Thus, in my opinion, a world where everyone can become rich in the sense of dollars and cents is merely an ideal situation propagated by politicians and leaders to give hope to their people in order to encourage and motivate them to work harder and dream bigger dreams. I am reminded of the analogy of the farmer who uses a carrot tied to a string in front of his donkey to 'motivate' his donkey to keep on walking ahead and pull his wagon along. To be entitled to the carrot, the donkey must put in the effort and time to pull the farmer and his wagon along to the market. Tomorrow he must put in the same effort to be entitled to the carrot again and as long as the farmer does his part in planting seeds to grow carrots and the donkey puts in the effort to pull the produce to the market, can he have carrots to eat everyday.

It is the same for us human beings. We may be motivated by 'carrots' that are being offered as we progress through life but we must first put in the effort, time and another crucial element, intelligence to be entitled to the carrots we see dangling in front of our faces. We must always remind ourselves that the gap in wealth between the rich and poor and all the people in between is there for a reason because if everyone is rich and wealthy then there will be a gross imbalance in the economy and grave consequences may result from it. The gap between the rich and poor is also there to remind us constantly that if we are poor, we have to work harder, invest more time and money or increase our knowledge so that we can put in more effort so that we too can become rich.

There is  no such thing as reaping rewards before putting in the effort. I read somewhere that, for one to receive something without working for it, another person would have to work for without receiving. Wouldn't that be unfair? If you were that person who had to work for without receiving, would you be mad about it? I'm sure you would, just as I would too. The message I want to convey in this post is, don't be that person who always expect to receive in life without first putting in the time and effort to achieve something. There is no such thing as something for nothing as well as everyone in the world getting rich together.

That would be something to ponder about.