It is a topic that has come up a lot, especially since Trump has been trying to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine and end the war there. Why the United States? Why do we get to set a dollar standard? Why do airports have to speak English universally? Why is it that the United States thinks it needs to be, or can be, involved in the world’s affairs? How can the world be equal if the United States consistently views itself as the best or wealthiest country in the world, and that somehow gives it power over all other countries? And the answer is simple: only the United States has adopted capitalism as an economic model, while all other countries in the world have some degree of socialism in their economies, which restricts their financial growth. A friend of mine recently brought this to my attention with a nice quote from Proverbs 22:7, which says, “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” And that’s very true. If a country penalizes itself from wealth creation, it loses the ability to be equal in any discussion. And being poor, especially by choice, will always leave a member of a negotiating party at a disadvantage. America has the power that it does because it’s a rich country, and it’s rich because of capitalism. And you’d think other countries would have woken up to that fact, because they are poor by choice. The reason America has the power and influence it does is that it has a population of only 300 million, yet it produces the largest GDP in the world, competing directly with countries like China and India, which have populations of over a billion each. Because all other countries in the world have adopted Marxist ideas, they have limited their wealth generation and ultimately their influence at the table regarding the fate of the world.
The issue of fairness arises frequently in these discussions. Is it fair that the world is designed like this, where human beings are valued more for their wealth than for their better values, which reflect power and influence? It’s a matter of leverage; people in the world want money and will do this or that or something else to get it. And when too many artificial restrictions are created to access money, then naturally, people with less of it are on the wrong side of any negotiations. So, by choice, those who have very little money are in that position because they chose to do other things than make money, and the world does not honor their choice. We have invented money and wealth as measures of achievement, and in all human cultures, achievement is highly respected. Gaining wealth is a measure that, by default, is universally understood by all people. And to lobby for making some other value more critical, such as compassion for the weak, or valuing vacations over working too hard, will ultimately leave the one without money at a disadvantage, leveraged by those who do control the money, because they have more of it. Money comes in many forms but what the book of Proverbs has always struggled with as a foundation of Christianity for instance, because even Jesus struggled with this problem by attacking the vendors at the Temple which led to his crucifixion, is that the meek are overlooked and often oppressed by the rich people of the world, and that everlasting life in Heaven might give them relief from that reality. This is a debate that has been ongoing since the beginning of time, but the rules have remained unchanged—he who owns the gold rules.
Trump has been effective because he understands how to control leverage in negotiations, as he always puts himself on the side of smart money. And whoever does that will win the argument every time. Not some of the time. All of the time. And the question of fairness is then a universal law that is the same here as it would be on the other side of a black hole in space, on the other side of reality. This rule would never change. The Bible struggled with the same idea: what power does the Lord in Heaven have over the earth if people will do anything for money and what it can buy. And the answer is a hard one, because money represents wealth creation and how people measure such things in polite society. The rest of the world has chosen to rebel against the premise of money, and they counted on peer pressure to create other value systems that the world respected, such as transgender rights, or helping people experiencing poverty when people have been deliberately made poor with terrible social policy. For instance, because of capitalism, a poor person in America is infinitely wealthier than a person in a Marxist hellhole, like some African country that has deliberately suppressed capitalism. Their poor state is a result of a desire to control wealth creation, so that people can be ruled over, and that they won’t acquire personal wealth to compete with their overlords. When a government seeks to exert power over its people, it must limit their access to wealth so that private individuals cannot undermine the government’s authority over them. So that decision ultimately constricts their ability to generate wealth.
Trump has spent his life accumulating wealth, and his ability to do so has given him the capacity to negotiate at multiple levels. Being rich for him means he gets to win the argument. And from that perspective, he can command the world to sit at his feet, as the members of NATO remarkably did in front of his desk in the Oval Office recently, after Vladimir Putin came to Alaska to visit with Trump after quite a spectacle. The world came to Trump to appease him because of the power of the American economy. And because they don’t have money themselves, due to poor economic decisions, they find themselves at a disadvantage in the discussions they have with all other parties. With all the talk about Russian power and military might, it’s worth noting that they don’t have a very robust economy, which leaves them at a disadvantage at the negotiating table. People can talk about how mean Putin is as a tyrant, but because of his need to maintain control over his people, the Russian economy is too restricted and always at a disadvantage to a capitalist country like the United States. And when push comes to shove, the capitalist country will always outleverage the authoritarian government that has put too many barriers on personal wealth. So that is why America plays the role in the world that it does. Fairness is a sentiment, not a value. It’s an intellectual observation that doesn’t align with the realities of the world. Jesus might have struggled with the same issue involving the money changers at the temple, as many are declaring that America shouldn’t have the kind of power in the world that it does. However, it has that power because humans use money to measure value, and value is derived from the things we do. And when things are restricted by policy, then who is to blame? Or, if individuals refuse to work, they are always at a disadvantage in life compared to those who work hard and have financial means. Who is to blame? America has given upward mobility to many people through the premise of freedom. And that is why the United States has a better leverage position over all other countries that are too restrictive on individual wealth creation. And in that moral quandary is the ethics of wealth creation, and why the world is much better off because of it.
Rich Hoffman
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