Benjamin Wey is an American financier on Wall Street, a prolific journalist and is the CEO of New York Global Group. Benjamin Wey shares his views with the readers of TheBlot Magazine:
Financier Benjamin Wey was working in the office. In the aftermath of the Occupy movement, millions of people seem to see the world in clearly defined shades of black and white. On one end of the spectrum there are the cold, heartless businesspeople with their entitled, unnecessarily extravagant lives. On the other side are the victims of the tyranny of the 1%. It’s clear that these people calling foul at the very wealthy are unhappy with the current situation, and I can’t really blame them. Being rich is obviously the best option on the economic spectrum and there are most definitely benefits which are not necessarily fair to the rest of society. But to say that being wealthy is innately bad or wrong is ridiculous. The nature of economics and humanity, and certainly the capitalistic society in which the entire world operates, is that some will have a great deal more than others. If there is a better, feasible option, I’m all ears.
The idea that wealth makes you a bad person is as ridiculous as the idea that a lack of wealth makes you a good person. This simply isn’t the case and anyone who has lived in the adult world for any length of time should realize that issues of morality are never clear-cut and certainly not defined in monetary terms. There are good and bad rich people as well as good and bad poor people. The amount of wealth they have is not a reflection of their character.
For society to operate properly, there will always be a small number of people on the top of the pyramid calling the shots and there will always be a larger number of people carrying out those orders at various levels. There is no way that everyone in society could be a millionaire or scrounge by on minimum wage, or all be at any one economic level. If everyone was a CEO there would be no one to do the work. If everyone was a laborer there would be no one to lead and make decisions.
One might make the argument that a CEO could still be a CEO but make the same as the workers. But this is cutting out the core of what works in a capitalistic society: competition is good. It ensures that the best people get the position. How would competition work when everyone makes the same, or close to the same, wage?
It simply isn’t logical that someone who markets a good product or service or has the proven ability to make money should be cut off at a certain point so they are on equal footing with everyone else. Whoops, you’re a little too successful, let’s take that profit away. That just doesn’t seem right because it isn’t. What would be the cutoff? $20,000? $30,000?
We need specialists and exceptionally talented people calling the shots. They make it possible for the rest of society to operate. Could improvements be made? Of course. There are plenty of bad people in prominent positions bringing down society as a whole and they need to be stopped. Also, all of society should be given a better chance at upward mobility because there are certainly people who could be effective in prominent positions who have very little chance of getting to one based on their starting point in life. But there is no getting around the fact that it is human nature for a few to lead the many. It doesn’t mean that those in charge are any better than anyone else; it just means that they are the ones in charge. Being in charge allows a person to make more money because they are personally affecting a relatively large portion of society compared to someone who isn’t in charge.
So if you are angry at the 1%, don’t blame wealth or the government or the corporations; blame human nature.
Benjamin Wey is a journalist and a Wall Street financier. Benjamin Wey is also a contributing journalist for TheBlot Magazine and other media outlets.
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