64. Tax Cuts for the Rich

I ended up joining my brother’s company. For the first time in my life, I found myself working at a privately owned sole proprietorship—and a Korean-run company at that. The atmosphere was entirely different from the public sector where I had spent 30 years of my career. Unlike the civil service—where employee ranks and corresponding salaries are fully transparent, and everyone shares the same standardized benefits—here, salaries and bonuses vary from person to person, and working conditions differ slightly for everyone. The president is an absolute ruler; his word is the company law.

 

Although there are about 50 shareholders who have invested in the company, the minority shareholders hold no power whatsoever. Instead, the capitalists who invested large sums of money make up the board of directors. Every month, they receive reports on performance and other matters at board meetings. On this pretext, they pocket generous board member fees. It is money they receive simply for showing up to meetings and nodding their heads, without making any meaningful contribution to the company's operations.

 

Here, I saw the dark side of capitalism. It is difficult for those without capital to ever escape the hand-to-mouth cycle of working just to survive. After surviving the competition to get hired, you cannot just work hard; you must also learn the knack of bowing your head and rubbing your hands together in front of your superiors. The wealth one can enjoy from a salary that creeps up by a mere pittance each year is nothing but peanuts compared to the accumulation of wealth enjoyed by capitalists. The interest a salaried worker earns from putting money into a savings account or a fixed deposit is at most 2 to 3% annually. Meanwhile, capitalists invest in places that yield returns of at least 7 to 8%, and sometimes over 10%. Even if they lose their invested money, they receive tax write-offs over several years.

 

It is really no different from a tenant farmer working under a landlord for their entire life. In a democratic system, politicians are nothing more than puppets for capitalists. They need the capitalists' money to win elections. Once they get elected to public office with this financial backing, they must reward and compensate the capitalists by implementing policies favorable to them just to be able to run in the next election.

 

U.S. President Trump is a prime example. The tax cut bill he proposed was not for the working class, but for the rich. Most salaried workers ended up paying more taxes. Only the wealthy and the corporations they own are patting their full bellies thanks to the tax cuts.

 

After becoming a U.S. citizen, I started voting during the Reagan administration and registered as a Republican. Those were the days when I dreamed of the "American Dream"—the belief that you get rewarded in proportion to how hard you work. I used to think that living in poverty in a country like America was simply due to laziness. Therefore, I did not like the Democratic Party, which offered welfare benefits to them.

 

However, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I changed my party affiliation to Democratic. During the Iraq War, American politicians poured astronomical amounts of tax dollars into the pockets of the big donors who had funded their campaigns. In an empty desert, they launched hundreds of missiles—each costing millions of dollars—and dropped countless bombs. They exhausted the existing inventory and bought brand-new replacements in equal measure. While innocent Iraqi citizens were dying, the wealthy Americans who had invested in the defense industry were patting their full bellies.

 

I voted for Obama, and in the last presidential election, I voted for Hillary. This was not because the Democratic Party was outstanding, but because I had grown to dislike the Republican Party. Over time, the sickness of democracy and capitalism will only worsen, eventually leading to their collapse. Nothing in this world lasts forever. The falls of Greece and Rome are prime examples. Nations, cultures, and societies all have cycles of rise and fall. Though the length of these cycles may vary, a new world and a new system will eventually arrive.

 

Having lived as a public servant for 30 years, I used to think people who criticized the rich were strange. I used to think, What is wrong with living a slightly luxurious life on money earned through hard work? But as it turns out, becoming rich through hard work is harder than a camel passing through the eye of a needle. In a capitalist social structure, you have to start with money in the first place to stay rich.

 

I do not envy lawyers and politicians who do no productive work but spend their lives in endless, empty debates (many U.S. politicians come from law school backgrounds), nor do I envy the people of Wall Street who live lavishly by manipulating other people's money. I respect those who plant, grow, and build things. I long for a world where the sanctity of labor and the value of sweat are truly rewarded.