The Capitalist Conspiracy

The modern capitalist puts the alchemist of old to shame, for not even labor does he expend to spin his gold.  Think about the rich and famous, Kobe Bryant gets PAID, but he goes to work for it.  Likewise, whether you’re a surgeon, the president, or a sanitary engineer you have to put in the hours to get the dollars.  Not so the landlord, the investor, nor the capitalist, who can go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning all the richer for it.

If you are involved in a retirement plan, own your own home or business, or have deposits at a bank than you are already a capitalist; defined in its simplest and original meaning of one who invests capital in an economic enterprise.  Ignore the politicized definitions that came later as they are irrelevant to to the purpose of this article.  The capitalist system, for our purposes, is one which entrusts the individual participants in an economy to make decisions over the use of their own resources, specifically labor and capital.  Think about this, you make the decisions that govern your economic welfare!

The rewards for the adventurous few who have taken their economic fate to task and attached it with daring and hard work are legendary.  John Jacob Astor, Henry Ford, Sam Walton, Bill Gates, all these names resonate in history. Many, many more unsung heroes of the capitalist revolution acquired much more minor fortunes, but still incredible control over their own lives.  Imagine you deciding whether or not you wanted to continue to work, you able to know that money was no object in the care of and education of your children and loved ones, you in control of your life and your money.  Compare that to the toils of the many, working more and harder to keep up with bills that pile up ever higher; afraid of the future, living in terror that the company that funds their retirement may go bankrupt or the that government that pays their social security may not live up to its promises.

The Obstacles
Ah but it a difficult and treacherous path that leads to such abundance.  If it weren’t so, everyone would take it.  The beauty of the system is that you don’t need to be a genius or exceptionally talented to succeed, just about anyone capable of reading this article, and millions more who aren’t, has the necessary intelligence.  Also, the formula is no great secret, its been done by millions (currently about 10 million worldwide).

Delay of gratification is the first and most essential element to being a capitalist.  After all, if you spend it faster than you make it than, no matter how much you make, you will never accumulate wealth.  Being a finance nerd, I love to make tables showing how much money I will have in a given amount of time, given a certain rate of return and a certain amount invested on an annual basis.  If you have ever seen a mortgage table , it works the opposite.  You have certainly noticed how little of the loan is paid down at first and how almost the entire payment is for interest.  Later, as you approach the end of the loan, it becomes reversed with virtually the entire payment applied against the loan and very little interest.  Well, compound interest works the opposite way, the way in your favor.  At first your savings and investments are almost entirely the amount of your net worth.  However, after a few years, you notice something magical start to happen; increasingly the earnings of your investments are becoming fruitful and multiplying of their own accord!  Reaching the point where your earnings outstrip your contributions is a major milestone, but when earnings on your investments outstrip your own income, that is when the true revolution begins!  Then you have to make decisions like whether you continue working in your field or not, or perhaps whether you dedicate yourself entirely to growing your investments.  Ergo, you become a capitalist!

Delaying gratification is the essential first step, and can take you far, but to truly become a capitalist you need to work a little bit smarter than the herd and learn the tricks of the trade.  The problem is, this is a long and difficult learning process that can only be learned while on the task, that is, through trial and error.  Sure, considerable knowledge can be gleaned from reading and studying but, like learning an instrument or a language, understanding the theory can only get you so far.  The most adventurous start their own companies and directly manage their own assets while the tried but true way is to invest in more readily traded assets, such as the stock market.  Either way there are fortunes to be made but you’ve got to master the system to win.

The final great obstacle is that capitalists need to work a little bit harder, to make that effort to accumulate wealth, especially in the initial phase.  You see, the earlier you invest the money the more time that you will have for it to bear fruit.  Combine this with the working smarter and develop a trade that allows your natural abilities and training to flourish.  Always keep the end goal in mind, to have your only job to be managing your own money, and ignore opportunities that don’t take you toward that goal.  For example, while there might be good money working a second job as a waiter or driving a cab neither will take you toward your ultimate goal, unless you want to own your own taxi service or restaurant.

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