why socialism will nevel work
 My tree trimming business is the perfect microsm of captialism. It embodies all the wonders and evils of that economic system.
Bob Bandit is the quintessential greedy capitalist. He uses others people's labor and other people's money to feed his voracious appetite for binge drinking, womanizing, and general bling, bling. He does the least (physically) and gets the most financially.
Bob makes between $1,000-$2,500 a day. He rolls into work in his Hummer and sells tree trimming jobs for about two hours, using leads that I've spent the previous day lining up for him. He gets 2/3 of the profits above the cost of the workers and the equipment.
Once he's finished selling, usually about 11am, I drive him back to his Hummer and he begins his day of partying. He has no paperwork, or responsibilities to the business outside of this two hour window. His only resources are his brains, his mouth, and his balls.
While it may appear that Bob is doing next to nothing and taking all the gold, it is in fact his lust for money that drives the entire business. I have never met anyone who loves money and material wealth more than Bob Bandit. And it seems like the the money loves him back just as much. Day after day I see the cash jump into his wallet as if by magic.
Chris. Chris is Bob's partner and he runs the crew and the equipment. Once Bob says, "get this done," Chris has to make sure it all gets done. One of his biggest headaches is fixing all the stuff that gets broken: trucks, chippers, saws, roofs, patios, arms, legs, etc. On top of that her has to run a crew of rednecks, pot-heads, meth-heads and alcoholics.
Chris is one of the most angry and frustrated people that I have ever met. He smashes his cell phone every six weeks because of all the bad news that comes out of it. Chris gets half of what Bob makes, or about $500-$1,200 a day.
Me. I get leads and I get checks. I spend all day looking for people with money and trees. If they have any interest in getting them trimmed I send Bob Bandit to their door. If Bob makes the sale, then I get 10% of the gross. A $3,000 job nets me $300.
Probably the hardest part of my job is dealing with Bob. I chauffer him around for his 2 hour selling period. While I drive, he sits in the front passenger seat and chain-smokes and farts and coughs up a lung. When he blows his nose, he blows it right on his hand and then wipes it on his jeans. He is the most repulsive person I have ever known.
He is also one of the funniest, which makes up for it somewhat.
The workers. The workers get paid the least and they do all the hard work. They sweat and struggle and break their backs long after Bob has left for the day. They get cut and scraped and stung and sun burned and everything else that happens to you when your body is basically a machine grinding against mother nature.
There's about a 12-15 workers, and on many days all of their paychecks together don't equal Bob's take-home pay. Their life of hardship compared to Bob's life of luxury is so grossly disproportionate and unfair that you would think they would revolt and take the business in a marxist coup. Barring that, you would think they would use their own pick-up trucks to start their own mini-tree businesses. Afterall, they could charge a fraction of Bob's inflated prices and still make triple what they're earning. They could buy a chain saw and ladder and rake for under $200 total and have all the means of production.
But they never do. They wait for Bob to tell them what to do day after day. They accept a really raw deal because its easier not to take any risk and not to think for themselves. They find their salvation in beer and pot and crystal meth.
7:22:07 PM 
|
