People Still Don’t Understand The Power Of People Power

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve sat there aiming my negative thoughts at singers, actors, sportsmen, women, etc. Every time I’ve thought the same thing. These creeps get way too much money! Then I realized who they get their money from. Us!

Karl Marx expected a big revolution. He didn’t think the pyramid system we live in would hold up. He was sure that eventually people would rise up and rebel against the inequality that surrounds them, and unless you count various small-scale anti-capitalist movements such as Occupy Wall Street, let’s be honest, he was wrong, because they haven’t.

It’s not the idea that people make money that bothers me and countless other people. If you have an idea and it makes you some money, great. It’s the way some get most of it, while others get very little. Or, as we’ve seen with Third World countries, they only get exploited.

It’s a fact of life that people don’t get paid according to how hard they work. That was the big argument against communism. Why does one man work all day, while the other man does nothing and they both get the same reward? That was the communist system, but the problem is, it’s still in practice today. In fact, it’s even worse now. You can work your butt off all day long, five or six days in a week, but the guy who had the idea of creating a social networking site on the Internet is a billionaire. He had an idea, sold it, and now he’s rolling in it and doesn’t have to do a day’s work again.

Ideas trump hard work. That’s what the free market is all about. You have the opportunity to go out and make money however you want (within legal constraints, of course). If the market is demanding something and you can supply it, you’re in! If the market is willing to pay for something that you do, the same applies. This is why when I see a football player getting paid millions of dollars per year, or an actor living in his multi-million-dollar home, driving his sports car, I realize they have all that because the market paid them a lot of money. Who is the market? Who drives the market? We do! So if we do, that means we have the power! Hence my next question: Why don’t we use it?

I once had an idea I wanted to get off the ground, but I never got it going, because I didn’t believe it would take off. I may still do it, but I know it’s going to be a bitch to convince people to dive into the deep end and join me.

I really like sports, although I don’t like the amount of money sports teams make and the amount of money sports stars get paid. I’m also aware that as fans, we have the power to stop the cash inflow in to the sports business. All we have to do is give up on a given sport for one year, and see the effects it has. It would have to be a huge movement though, not just a tiny portion of the population. Let’s say we abandoned football for a year, completely shunned it. No more going to see games, no more watching it on television, no more buying any of the merchandise etc. We’d have to put a complete stop to all expenditure towards that business. Not a single cent of our hard earned cash would go to football or anything affiliated with it and not one pair of eyes would view a single game, even for a few seconds on television. You know what would happen, don’t you? Football would lose a lot of money.

I know football is popular and that’s why it does well, but you have to weigh up your hatred of overpaid players, coaches, and agents with your love of the sport. You’ve got to do the right thing and stop giving it money. If you stop, they are left with no choice but to pay the people involved with it less money. So we win! No more overpaid sports stars.

Football is only one example. This can be done with music and movies, too. Whatever else you can think of. How about big brands? Stop going to Starbucks and try visiting the coffee place a few roads down. It might cost a bit more, but it will also keep the local family that probably owns it in business.

One person (me) bitching won’t do much, but millions of us sticking together to fight a cause will. It might sound like a utopia, and quite frankly, it might well be. How on Earth are we supposed to get a nation of people to boycott something together? I’m not sure it can be done, but I’d like to point out that we do have the power to do it. It’s whether we decide to use that power that makes all the difference.