Forty Years a Work Slave

Photo from Crystal Clear Financials on Facebook.

Capitalism — not Social Security, regardless of what Elon Musk thinks — is the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time, and it robs Americans not just of their money but of their curiosity to do and become more. Capitalism has created a system of servitude disguised as the workplace, student loans and thirty-year mortgages. Americans are forty years a work slave by societal expectations set by the ultra-wealthy who generally haven’t worked a real job a day in their lives.

1920s Cost of Houses Vs Now

In the 1920s, the average cost of a house in America was roughly $6,000, or about $95,000 adjusted for inflation today. As noted by the IRS, the average pay in the 1920s was just over $3,000, or about $47,500 today. The average American house costs about $360,000 today, while the average salary is less than $62,000 a year. Had salaries grown at the same rate as the price of houses, the average American would be earning over $228,000 a year. In the 1920s, the average American salary was about half the cost of the average American home. However, the average house costs over 5.8 times what an average American brings home annually.

Americans are working anywhere from forty — sixty hours a week…

As pay has failed to increase at the same pace as the cost of living and as the age of retirement has risen, employers have demanded more of their employees’ time. Americans are working anywhere from forty — sixty hours a week on average, and that doesn’t include the time it takes to prepare for or get to and from work.

Forty Years a Work Slave

As reported by USA Today, you’re expected to punch a clock for over forty years. You also generally perform the same work if you remain in the same position. You’re expected to be on time, play nice with coworkers who make your stomach hurt and bow to whatever administration or supervisor you work for.

In the process, your individuality is stripped, and you become a shell of who you were, giving out company answers, going to the office parties you once revolted against and questioning nothing of the ailments in the workplace. HR is HR in name only and is not helpful when you really need them to address an issue in the workplace. But this is it. This is life, and there is no other way, except there is.

You can become a math professor and not ever learn the importance of credit…

You can graduate high school, go to college and earn a PhD and learn nothing about running, starting or financing a company. You can become a math professor and not ever learn the importance of credit, how to build it or how to leverage it and when to cut it off. You aren’t given one tool to create financial independence to distance yourself from an employer. The Financial Educators Council thinks the lack of financial education in schools comes from their administrations’ failure to identify the skills students need the most in life.

Worker Not a Thinker

Instead of teachers giving you information on starting a business or building your credit, they insist on telling you to go to college for four to eight years, take out student loans, take a job for forty years, pay a car note for seven years and a mortgage for thirty years. So, for at least thirty years, you’re tied into a loan that siphons off your hard-earned money. With a car note, car repairs and miscellaneous home expenses including insurance, life can quickly become paycheck-to-paycheck.

Your employer doesn’t have all the money, but knowing a paycheck will drop in your bank account for a fact Friday is more comforting than wondering where your next dollar will come from as an entrepreneur. Even the word “entrepreneur” can be frightening for some people who’ve seen men in expensive suits described as such. Some might feel intimidated or like an imposter if they call themselves an entrepreneur. You don’t have to label yourself anything, but if you did, I would go with “free.”

Everybody has money, and you just have to find a way to separate them from it willingly.

Money is a tool that can secure your freedom, and the defining characteristic of your freedom is expressed by your ability to do what you want with your time.

Your employer doesn’t have all the money, considering the person you passed this morning had some and so did the people you saw yesterday. You also have some. Everybody has money, and you just have to find a way to separate them from it willingly. You do this by providing a necessary or desired service or product. If you sell it, someone will buy it. If it’s of quality, they’ll tell others and others will buy.

The Economic Epiphany

For some, retiring to a home they can barely afford and might have to come out of retirement to continue affording, giving their life to later have to fight for Social Security into which they paid doesn’t seem like a bad deal. Some don’t peer far enough into the future to do the math. When a person has rent due two days ago and a car on the brink of being snatched by the finance company, the theory of independence from a predatory employee is useless. They will (unhappily) work twelve — fourteen hours a day for very little to afford an apartment, food and a way around the city. As someone once put it, having money isn’t everything, but not having it is.

When you have a moment to pause and think, you realize you have everything you need to build an empire in the literal palm of your hand. Outside of social media, for cellphones, there are storefront-building apps, opportunities to be an Amazon seller, brokerage apps, websites that let you start an LLC without ever leaving your home and more.

Mystery and fear are normal but shouldn’t stop you from pursuing your dreams.

Your cellphone is a portal to wealth and financial independence. You have the ability to open stores, start LLCs and websites and build businesses with little to no startup costs. You even have websites like KickStarter to help you crowdsource funds for an idea. Raising those funds might not be easy, but neither is being forty years a work slave. Mystery and fear are normal but shouldn’t stop you from pursuing your dreams.

The Takeaway

Everything you want is already yours, and you don’t have to sacrifice forty years of your life to an employer to get it. I learned early as a child I could solve any maze by starting at the end and mentally tracing my way to the beginning. It was only after this process I’d scratch a line from start to finish. The things you want are like the point at the end of the maze.

If you know what you want, you know where it is and some of what it takes to get there. By mentally envisioning where it is and the best path to get there, you prepare yourself for the journey there. You already know some of the barriers that will lay ahead and how to avoid or solve them. There will be some there are unforeseen, and you will make your best decision in the moment, knowing that going forward is the only way.

This article was written by Jermaine Reed, MFA, educator and the Editor-in-Chief of The Reeders Block. Join the email list to get notifications on new blog posts and books. This article is 100% human-written. And remember, if you see an error, that’s what makes us human.