• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Do Higher-Incomes Work Harder than Lower-Incomes?

Do higher-incomes work harder than lower-incomes?

  • Yes, the higher-incomes work harder

    Votes: 7 15.9%
  • No, higher-incomes don't work harder

    Votes: 25 56.8%
  • Other

    Votes: 12 27.3%

  • Total voters
    44

Morality Games

DP Veteran
Joined
Jul 14, 2009
Messages
3,733
Reaction score
1,156
Location
Iowa
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Centrist
I continually hear people expressing this sentiment, and it has never seemed true to me. If work is defined as "effort over time", then how could someone like Bill Gates live long enough to earn his fortune, relative to that enjoyed by other people? Many doctors, example, seem to put more "effort over time" into their careers, without ever gaining anywhere near the sum of money Bill Gates enjoys.

Bill Gates obtained his wealth, not because of his own "effort over time", but because, in accordance with the conventions of capitalism, he networked himself into a position where he could compel others to sign a portions of their "labor over time" to him via contract. As long as this practice isn't pushed to its excesses, I don't have a problem with it, but getting wealthy through good networking is a significantly different process than earning your money through hard work.
 
Last edited:
Prediction-another thread whining about the rich is born.

generally wealth comes from working hard, working smart and becoming able to provide a great deal of value to others.

working hard and working smart is no guarantee but not working hard and not working smart is rarely going to result in one being wealthy
 
Prediction-another thread whining about the rich is born.

generally wealth comes from working hard, working smart and becoming able to provide a great deal of value to others.

working hard and working smart is no guarantee but not working hard and not working smart is rarely going to result in one being wealthy

So, you don't consider the possibility that hard work doesn't necessarily result in great wealth to be spiritually, morally, politically, or economically significant.
 
Last edited:
So, you don't consider the possibility that hard work doesn't necessarily result in great wealth to be spiritually, morally, politically, or economically significant.

Some is rich and some is poor
that's the way the world is
but I don't believe in lying back and saying
how bad your luck is

Joe Strummer

I coach kids in a couple Olympic sports. I have seen kids work their butts off and never even make All America while other kids don't work any harder and win world and olympic medals.

Is it fair?
 
It depends on how your define "work." Most higher income earners have worked hard to gain an education that qualified them for the job they have. This, or they worked hard and worked their way up their career's ladder.
 
Some is rich and some is poor
that's the way the world is
but I don't believe in lying back and saying
how bad your luck is

Joe Strummer

I coach kids in a couple Olympic sports. I have seen kids work their butts off and never even make All America while other kids don't work any harder and win world and olympic medals.

Is it fair?

I don't think we can make the world fair, but it should still modify how we think and what we do about these matters.
 
Last edited:
I support equal opportunity, not so much "fair." Fair is a subjective term.
 
We have talked about this before and you will never fully convince me that someone sitting in an AC office is working harder than someone busting their ass doing road construction. Having said that? It all comes down to what you define as hard work and of course a scientist sitting in a lab using their brainpower to try to find a cure for all cancers is for sure working as hard as someone that is working on that road and that work may even be more important than safe roads. So honestly? I guess it just depends.
 
I support equal opportunity, not so much "fair." Fair is a subjective term.

Not as much as you would think. What's fair in a given situation isn't that hard to work out if you follow the relationships, dependencies, and contributions at work in that situation.
 
Last edited:
Anna Nicole Smith worked hard for her money... so hard for her money
 
I continually hear people expressing this sentiment, and it has never seemed true to me. If work is defined as "effort over time", then how could someone like Bill Gates live long enough to earn his fortune, relative to that enjoyed by other people? Many doctors, example, seem to put more "effort over time" into their careers, without ever gaining anywhere near the sum of money Bill Gates enjoys.

Bill Gates obtained his wealth, not because of his own "effort over time", but because, in accordance with the conventions of capitalism, he networked himself into a position where he could compel others to sign a portions of their "labor over time" to him via contract. As long as this practice isn't pushed to its excesses, I don't have a problem with it, but getting wealthy through good networking is a significantly different process than earning your money through hard work.

You're framing the issue in a way that leads you to an answer which departs from reality. People get rich because other people want to give them money. The reason that other people want to give the soon-to-be rich person money is that the soon-to-be rich person is offering to sell a product or service that people want and these soon-to-be customers want that product or service more than they want to hold on to their own money.

If you have a product or service that people really, really want, then you too could become wealthy. The only way to get a lot of money is to either print it yourself, have someone give it to you or to earn it.
 
You're framing the issue in a way that leads you to an answer which departs from reality. People get rich because other people want to give them money. The reason that other people want to give the soon-to-be rich person money is that the soon-to-be rich person is offering to sell a product or service that people want and these soon-to-be customers want that product or service more than they want to hold on to their own money.

If you have a product or service that people really, really want, then you too could become wealthy. The only way to get a lot of money is to either print it yourself, have someone give it to you or to earn it.

More like the reality you are getting at it at cross-purposes with the point I'm making.

And there's a lot more to getting rich than that.
 
Last edited:
The only way to get a lot of money is to either print it yourself, have someone give it to you or to earn it.

And of course... you can steal it!
 
Last edited:
I don't think we can make the world fair, but it should still modify how we think and what we do about these matters.

why? being realistic is proper thinking.
 
We have talked about this before and you will never fully convince me that someone sitting in an AC office is working harder than someone busting their ass doing road construction. Having said that? It all comes down to what you define as hard work and of course a scientist sitting in a lab using their brainpower to try to find a cure for all cancers is for sure working as hard as someone that is working on that road and that work may even be more important than safe roads. So honestly? I guess it just depends.

You're going to have a hard time convincing me that anyone who bitches about being in a labor job couldn't have studied harder in school to get that job working in AC. While my friends in high school were playing Nintendo, I was reading and getting ahead in math and science. If I show the public the math I do for a living now, it should come as no surprise that they say "That looks hard."
 
You're going to have a hard time convincing me that anyone who bitches about being in a labor job couldn't have studied harder in school to get that job working in AC. While my friends in high school were playing Nintendo, I was reading and getting ahead in math and science. If I show the public the math I do for a living now, it should come as no surprise that they say "That looks hard."

most of us who are in white collar jobs learned that physical labor was not the way to go. Me, I spent a summer clearing scrub trees out etc. 6-9 hours a day with a chain saw or two man hand saw in 90 degree weather was edification enough. the next summer I worked as a "Gofor" and errand boy and filing clerk for a law firm. big difference and I made sure I got the kind of grades needed to go to a top law school
 
Effort isn't really the issue. To be a success at the Bill Gates level it takes effort, it takes a certain amount of luck, good timing, and lots of other things like fortitude, drive, vision, resourcefullness... many of us have these qualities but lack the luck and timing, others have the luck and timing but have fatal flaws in other areas that prevent them from achieving greatness. Both need to work hard for what they have... the scales of success are curved. A man with little to no money over 40 years creating a business and going from making 35 dollars a week to 35,000 a week and retiring is VERY successful. Scale that up to a 3 million a week on a world wide level... both are a win win.
 
Not to change course here, but the salary for any specific job is based on a multitude of factors. How "hard" somebody works is just one factor. A flooded market is another. If you want to earn more you have to be set apart. A lot of people can physically do roofing. All you need is one good supervisor and anybody without vertigo or a fear of heights can removed and replace shingles. In Texas, you aren't going to make a lot being a roofer because a lot of guys are willing and ready to do it. On the other hand, special education teachers in Texas are in high demand and you can expect a slightly higher salary than your general-ed teachers in most districts.

Does the roofer work "harder"? In some ways, yeah. But it's a low-skill, labor-flooded field and competition is high. So even if it's "harder", it's likely to see less reward over time.
 
Well, in this context it depends on one's definition of work. In terms of manual labor, the lower classes work harder, while in terms of intellectual labor, the upper class works harder.
 
Some is rich and some is poor
that's the way the world is
but I don't believe in lying back and saying
how bad your luck is

Joe Strummer

I coach kids in a couple Olympic sports. I have seen kids work their butts off and never even make All America while other kids don't work any harder and win world and olympic medals.

Is it fair?

Those kids may have a natural talent. Either that or you are flat out lying. As to win world and olympic medals, you have no choice but to work hard.
 
The very nature of this question is too black and white thinking. If you are poor, do you work harder or not as much compared to a rich person? What about the grey area? Is it fair to say that there are poor people that do not work hard? Yes. Is it fair to say that there are poor people that work 60+ hours a week? Yes. Is it fair to say that a rich person does not work hard? Yes. Is it fair to say that some rich people work very hard? Yes!

I will give you two examples of a rich person either working hard or not working hard. I have a person from my high school class that is going to law school. He shared with me during our high school reunion that after law school he is going to start a venture capital firm. How is he getting money to fund this firm? His father. His father is on the executive board for Sprint. There are rich people that started a venture capital firm that earned the money required to start such a firm. This kid has his father send him all the money. That isn't really working hard.

On the other side of the spectrum, during the days when I was doing remote desktop repair, I would run into people's homes ranging from the lower class to the ultra rich. This man was so rich (and not married) that he lived in a neighborhood where golf courses were literally down the street. You walked in his home and he had the works. Heated and cooled floors, networked window shades, and glass that would respond to the sun's light. And so I stated to ask, how did he get to this point?

I can't remember exactly what he did, but he said it was an average for him to have fifty hour work weeks. He invested heavily in his retirement, and well it paid off. But he worked his butt off, to the point he said he had virtually no social life. And it showed, because he had no children and no spouse. I could tell he was very lonely living in that huge home all by himself.

On the other side of the spectrum, you hear of single mothers working two part time jobs to put food on the table. You also hear of people on welfare opening their legs so they get more government money.

What I am trying to show is this question is too black and white. You really have to examine the grey.
 
harder, not harder, smarter, etc; whichever it is, they have found a way to perform a more valuable service to others; which is why those others compensate them more.
 
My experience indicates that working harder generally improves your chances of greater rewards. But, my experience also illustrates the following:
1) Working smarter is more important. And smarter includes things like predicting how it will make your boss look, especially if your boss screws up in a stupid unexpected way.
2) Luck is more important than smarter.
3) Very important is being in religious alignment with the most powerful organized religion based group where you work.

So, it’s not generally true enough to say higher-incomes work harder than low incomes.
 
Last edited:
Poor people work hard. Rich people work smart.

This is the difference of human capital. Anyone can push a broom or make change in a cash register. The number of people who can do what I do is significantly lower.
 
More effort results in more income than less effort, relative to the job that the work is done on.
 
Back
Top Bottom