Why Are Some People So Rich?

According to Forbes.com, there were 595 people in the world in 2015 with more than three billion dollars. That’s a lot of extremely wealthy people. This begs us to ask the question, why are some people so stinking rich? Why is it that some people can work their butts off their entire life just to get by, and others can make millions of dollars every month by doing virtually nothing? The answer to this in part lays in the way our society and economy runs. 

  In his work “The German Ideology,” Karl Marx argues that ever since personal ownership of things like land and tools for farming began, there has been wealth and power inequality. Those who own and control the things needed to produce goods are those who earn most of the money as a result. The "haves" have power over the "have-nots". If someone owns a company, they have the ability to determine who gets paid what, and people that are desperate for a job are willing to work for significantly less money than what the owners are getting in profits. Marx called the super rich the bourgeoisie, and the rest of the population of workers, the proletariat. Marx argued that as long as personal ownership of goods continues to exist, there will always be incredible inequality and conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. That is why some people who own companies and who patent great ideas can earn millions of dollars a year while a blue collar worker who works sixty hours a week can struggle just to support their families. The class struggle is real.