The do-ers and the do-nots

Posted Feb 16, 2012 By Sheila Wray Gregoire

EMC Lifestyles - Economist Thomas Sowell recently quipped: "There is much discussion of the haves and the have-nots, but very little discussion of the doers and the do-nots."

He's right. As the world attempts to extricate itself from the financial mess caused by people and banks and governments spending money they didn't have, a lot of the blame has fallen upon "the rich." But I don't think the real dividing line is between rich and poor. I think it's between those who contribute, and those who consume.

And not all who contribute are rich, nor are all who consume poor. The Wall Street bankers who enriched themselves while putting their companies and their country in financial peril, consume, too. So do many government and corporate officials who seem intent on preserving their cushy jobs, rather than actually accomplishing anything.

Yet all of the outcry against the rich seems remarkably more like jealousy than actual animosity. Watch the auditions for American Idol, for instance, and it's evident that most contestants just want to be famous. We idolize those who get rich without actually contributing.

What kind of a culture is that? I'd rather live in a culture that idolized real heroes: people who work hard without expecting anyone to hand them anything. They get up every day, work for an average pay cheque, and come home and love their families and raise great kids.

I'm thinking of a particular family I know. He's created his own contracting business, leaving home at seven every morning, and not returning until dinner. She's been home with the kids for the last twelve years, but in that time she's also volunteered at their school, taken in children who needed a place to stay, even if only temporarily, and cared for family with health needs.

They make an average income, but it certainly isn't extravagant, and so they have to budget carefully to save for the kids' education. That's often difficult, because they have no financial help. Since he owns his own business, they don't have a dental plan, or a health plan, or any kind of plan. When a child needs glasses, they pay for it. When their children had health issues that required expensive medication, they had to cough up the money. When they needed dental work, there was no relying on the government.

That's because government money tends not to go to those who contribute, it tends to go to those who consume. Now, there's nothing necessarily wrong with this, since we wouldn't want to live in a society which did not help those in genuine need.

Nevertheless, there is a problem when the government turns into one giant bailout machine. The government bails out companies that fail, like Chrysler or GM. It bails out drug addicts. In the United States, it bails out those who cannot pay mortgages they should never have committed to in the first place. We bail out teens who get pregnant, able-bodied men who become alcoholic, and people who fail to save anything for retirement.

If you behave irresponsibly, there is government money for you. If you do everything right, there is not. Perhaps there's no other way it could be, but it seems somehow unfair that people like my friends, who do everything right, have to struggle so much, while relatives of theirs, who have hardly worked in their lives, have figured out how to game the system.

It's the doers who keep the world going through their tax dollars, their labour, and their volunteer work. I don't think they ever will get properly thanked. Instead, they will have to just keep chugging along to support those who constantly demand more and more. In the end, all they will really have is their pride, knowing that they did it themselves. Luckily, to a doer, that pride is priceless.