Shopify and the Dreams of Wannabe Great Men
So the dipshit that runs Shopify is now whining about the expectations that rich people — the people who benefit the most from government programs and security — should pay taxes commensurate with the benefits they receive. Unlike normal whining, however, the CEO thinks he has a gotcha — rich people should get more votes! The more you pay in income taxes — and it is always income taxes with these goobers, since to bring in payroll taxes would be to admit that the US tax system is essentially flat overall — the more votes you should get. It’s just fairness!
Sigh. Why are we ruled by people who would be laughed out of a pit fueled dorm-room philosophy session? But let us put aside the rather stupid notion that wealth and income are a measure of value to society (sorry, CEO. You matter much less to society than the average teacher, doctor, or fireman). Instead, let us talk about how deeply contemptuous of society people like this CEO actually are.
The CEO of Shopify, a man named Lütke, has a company that has benefited, and one could even argue exists, from the collective actions of society. He received his university degree for free, since he attended college in Germany. He headquartered his firm in Canada — a nation that welcomes foreigners and allows them to set up new businesses. His employees are Canadian and thus he pays less for health care for them than an equivalent US firm since Canada has a universal health care system. He built his product on top of Ruby on Rails, an open source programming framework (open source refers to products and languages that are often worked on by volunteers in addition to corporate support and are available with open licensing). In other words, at every step of the way, he has benefited from a cooperative society designed, however imperfectly, to allow everyone some shot at making a good life regardless of their initial circumstances. If people like him had been in charge when he was starting out, he would never have built Shopify. And he does not care.
He has his, and he thinks that he deserves to be treated differently than others because he has his and his is a lot. The idea that he is a part of a community, that he has benefited from the work of those who came before, that he is embedded in a web of aid stretching into the past and affecting those in the future is something that he rejects. It is something, I think, that he has to reject. Because acknowledging that web means that he has to admit that he is not the master of his fate. That he is not the sole reason for his success. And if he is not the sole reason for his success, then why does he deserve to keep all the fruits of that success? And the answer, of course, is that he does not. He has a moral obligation to support the next generation in the way that he was supported by the past generation. And that realization appears to be poison to him.
Greed, to steal from a better writer than me, is not good. Greed whispers lies about “deserve” and “specialness” and “mine.” It convinces you that the obvious truth — that you have benefited from luck and the efforts of others on the path to your success — is a lie, a trick of the “unworthy”. It breaks people. The childish tantrum — oh, so you think I am a part of society? Well, I am not. I am special and you should all recognize that specialness and give me more power — of the Shopify CEO is in and of itself boring. It is the kind of banal refusal to grow up that afflicts many people, especially people who are more greedy than they are good. But we do seem to be ruled more and more by people with this attitude.
Our ruling class seems to have a desperate need not only to be successful, but to have people turn their success into a marker of value, to look up to them. As if money is a measure of a person. As if they need not only the sense of a thing done well but crowds to cheer them. Even the hint that they are not special is enough to send them lashing out, striking at everyone who they feel is not deferential enough. They want to be loved for their greed, to have all of us join in their delusion. Anything less is an assault on their weak sense of self-worth that they cannot abide. Their power, then, turns toward making sure that they can force people to give them the adulation they think they deserve.
Sometimes that manifests as a tantrum about voting power on a social media network. Sometimes that manifests as destroying USAID in a fit of pique. Sometimes that manifests itself in supporting fascist parties all over the world. But it all stems from the very simple fact that their greed has made them simple and childish. And, unfortunately, dangerous to the continuation of our society.