When Capitalism Causes Problems (Like Oil Spills & Inequality)

Hello, capitalists. Welcome back to capitalism dot com. Thanks for hanging out with me. I'm Ryan. Daniel Moran. I hope you're doing well. And most importantly, I hope you are enjoying some sense of normalcy in the world right now. I find it interesting how quickly we forget and reset what normal is to us. I remember when the world shut down in 2020, and I was driving past this bowling alley in my neighborhood, and I haven't been to this bowling alley in a couple of years. I had gone when Esther was. Was really small, but I was driving past 10 and it was closed. Obviously, everything was. And I remember thinking to myself, I will never forget to appreciate that bowling alley ever again. I will never forget all of the retail stores and little things that I used to do because I would give anything to go bowling right now. I'm so bored. I'm so cooped up. I would do anything to go bowling and be around people. And you know what? I haven't gone bowling since things opened. I haven't appreciated all of those little things that I used to do. It's amazing how quickly we forget and we reset and we adjust. I'm recording this episode for you right around the Fourth of July holiday. We just had it, just completed it. And it's interesting to me to watch the language that people are using around this Fourth of July. There are plenty of people who are using this holiday as an opportunity to simply point to problems that we have in the world, problems that we have in this country, problems that we have in politics, problems that we have in the world right now. The top story that most of my peers and most of the news outlets that I see are talking about is an oil spill that caught on fire in the ocean. And there are all kinds of memes going around about how this is an example of unfettered capitalism and a contributor to global warming and the epitome of greed and all of this stuff. And also one of the other top stories, I guess, on the other side of the political aisle in most cases is there was a congresswoman who tweeted that when people say happy 4th of July, they're really only referring to people of one color and that freedom doesn't exist for minorities. And these two things are the top story depending on what side of the aisle that you sit on. And it's also interesting to me that in both cases, capitalism is being blamed for the problems that we see. I find this so interesting because on some level, they're right.

I don't think you saw me saying that on this episode. But I have been processing and thinking about this idea of when capitalism does cause problems, because we have them, we always have them. Problems have existed since we were human.

And sometimes capitalism is the cause of those problems. We don't like to talk about that, especially as entrepreneurs who are on a path to building wealth and becoming successful. But I'm reminded of a talk that I saw given by billionaire Robert Dugan. Robert Dugan gives talks about genius and how we all have it inside of us. And he gave a great talk in which he said that happiness is the result of overcoming problems. He said, I used to think that one day I would get to a place in which there were no problems or I had no problems. And I quickly realized that that was a false God. And he said that he realized when he saw that, when he discovered that happiness was the byproduct of solving problems, that if there were no problems, there would be no happiness. And I would add context to this to say that if there were no problems, there would also be no pursuit of happiness. There would be no ability to grow. There would be nothing to pursue. And so we often get obsessed with this idea that once we reach a certain level, once that new innovation comes out, once we make a certain amount of money, once global warming is fixed, once the President changes, there will be no more problems. But that is a false God. That is a false aim. It does not exist. All that happens when we solve a problem or when a problem goes away is that we unlock a new level of problems. Capitalism is indeed the cause of many problems that we have in this world, because capitalism is the system through which we solve a previous set of problems. Capitalism is a system through which we are incentivized to solve challenges. And as soon as something is solved, as soon as we overcome something that is bothering us or something change that we want to create, we instantaneously create a new set of challenges or problems. So, yes, indeed, every step forward that we make creates a new challenge, creates a new set of problems. So capitalism, you might argue, is the greatest contributor to problems because it is the greatest system that we have to solve old ones. And it's the system through which we come together to solve the new set of challenges that we have just unlocked now. It is tempting, it is alluring for us to simply point the finger at problems that we see in this world and blame somebody for it or blame a system for it. This is why it's so popular to criticize the president, no matter who the President is.

No matter who is in Charge. We love to point the person who is at the top and blame him or her for our problems. We love to look at the people in power and to say they're the reason. Because every two, four or six years we get to elect someone else who is going to usher in a new set of challenges or a new set of problems. And on and on and on it goes. It takes more responsibility for us to pause and simply ask, what is it that I want instead? What else do I want to create? What else do I want to experience? Because the truth is, we cannot solve problems externally without being first clear on what it is that we want to create. Instead, problems become a great bouncing off place for us to look at where we want to go next. When we point the finger at pollution or an oil spill that has now caught on fire, we create new desire for there to be clean energy. And if we put all of our attention on the solution rather than the problem, we will overcome it much faster. Of course, all that will happen is the finger pointers will then point at the new challenges that are created. But all we have control over is our own response to them. In the same way, if we see a politician tweet something out that we consider anti American or that drums up anger on one side, or it creates new desire for us to unite or for us to help those in need. Our job as creators, as capitalists, is to put our attention on the solution, to create that solution, to enroll other people into that solution. It is as simple as changing our language from I don't want to be broke to to I want financial freedom. I'm creating financial freedom. I'm pursuing financial freedom. That requires us to take personal responsibility over what it is that we are creating. A good example of this is fossil fuels. Fossil fuels once again are burning in the ocean at the time of this recording. And so people are looking at it and pointing it and saying, see, this is what happens when you pillage the Earth. This is what happens when you let capitalism go unchecked. But fossil fuels have also solved more problems than almost anything in history. Fossil fuels have extended lifespans. They have given us air conditioning, they've given us electricity, they have given us power grids. Now, we could end fossil fuels like that in an instant. I live in Texas, and much of the Texas economy is run on fossil fuels. I've experienced in the last year what it looks like when the power grid goes out. Over the winter, we had a power outage. They called it the Texas freeze. That. Well, let's just Say the news didn't do it justice. It was horrifying. Here it was the first time that I ever saw how fragile the entire system could be. Because when you have no power and you can't access public roads, there's no access to food. It got real ugly real quick. So we could theoretically turn off all fossil fuels. We could solve that problem, and what would happen is we would quickly descend into absolute chaos. The solution instead is not to put our focus or point the finger at the thing that is the source of our problems, but instead to put our focus and point the finger at what the solution is. And as we fight for solutions, rather than point the finger at problems with, we tend to unite, we tend to create, and we tend to overcome challenges much faster. It only requires us to point the finger very quickly to identify what it is that we don't want to serve as the contrast for where it is that we want to go. So many of us spend years, we spend our lives putting our focus on the things that we don't like about our lives or our life situation. We spend years bemoaning our financial situation or our relationships or the things that we don't like, rather than putting our focus on what we want instead. So again, just to belabor the point even further, we could eliminate fossil fuels and all the problems that come with them. It's just that at the same time a bunch of people would die. And that creates a new set of challenges, a new set of problems. So again, fossil fuels are one example of an innovation, of a technology that solved a bunch of problems and then immediately created a new set of them. We had an economic boom which created some inequality. We had a new source of fuel which also became a source of pollution. We had a scarce good, which some would say also caused conflicts with other nations. So we have this new technology, this new innovation, and we've got new problems. What that does is create a new set of opportunities for us to pursue. Elon Musk wouldn't be Elon without the challenge that is caused by fossil fuels. All of the people who are millionaires simply because they invested in Tesla would not have economic freedom if it wasn't for the problem that was caused by the previous solution that was fossil fuels. This is the way of the world. And those who get the largest benefit are those who do not stare at the problem, but instead put all of their energy into coming up with something better. That's what capitalism is, is. It is the constant evolution of us coming up with new solutions to existing challenges. You want to get rich very quickly, look at where there is a problem and then put all of your energy into solving that. You want economic freedom. Look at where there is stuck opportunity or stuck energy and come up with something that frees that up. That is how we move forward. We don't do it by putting all of our attention on where there are disagreements, where there are problems, or coming up with this answer of who's right, it doesn't matter. The question of who's correct about something doesn't move us forward. New innovations and new solutions do. We can identify this in our own lives. Becoming an entrepreneur solved a whole bunch of problems for myself. It solved a whole bunch of money problems and created a new set of money problems. I no longer was making $6 an hour working at Dunkin Donuts once I became a full time entrepreneur. I no longer had to umpire in the summers in order to make more money. I no longer had to clean toilets at my church.

I no longer had to take on odd jobs or wonder how I was going to make money. Except that now I have things like employees and visions to cast and customers to serve.

These are all both new opportunities and new problems and challenges. And the minute that you stop addressing them, the minute you stop having new problems is the minute that you stop growing. And the point is to continually evolve. You can stop, you can get to a point where you say, I'm no longer going to have any more problems. I'm not going to solve any more problems anymore. And that in and of itself becomes a problem because now you are bored and you have no source of happiness. So it is impossible for us to avoid this. And the most impactful way for us to fuel that energy is through a system that incentivizes us to solve challenges and problems for other people. And that's called capitalism. What we are really pursuing is not the end of problems, but the opportunity to address a higher quality set of problems. When you have money, you will still have money problems. They'll just be a higher quality set of problems. You will start to ask questions about how to protect and grow your wealth. You will start to ask questions about where to put your energy now that you don't have to work 80 hours a week. You will ask questions about meaning and purpose. These are still challenges. There's just higher quality problems and challenges. When you meet someone and you fall in love, you will have a higher set of higher quality set of problems. You will be thinking about relationship management or kids or, or how to split your time when you're single. Oftentimes the problem that you think about is that I'm not in a relationship. We have this idea that once we solve that one thing that takes up so much of our energy, that then we'll reach this state of euphoria that will never end. But what really happens is we get a dopamine hit in our brain from unlocking that solution, and then we cruise right into the the next set of challenges, and we forget about that stage that we just came from. Just like I forgot how much I want to go bowling at that bowling alley when shutdown happened. We forget so quickly. And thus we are wired naturally to go pursue the next thing, to go pursue the next highest quality problem in our lives and in the world. And the bigger the challenge, the bigger the reward. And oftentimes, the bigger the rush of endorphins, the more satisfaction that we have once we have unlocked it, once we have solved it. But it's all temporary, all of it. Jeff Bezos has problems. Elon Musk has problems. They're often in the news. Sarah Blakely has problems. All these people that we put on a pedestal that we want to be like, have just as many problems as us. They're just a different level of problem. And you might even say that when they have them, when they fail, when they have a setback, it happens on a greater scale. When they lose money, they probably lose more than you. When they have a breakup, it costs more, hurts more, and is more public than when you have a breakup. So again, there is not an end to them, just a greater scale on which we get to address them. The next time someone blames capitalism, or really anything outside of ourselves for a problem that exists in the world, I would invite you to see if you can find what that exact thing was the solution to at its beginning. It can be a very beautiful, wonderful thing for people to come together and see a problem and then immediately focus on its solution. That's our job as entrepreneurs, to invent them, to create them, to mold them, and to bring them to everyone else. But those who are not successful, those who are not responsible, instead simply point the finger and cast blame at why that problem exists. This will always be the case. And it is those who say, that's an interesting point, that's an interesting problem, I want to be part of the solution. It is those individuals that move the world forward and the ones that get rich in the process. So when someone points their finger at a problem, there is usually a reason why it exists in the first place. That was better than the system prior to it. Almost always fossil fuels are that way. Even economic inequality is that way. We love to point at inequality as a problem, and it can be a problem, and it was also the solution. Because when you have pure equality, you have no incentive. And when you have no incentive, you have no growth. You have no reason to change. As soon as someone creates something that is better than the system prior, they will get rewarded for it. And that reward is and in and of itself, inequality. It's inequality of outcome, inequality of reward. We want some inequality to incentivize people to continue to solve additional problems. And then someone says, well, inequality is too big of a problem for us to ignore anymore. What do we do about that? We come up with new solutions for it. What are those new solutions? They are all of the opportunities that have now been distributed and democratized because of the Internet, because of cryptocurrency, because of new innovations, because of the fact that you can drive for Uber and be middle class today. Those are the solutions, my friends. You're a creator of the solutions. Let everyone else be the finger pointer on the problems. Spend as little energy as possible on the problem itself. Put all of your focus, all of your intention, all of your energy into being part of the solution. Become clear on the solutions that you want to bring to this world, even if that solution is as small as being financially free, because that is indeed a solution to your own personal problems. It will of course open up a new set of challenges. And when you become okay with the fact that there will always be a new level of problem, a new level of freedom for you to pursue, and when you know that that is actually the source of happiness and the source of growth that keeps you going, you have the permission and the freedom to pursue everything that you want. And to know that at every stage of the journey there are opportunities to grow, to be happy, and to align your focus behind being the change that you want to create. Be well, my friends. Thanks for listening. I'll see you soon. Bye. If you found value in this podcast and you're ready to go deeper, here are three resources where we can help you. 1. You can grab my book 12 months to 1 million on Audible or Amazon. It has over a thousand reviews and it's the playbook to building a seven figure business. Second, you can join our community of of entrepreneurs who are following a plan to build a 1% net worth by building businesses and investing the profits you can get plugged in@capitalism.com 1. And third, if you're looking to go deeper and build a seven figure business that you can sell. You can work closely with us inside the capitalism incubator and you can get on the waiting list and find out what we do. Over at capitalism.com inc. That's capitalism.com incident.