Yes I am both of those things and darn proud of it. I like to think if I have a good idea I can make billions (still working on that BTW). Many of my Republican friends and family members (yes I know a lot of them) are confused by this. How can I be both a liberal and a capitalist? I always go to a quote from Henry Ford to start explaining my point-of-view. When asked why he was paying his workers three times what his competition paid back in like 1910 he said:
I want them to be able to afford to buy what they make.
About the most popular thing I ever wrote here were a few Diaries about the fact my parents are filthy rich. When they pass away, well I will have more money then I could maybe spend in a lifetime.
My friends that know this about me are stunned I am a liberal. They can't seem to wrap their minds around the fact I think I should pay more in taxes. I mean what am I thinking? I explain to them they don't understand my world view, which is actually very simple.
Taxes are how you pay for things. See if you are a lower-income person and your local school needs more money, well I want you to tax me so you have better schools. I want everybody to have health care. I want better roads and bridges, infrastructure. I want free wireless Internet access nationwide.
The list of things I want is pretty long .....
I want these things for two interrelated reasons. The easy one to explain is I don't want to live in a society where my fellow citizens can't afford to go to a doctor if they are sick, have to go tens or hundreds of thousands in debit to go to college, or can't feed their family. That is easy to explain, it is just how I feel.
But the harder thing to explain, and this is where my Republican friends and family members want to call me a socialist, is really just Business 101. Do I want to be taxed at say 95%. Hell no! But maybe paying 45% instead of 35%, sure.
See no matter what you are selling one of the first questions you have to ask is what is your target audience. There are 300M people in the US, but the market for iPads isn't 300M. It isn't that all 300M might not want an iPad, but the fact of the matter is a fair percentage of those people simply can't afford one.
Apple's wet dream is that all 300M could in fact afford one, cause it gives them a much larger target audience. And clearly the larger your audience is, well the more money you can make.
This brings me back to Ford's quote:
I want them to be able to afford to buy what they make.
I can't state it anymore bluntly then this: I want folks to be able to afford to buy what I make. Since what I sell costs around $1,500 a pop, I don't want somebody making $7.50/hour to make $7.99/hour. They will still not be able to afford what I sell. I want them to have a better education, opportunities, so they are making $30/hour. Then they can afford to buy what I make.
Sure there are many high school drop outs making more money then myself. But survey after survey shows that more education equals more money made over a lifetime. Factor in a better national infrastructure and an educated workforce, well people make more money. And people making more money spend more money, maybe buying what I sell.
So my thinking is tax me more. That 10 or 15% more I pay in taxes will help grow the middle class and upper middle class over the next decade or so. Sure I will have less money in my pocket, but I'll take the chance I can make that up in increased sales cause more people can afford to buy what I make.
IMHO, this is all pretty simple. It is how being both a far left hippie liberal and a Capitalist can co-exist very nicely I think.