Truly, It is Better to Give. But What is Best to Give?

Here are some thoughts many of us forget: In order to give to charity, the Giver must first obtain something to give.

The next question is: How does the giver obtain that something?

What is the best answer? 

How about: Create new Wealth and sell it to happy end-users for a wise and healthy profit.

Here is a brief, slightly edited portion of a report I just received: 

We can't give unless we (or someone) first creates. Yet wealth creators are encouraged to feel guilt. "Bill Gates, or any billionaire, for that matter," Yaron Brook, author of "Free Market Revolution" ..., said on my TV show, "how did they become a billionaire? By creating a product or great service that benefits everybody. And we know it benefits us because we pay for it. We pay less than what it's worth to us. That's why we trade — we get more value than what we give up. So, our lives are better off. Bill Gates improved hundreds of millions of lives around the world. That's how he became a billionaire."

Gates walks in the footprints of earlier creators, like John D. Rockefeller, who got rich by lowering the price of oil products, and Cornelius Vanderbilt, who did the same for transportation. The clueless media called them robber barons, but they were neither robbers nor barons.

They and other creators didn't just give us products to improve our lives, they also employed people. That's charity that keeps on giving, because employees keep working and keep supporting their families. "That's not charity," Brook said. "(It's) another trade. You pay your employees and get something in return. But the employee is better off, and you are better off.

"And when you start thinking about the multiplier effect, $50 billion for Bill Gates? That's nothing compared to the value he added to the world...." Gates now donates billions and applies his critical thinking skills to charity. He tested ideas in education, like small high schools, and dumped them when they didn't work. Good....  
 
Brook points out that Gates gets credit for his charity, but little credit for having created wealth. "Quite the contrary," Brook said. "We sent the Justice Department to go after him. He's considered greedy, in spite of all the hundreds of millions of people he's helped, because he benefited at the same time. (When) he shifted to charity, suddenly he's a good guy. My complaint is not that he's doing the charity. It's that we as a society value not the creation, not the building, not the accumulation of wealth. … What [society values] is the charity. Yes, it's going to have good impact, but is that what's important? … Charity is fine, but not the source of virtue. The source of virtue is the creation and the building." 

I can just hear people declare how inappropriate it is for a businessman to "Make a PROFIT!", saying "profit" with a sick, derisive sneer, with disgust. 

That is backed up by the declaration that a person who built a business didn't build it, other people built it. The implication is that it is wrong for a business man to take credit for guiding his employees' actions so they grow the business. That implies the employer didn't build the business, the employees did.

While this is correct in practicum, it is technically incorrect. The employees, left to their own thoughts and whims or desires, would likely drive the business into default and bankruptcy because they cannot, thus DO NOT see the big picture with the charted goals to achieve. With no unifying, directional vision the employees would act more like grasshoppers than bees, hopping around eating up resources instead of working unitedly under the boss's (queen bee's) authority or direction, gathering raw product and converting it into finished "honey."

There is no charity available from a grasshopper. Only producers can be charitable. 

 So who should we value more, the producer or the giver?

Government administrators and the mainstream news media teach us to value the giver. Give! Give! Give!l It is bad to take a profit! It is bad, they say, to be a "Robber Baron" who becomes very rich by selling product and service for a profit. Only when profits are given away are they good, we are told. 

This is wrong. 

While "it is better to give than to receive" is very true, it only applies in the appropriate setting. That setting is when everyone involved can be altruistic. Altruism in people is wonderful, and it is rare. The world is generally NOT altruistic. The world is generally whipping from the two sides of self-serving and other-serving. Both sides are needed; it is balance between the two that is the challenge and only in productive business can that balance be achieved. Here is why...

Self-serving business is most successful when the "self-server" serves others what they want and need. Otherwise the self-server, being alone, is extremely limited by single capacity in what can be produced. Everyone needs products to consume, for to live is to consume something everyday. A productive self-server must serve others, and that in accord with other servers, in order to produce more, distribute more and receive more in return. The return is profit.  Without profit the process cannot continue to grow as society grows.

An "other-server" who gives everything away for free ends up with nothing to consume. Living by the implication that profit is bad and that living for one's self is bad, the other-server, if s/he produces anything tangible must give it away in order to feel any self-worth. Only if some other, more wealthy other-server#2 gives other-server#1 a wage or salary will s/he end up with anything to live on. Very often, #2 is either a charity or government administrator, both being funded by self-serving, product-producing, profit-generating "robber barons" (God Help them!).

The  moral of this article is this whole article is this: 

SINCE IT IS BETTER TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE, THE BEST WAY TO GIVE IS TO --

1    START A BUSINESS THAT GIVES 
2.   A GREAT PRODUCT/SERVICE GIVEN
3.   AT THE BEST POSSIBLE PRICE, THUS GIVING
4.   BENEFIT TO THE MOST AMOUNT OF PEOPLE, THUS GIVING
5.   CONSTANT PRODUCTIVE WORK AND PAY FOR MANY PEOPLE AND GIVING
6.   A SATISFACTORY PROFIT FOR THE INVESTORS, MANY OF WHOM WILL GIVE 
7.   MUCH OF THE PROFITS TO CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS THAT GIVE
8.   CHARITY ADMINISTRATORS PAYING EMPLOYMENT FOR GIVING
9.   NEEDING PERSONS ASSISTANCE IN THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY, THUS GIVING
10   SUPPLIERS OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES NEW OPPORTUNITIES TO SUPPORT AND GROW THEIR PRODUCTIVE BUSINESSES (that GIVE so much!!)

If you truly want to serve others ... 
if you truly want to GIVE THE MOST ...  
if you truly want to BE THE MOST ALTRUISTIC ...

START A PRODUCTIVE, PROFITABLE BUSINESS THAT POWERS THE ENTIRE PROCESS.