Simply Rich was written by the co-founder of Amway Richard De Vos. Now you might be asking why and how I ended up reading this book. A friend recommended it to me because of a rant I went on about owning your own business and being self employed. I honestly had no idea it was related to Amway. But I gave it a chance and read it. Nothing against my friend or Amway, but I definitely didn't agree with about 85% of what I read and heres why.
A false sense of America
The ideology was simple. If you are a Christian, conservative, who believes in the old America ( you know the Christian one) than you too can be rich, with some hard work and effort.
Honestly I agree that running and owning a business takes a sense of independence and hard work. But I didn't agree with the integration of religion and business ideology that he spewed over and over again through out his book.
There was also this sense that America used to be great, right after WWII, but somehow things have gotten so bad now. As he put it "People are just not proud to be American!" I'm guessing he never had to be on the receiving end of discrimination and racism people of color fought for during the same time period.
I'm just not sure how you can be patriotic yet hate what America has become. This seems very Un- American to me.
The Religious Political Rant got louder
The book opened up about how Christians are better than everyone else in his opinion. He made this clear when he talked about how he tried going to a regular school but just felt that his Christian school mates grew up better because of their faith. This was the reason he decided to re-enroll into his Christian High School after dropping out.
I let that slide. But it was interesting that I knew he was a Republican before he announced it and started hammering away with it towards the end.
I'm an independent. But in the end he was exactly the kind of Republican I thought he would be. Fears of socialism as well as a hate for communist countries. Eventhough he admitted that communist countries make him the most profits for his company.
In the end I felt he used Christianity as an excuse for success. In his defense he did mention that he separated Christian sermons from Amway meetings. Which was the least he could do, considering that his book did not do so.
The book was very repetitive. He's rich because he's chose the Christian Faith, is a Republican and is an American. It left a stale taste and I will not judge all of my Republican friends on his scale because that would be generalizing. Unlike him, I try to avoid this type of critical thinking error.
However, I feel that his type of old fashioned thinking about politics and religion needs to die out with his generation. In order for things to get better( and yes believe it or not they are better) we need to progress towards new ways of thinking. Not revert to old ways that didn't work. It didn't work then and it won't start magically working now.
As far as his defense about not taxing the rich because then they wouldn't be able to donate large sums of money to good causes (like Christian Churches). How about this proposition. We don't tax the top 10% that hold 90% of Americas wealth and power more. Instead we tax the Churches they helped make rich. No! Why?