I read this book on a certain weird turn applying for an analyst’s
position in a fancy strategic financial advisors company. Don’t ask how or why,
but I did and they went along. The first thing I wanted to achieve was a proper
mindset. Hence this book.
On the upside this book was intelligent enough to disturb me. On the
downside at times it was so mind numbingly obtuse that I was literally left
without words. Such is the case with the story about the young woman that had
aspirations of becoming a writer and wanted to know how she can become rich.
Kiyosaki's answer is that she should find a job as a saleswoman, writing over
the weekends. He continues by saying that up to the point of writing he still
can not understand the reasons that made the young writer storm out. Indeed,
his answer was absolutely wise and truthful: writing is not the best of ways to
become wealthy. What he fails to understand is the oh-so-obvious fact that what
the young lady REALLY wanted to know is how she can become rich by writing.
This case about sums up the narrowness of this book: for Kiyosaki money is
freedom and power and hence happiness - when working one has to make sure that
he is actually making money. In short he equates “working” with “making money”
- when you work and the work you do is not making money for you, you must be
kind of dumb.
Infuriating, as you must understand. Infuriating, but, to a very large
extent also very true. What Kiyosaki unwittingly presents is a programmatic
combination of Marxism with the sociological insights of Bourdieu, turned into
a success book. Marxism would note the inherent gap between the possibilities
of the rich and those of the poor. Bourdieu further adds the difference in
accumulated cultural wealth - the differing notions and practices. Kiyosaki
specifically refers to the different notions with regard to economics. The rich
and the poor do not view money, or economics, in the same way. To sum his
views, for the rich economy is a game (though a deadly serious one), for the
poor it is a matter of destiny-History. the rich think about ways for making
money, the poor think about ways to get jobs. The difference may seem trivial
but it is not: as the Marxist view suggests lending yourself for a paycheck is
the absolutely worst way to accumulate wealth.
There is also a historical lesson that can be learned here. Class
barriers in our age are not necessarily material, they very well might be, at
least to a degree, socio-psychological. The practices of the rich can be
learned. But in order to do so, you must view yourself as part of the game. If
you have a problem doing that, well, basically, not-meaning-to-be-offensive-or-anything,
you're screwed.
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