Who’s to Blame?

Imagine that someone tells you as a young adult that there’s a huge market for artisanal butter-churners in the big city. They’re really convincing, so you believe them. You invest a bunch of time and effort into learning how to churn butter; you’re even pretty darned good at it. You buy or even make some really good butter churns, adding to your investment. Maybe you even take out a big loan to buy a cow, confident that it will pay back dividends.

Then you get to the big city and what do you know? Everyone just buys butter in the store, where it’s a cheap and plentiful. Very few people want to hire you to churn artisanal butter for them, and only a few buy the butter you make, since despite it’s quality it’s very expensive at the farmer’s market or wherever you sell it.

In this situation, have you been harmed? Yes! Definitely! Someone did you dirty!

But should you blame all the people who don’t buy your butter?

Imagine doing such a thing! Imagine that you focus your ire squarely on the people who buy butter from the store. They’re the villains here! In fact, someone should intervene. Store-bought butter should be illegal! People should have to buy their butter from honest churners like you – or if not, then at the very least store-bought butter should be taxed extremely heavily and the proceeds should go to supporting and subsidizing the artisanal butter-churner population.

That’s insane, of course. People don’t owe you their patronage, especially if what you’re selling is more expensive than the next option. You were harmed, but the villains here aren’t the masses that don’t want what you’re selling. The villain is the guy that told you this was a good idea.

Does some blame lay with you? Sure, of course – if you didn’t verify those claims, seek other opinions, etc. But you were young and naïve, and that guy was a convincing pillar of your community. He was well-respected! He even gave you a good deal on the butter-churning courses, lent you the money to buy that cow…

…oh.

Look, you got swindled. That sucks. Your primary course of action should be to stop being swindled. And by that I mean, stop throwing good money after bad. Ignore the sunk cost and stop trying to be a butter-churner. Yes, you’re behind. But that can’t be helped now, so start doing the smarter things today so you’re not still behind in a few years.

After you course-correct, it’s natural to want some recompense for being hoodwinked. If you seek that out, and if the juice seems worth the squeeze, then at least go after the right people. Don’t blame innocent bystanders whose only crime was not being swindled alongside you in such a way as to make your investment actually sound. It’s not “society’s” fault that the thing you got good at isn’t a thing anyone cares about, and society doesn’t owe it to you to care about it. Blame the person who lied to you, and stop defending them.