16. Hampering Inequality

TRY TELLING A PROSPECTIVE lottery player, “If you win, you must share your winnings with everyone equally, including those who didn’t buy tickets.” Would the person buy a ticket? Obviously not.

Some view wealthy people as possessing more than their fair share, but this perception fails to acknowledge the risk that these people took against the high odds of failure. Many have taken risks by going to school and deferring income during a good part of their lives. Physicians take risks by studying and working nearly thirty years of their lives before they can begin to reap the benefits of their investment, and that’s if they successfully make it to the end of that journey. Most who try don’t make it! We see the Gateses, the Edisons, and the Fords, but we never hear of the countless Joneses and Smiths who tried their hand at grabbing the golden ring and simply became forgotten souls. What gratitude should we pay, even owe, to the winners who persevered through skill and hard work, took chances, and, as a result, left as their legacy a stream of goods and services that continue to better our lives?

For every Hollywood star, there are a thousand more hopefuls who have spent their lives in pursuit of stardom. Take away the glory of stardom, and we lose the thousands upon thousands who would not have staked their skills and hard work and taken a chance to become one of the stars who entertain us. Take away the glory of wealth, and we lose the millions upon millions of entrepreneurs, inventors, and pioneers who would not have staked their skills, hard work, and chances to become one of the few moguls of industry who improve our well-being. Many of those who never become stars or moguls will, nevertheless, benefit us along the way because of their efforts.

If a factory owner had only machines, with some machines that were more productive than others, wouldn’t the owner take special care of his best producers? Even so, the owner wouldn’t throw a wrench into any of them, since the output of the factory is the total of all the machines. Like machines, some people are more productive than others. Whether one’s greater productivity is due to talent, skill, hard work, or simple luck, the sum of all production is the true yardstick that measures the prosperity of a society. A society’s prosperity is based on the productivity of all its members, so it would be irrational to impair the productivity of those having the greater talent or skill, just as it would be irrational to throw a wrench into the more productive factory machines.