Monday, July 3, 2017

He, Tarzan

Let's say some boy with a high degree of technical aptitude, maybe Charles Koch, is parachuted into a primitive situation in an uninhabited part of Africa or Amazonian South America. He's all alone. He does better than the average bear because he's smart and industrious and he manages to subsist. The usual if limited array of available natural resources makes this possible. 

Charles will do better over time but, without additional people working in cooperation and additional resources, his life will remain primitive. Wealth is a only partly a function of personal merit and hard work--that is the point. Higher wealth is a social function. But try to convince our lad Charles of this. He thinks wealth is the result of heroism and that everyone should defer to him.

At the very least, now that Charles has acquired his billions, he thinks that lesser beings should get out of his way. Not that he's prejudiced, mind you, or biased or single-minded. He has guys in think-tanks, on his dime, who tell him this is true. 

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