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Actually, I agree with you. I assume that you are reading into my comment some enormous weight of dialog that I wasn't a part of. I'm unsure about how to respon

by Afton 19y ago

Actually, I agree with you. I assume that you are reading into my comment some enormous weight of dialog that I wasn't a part of. I'm unsure about how to respond since I feel like we're talking at cross purposes. So with the fair warning that we may simply continue to misunderstand each other, here goes: Of course you can 'get there'. But that doesn't make it 'fair'. If someone has to work for 0 hours for 100% chance of success and I have to work for 2000 hours for 0.01%, that isn't just. Horatio Alger stories are, frankly, rare and far between. The basic problem is that the outlook that a person should take on life is that they are the master of their own destiny and that they can make it on the strength of their own power. When I say "should" I just mean, that is the viewpoint of the world that makes them have the best chance of achieving success. It's a psychological trick that gives people courage, and helps them to recognize opportunities. That's a very short form of what I meant when I said that there was another lesson that the teachers missed out on. What is frustrating to me is that people take an outlook ("I am the master of my own destiny") and apply it to the world as though it were _true_. So it is common to hear people look down on the poor by saying variants of "if only they weren't so lazy they could make something of themselves". This ignores the fact that different people have different oportunities and that those oportunities are not of their own making. In any case, have a good day.

mynameishere 19y ago
Snore. I count 29 instances of the word "inheritance" on this page. [1] http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-09-22-forbes-list_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-09-22-forbes-list_x.htm Whenever someone wants to attack capitalism, they always seem to attack people born into wealthy families. That has nothing to do with capitalism. Nothing whatsoever. In fact, one of the GREATEST CHANGES to take place with the industrial revolution was the reduction in the prevailance of nepotism due to the importance of technical and managerial skills, rather than clannishness. Clannishness, family preferences, primogeniture, cousin marriages, etc, are all necessary to maintain feudalism, not capitalism. If you really hate capitalism, go straight to the real alternative: Command economy. This is where some brain dead bureaucrat decides who gets wealth based upon adherance to political orthodoxy--which is essentially what the teachers did in the end. Works great with fixed resources like toys. Doesn't work so great when the fields need tilling. [1] EDIT: Should be several higher. They only wrote "WalMart inheritence" once.
- anewaccountname 19y ago
  If 29/384 got that way purely on inheritance, then inheritance is statistically extremely significant in getting into that 384; the rich don't make up anywhere near 7.5% of the population, but that list is at a minimum 7.5% born rich. Also, as one example, Gates was born filthy rich, I don't the word "inheritance" occurs everywhere on that list where it plays a part.
  - dkokelley 19y ago
    That list is irrelevant. The people there are not representative of the entire population. They only represent the top .xx1% and are a very poor sample. What about the people who aren't on the list? There are a lot more of them, and they're still multimillionaires. We have no information about them, nor do we have any information from which we can derive conclusions from. As far as the top billionaires, it is true that many of them were extremely fortunate in life and had some money from birth. Only around 30 of them made their billions that way, the others worked to turn their millions into billions, which still takes a great deal of work (and pure luck). I see this argument going nowhere unless we can agree that everyone who has under $X to start and creates $Y over the course of their lives counts as someone who became successful through capitalism. But I doubt we can agree what the X and Y values should be.
    - wallflower 19y ago
      For those of you who are looking to be wealthy, aim to become an accredited investor by IRS standards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor

by Afton 19y ago

mynameishere 19y ago

Snore. I count 29 instances of the word "inheritance" on this page. [1] http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-09-22-forbes-list_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-09-22-forbes-list_x.htm Whenever someone wants to attack capitalism, they always seem to attack people born into wealthy families. That has nothing to do with capitalism. Nothing whatsoever. In fact, one of the GREATEST CHANGES to take place with the industrial revolution was the reduction in the prevailance of nepotism due to the importance of technical and managerial skills, rather than clannishness. Clannishness, family preferences, primogeniture, cousin marriages, etc, are all necessary to maintain feudalism, not capitalism. If you really hate capitalism, go straight to the real alternative: Command economy. This is where some brain dead bureaucrat decides who gets wealth based upon adherance to political orthodoxy--which is essentially what the teachers did in the end. Works great with fixed resources like toys. Doesn't work so great when the fields need tilling. [1] EDIT: Should be several higher. They only wrote "WalMart inheritence" once.

anewaccountname 19y ago
If 29/384 got that way purely on inheritance, then inheritance is statistically extremely significant in getting into that 384; the rich don't make up anywhere near 7.5% of the population, but that list is at a minimum 7.5% born rich. Also, as one example, Gates was born filthy rich, I don't the word "inheritance" occurs everywhere on that list where it plays a part.
- dkokelley 19y ago
  That list is irrelevant. The people there are not representative of the entire population. They only represent the top .xx1% and are a very poor sample. What about the people who aren't on the list? There are a lot more of them, and they're still multimillionaires. We have no information about them, nor do we have any information from which we can derive conclusions from. As far as the top billionaires, it is true that many of them were extremely fortunate in life and had some money from birth. Only around 30 of them made their billions that way, the others worked to turn their millions into billions, which still takes a great deal of work (and pure luck). I see this argument going nowhere unless we can agree that everyone who has under $X to start and creates $Y over the course of their lives counts as someone who became successful through capitalism. But I doubt we can agree what the X and Y values should be.
  - wallflower 19y ago
    For those of you who are looking to be wealthy, aim to become an accredited investor by IRS standards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor