Amskeptic wrote:
3) It is a myth. For every Horatio Alger myth story, you find that a support network allowed these "trail-blazing individuals" to get a leg up. Fact is, there are "indians" and there are "chiefs", they all deserve lives of dignity. It is arrogant to the extreme to declare that "individual initiative" is worth 85 million while a hard-working gardener can't feed his family.
Colin
Most people don't understand the extent to which most HA "stories" in real life aren't meaningfully about "pulling yourself up". For every one person who does that, ten more got where they are by connection, status and association. Bill Gates is typical of this; people talk about him as a self-made guy. Yeah, if by self made you mean with a Dad so rich that a) you can afford Harvard, and b) don't need to worry about dropping out of Harvard.
In any event, my historical studies of history have over and over reinforced one elemental truth; the wealthy and powerful will try to extend their control, wealth and power indefinitely; the only force that's ever stopped them is the active resistance or violence of the masses. This is followed by a redistribution of wealth and power, followed by a long, slow slog back up the same hill.
As long as the wealthy continue to centralize wealth an power among an ever smaller group, they run the real risk of creating the circumstances for their own downfall. Not guaranteed to be sure; it was the Black Death that finalized a historical movement towards a business class/middle class and the end of feudal society, but that movement was already underway, as sumptuary laws in the 14th century show.
Which brings us to my favorite founding father: Jefferson. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants." Indeed.
L.