A World Without the 1% - Jobs Posted: Dec 31st, 2017 - 4:40 pm In Reply to: Funny how things are not black and white, huh? - Critical thinking
“We are all blessed by the genius of the relatively few.” – Warren Brookes
Those eleven words written by Warren Brookes in his classic book, The Economy In Mind, in nearly every way tell the story of economic growth. While conservatives and liberals alike frequently promote the obnoxious falsehood that the middle class and small business are the “backbone of the U.S. economy,” the reality is quite a bit different.
In truth, the individuals who have and always will power the economy and society forward are the much-demonized ‘1 percenters’ who, by virtue of the alleged pejorative attached to them, are the relatively few. In sports we think of how Larry Bird and Magic Johnson’s arrival turned the not-ready-for-prime-time NBA into a global brand, how Tiger Woods' turning pro led to stupendous prize increases for professional golfers, and how Pete Carroll and Nick Saban turned the long-dormant USC and Alabama football programs back into national powers. In business we’ve seen it with Michael Eisner taking over a tired Disney brand and making it relevant again, Jeff Bezos in many ways creating online shopping through his founding of Amazon.com, and the late Steve Jobs returning to a near-bankrupt Apple and overseeing its ascendance to the world’s most valuable company.
Canadian economist Reuven Brenner refers to these rare individuals as the “vital few,” and while prominent members of the largely fraudulent economics profession offer up evidence-free assertions about the alleged horrors of income or wealth inequality, rarely do they stop and think how very bland and impoverished the world would be for those not at the top absent the people who regularly list as the world’s richest. Whatever one’s religion or lack thereof, we’re indeed “blessed by the genius of the relatively few.”
But what if the “vital few” were to disappear? That’s the question asked in Ayn Rand’s timeless novel, Atlas Shrugged. In it, the 1 percent are under attack for having had the temerity to grow rich by virtue of being innovative. The difference, and this is why copies of Atlas Shrugged continue to sell in bestseller fashion almost 60 years after the novel’s publication, is that in the book the innovators disappear. Tired of working for the alleged benefit of others, they go on strike.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2014/11/02/atlas-shrugged-part-iii-imagining-a-world-without-the-1-percenters/#42d998ba1bf0
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