Society's Contribution to Individual Wealth and Success.
The technology wealth boom of the last two decades has given rise to a newchapter in the individual wealth creation narrative. There is still, however, aninclination to enshrine individual effort and undervalue society’s role. The greatman folklore fills the pages of business magazines and the libertarian squawkradio: “I did it all myself.” “I built this fortune on my own.” “I never took anyhelp from anybody.” “I’m a self-made man.”
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Luck and Timing. Luck is often the good fortune of timing, of benefiting fromcircumstances beyond human control. It can be the experience of being in theright place at the right time. Consider the different fortunes of an entrepreneurstarting an Internet company in 2003 rather than 1997. The same good ideawould face dramatically different prospects...
Luck also includes winning the “birth lottery” that determines a person’s parents and genes. For instance, a recent study concluded that tall people consistentlyearn more money than short people, with each inch of height being equivalentto $789 a year in pay.
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Colleagues and Co-workers. For anyone engaged in a large endeavor to state “Idid it alone” renders invisible all the contributions of co-workers, colleagues andthose who went before in a given field. Ideas, products and books do not emergein a vacuum. Other people’s creativity, labor, feedback and suggestions arealways involved. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt remarked,
Wealth in the modern world resulted from a combinationof individual efforts. In spite of the great importance in ournational life of the...ingenuity of unusual individuals, thepeople in the mass have inevitably helped to make largefortunes possible....
Albert Einstein understood this. “A hundred times every day I tell myself thatmy inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead,and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I havereceived and am still receiving.”
Privilege: The “Born on Third Base” Syndrome. Privilege is the head start thatcomes to someone by virtue of his or her birth or upbringing. Sometimes suchadvantages look modest, or are even invisible. Gifts from parents to pay forhigher education or a down payment on a home, or to help start a business, cantransform a person’s options and change their life trajectory.
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Among the very wealthy, inherited privilege is often a guaranteed catapult tocontinued wealth. Almost a third of the Forbes 400, for instance, are born ontothe list (149 members in 2001, with an average net worth of $2.6 billion).Using baseball imagery, they essentially were born rounding third base andheading for home. And at least another quarter were born standing on the basepath, meaning they were fortunate enough to inherit a small business, a piece ofland with oil under it, or an investment of “parental equity” on flexible terms.
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Public Infrastructure. We have an incredible public infrastructure of roads,power, ports, rail and communications. Historically, much of this infrastructurewas built with immigrant and slave labor that was grossly under-compensatedfor its contribution to society’s shared wealth.
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Public Investment in Research and Innovation. As taxpayers, we should beproud that the US government is the biggest venture capitalist in the world. Thefederal government spends tens of billions a year on research, mostly in grants touniversities. Without that investment, there would be no Internet, no humangenome research and few medical wonder drugs. We should not underestimatethe role of this research in creating the bedrock for wealth creation and thequality of life we enjoy...
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Investments in Individual Opportunity. At various points in US history, we’vechosen to use our collective government resources to expand equality of oppor-tunity and access to education. For over a century, we’ve had a national commit-ment to public education for all citizens. We’ve also made tuition assistanceavailable for higher education. The GI Bill, for example, was among the mostsuccessful wealth broadening initiatives in US history. Over 35 million individu-als received a debt-free college education. But investment in education benefitsnot only the individuals concerned. A well-educated workforce is also anessential building block for many successful companies.
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The mythology of self-made success would not be such a problem if it were a matter of somple personal self-delusion. But this worldview, held by many who hold great power and influence in our society, has serious consequences for the kind of society we have, and for our commitment to equality of opportunity.
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