There’s an especially stupid graphic going around this weekend that I’ve already seen several times which attempts to discredit the free market by pointing out that Paris Hilton is wealthy and Nikola Tesla died broke. The sarcastic punchline says, “Because capitalism makes sure only the only [sic] best and brightest become rich and successful.” The flaw is that the free market (or capitalism if you prefer) has never made such a promise, so this is a straw man. Advocates of the free market simply say that individuals have the moral right to do whatever they want and others have the moral right to make them as wealthy or poor as the value they believe those people provide. Paris Hilton started out life wealthy and was fortunate enough that the idiots of the mass market were entertained by her, so they were willing to push her to additional wealth. Tesla was a brilliant man who managed his affairs poorly, made bad decisions and also made an enemy out of Thomas Edison. He had the opportunity to be successful, but he failed to capitalize on his brilliance. The underlying assumption of this dishonest graphic is that there is some system that guarantees “fairness,” but there’s no such thing. It’s my opinion (and probably yours) that Tesla “deserved” wealth more than Hilton, but that’s just my opinion. Hilton is lucky enough to live in the modern media age, when fascination with a celebrity can be enough to make someone wealthy. So what? Do the people posting this not understand that there are hyper-wealthy and dirt-poor people under every system? The socialist system they love produces far more of the poor and a small number of the hyper-wealthy. Under the system they prefer, almost no one has an opportunity to rise from nothing to affluence, because the system produces so little. There’s no such thing as “fairness.” There’s only your opinion about what’s fair. If you want to force your opinion on others, just admit that what you really want is a dictatorship that imposes your will. There are only two choices. One is a free system that gives people a chance to do something with their lives. The other is a system of coercion that leaves people controlled by others. There is no third option.
Posted on: Sun, 18 May 2014 02:43:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015