This will be my final word for today ? maybe we can revisit this topic.
My point in raising the issue of the inherited wealth was not to imply that the vast economic divide in America is simply a matter of the idle rich vs. the rest of us. Obviously, there is a continuum amongst the wealthy elite in which some folks are more deserving than others.
Some wealth is inherited. Some wealth has been reaped by the owners of giant conglomerates from the ?hard work and entrepreneurship? that is involved in lobbying for no-bid government contracts. A good deal of wealth has resulted from the simple act of inventing a better mousetrap. The point is that all wealth is in some part a function of a system of rules enacted by government — ideally, a system that promotes fairness and efficiency.
Thus, while we need a system that promotes hard work and initiative, we should never underestimate the creativity of humans in figuring out new ways to evade the rules and game the system to their own advantage. As I think I?ve said before in one of these debates, the trick is to find the right balance between complete Darwinian, economic anarchy that promotes great wealth and great inequality and socialist stagnation that promotes equity, but discourages the creation of wealth.
The balance between these two competing forces has long ebbed and flowed in the west and is today flowing noticeably in the direction of the economic Darwinians. It is this trend that the Kerry/Edwards ?two Americas? rhetoric is attempting to address.
