As an entrepreneur, I know that when I make more money, it is because I produced more and people voted with their dollar for my products or services. Thus, I feel very good about my endeavors and feel no need to apologize, instead, I truly believe I deserve an award. Yet, there are plenty who will stand up and call me evil, unfair or unjust. In fact, I recently read a book that was about 180 degrees from Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” the other day. It made me feel unwanted and unloved, but, I still know who I am, and I applaud the entrepreneur. Here is the book, in case you would like to read it:
“The Winner-Take-All Society” by Robert H. Frank and Philip J. Cook. 1995.
This book is a condemnation of what most people call runaway capitalism. It bothers me very much to read such books, but it is necessary to do so to understand the complaints against capitalism in order to educate folks on why everything is not so black and white and what capitalism has done for societies and civilizations. Capitalism pushes people up, socialism attempts to keep them on a level playing field while pushing people down. Communism sounds sexy in theory, but in reality is about the scariest thing one might ever consider in hindsight of history.
As the authors condemn capitalism in this book, I so badly wish to discuss the ignorance of that logic, but alas, what good would it do. The authors have acknowledgements of PhDs from most every major academic institution, yet fail to see that those very institutions were built by capitalism. It’s as if it is the academia has united against all we are and all we have built. After all, this is the greatest single civilization ever created in the history of mankind.
As a winner myself, I feel as if these clowns (my opinion) have absolutely no clue as to what they are talking about. For the ultimate liberal, anti-capitalist or self-proclaimed environmentalist; well, they will love this book. Milton Friedman and his wife could have debated this book into the ground for 40 hours straight. If you are a capitalist you will deplore this book, but you need to hear the opposition’s comments to understand the battle for what is right. It will be interesting to hear from you as an entrepreneur what you think about it.