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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow Did the World's Rich Get That Way? Luck
By Charles Kenny
Why are some people so rich and others so poor? Is it from good choices or good luck? Hard work, smarts, and abilityor something else? That depends who you are comparing yourself to. If you are more successful than your friends, colleagues, and family members, surely a lot of it is because you are better at what you do, or have made better choices, or have worked harder to get where you are. Think former President Bill Clinton, compared to his somewhat less successful brother.
But as the scale of comparison widens, the amount thats due to the choices you madecompared to the uterus you gestated indrops dramatically. That suggests we are a long way from equality of opportunity and that the rich are rewarded for the same effort far more than are the poor. Its time to fix that.
The United States is an unequal society. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 20 percent get about half the nations income, compared to the 5 percent of all income shared among the bottom fifth of households. The top 10 percent of the population controls about 70 percent of the wealth. Among rich countries, Americas inequality is certainly extreme. But the world as a whole is an incredibly unequal place. Norwayheld up as a model of equalitystill sees the bottom fifth of households with incomes less than a third (PDF) those of the top fifth.
Why is there such inequality? The choices we make as individuals can put us considerably above or below our peer average in terms of income or happiness or status. But our peer average itself is set by forces beyond our controlfactors such as to whom we were born. And our peer average explains our relative standing against national averages far more than our own choices.
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http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-22/how-did-the-worlds-rich-get-that-way-luck#r=rss
bemildred
(90,061 posts)CountAllVotes
(20,878 posts)Born into it or married into it specifically for that reason.
GCP
(8,166 posts)I think there's something in that, especially when it comes to the Russian oligarchs, who basically stole the nation's wealth when Yeltsin threw his hands in the air and decided Russia was going capitalist.
moondust
(20,006 posts)as the lucky and the criminal start leveraging their good fortunes to influence the real world, advancing unqualified cronies they like and stifling qualified people they don't like. See: Koch Brothers.