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Quotation of the Day…

… is from page 302 of Thomas Sowell’s 2002 collection, Controversial Essays:

Because of the neglect of history in our educational system, most people have no idea how many of the great American fortunes were created by people who were born and raised in worse poverty than the average welfare-recipient today.

DBx: Yes.

And note that Sowell describes these fortunes as having been created – which, in most cases, they were and continue to be. In markets, individuals create wealth. Individuals do not – contra Thomas Piketty and other collectivists – “take” or “seize” wealth, or have wealth “distributed to” them.

If you doubt me, stop working and watch what happens to your wealth. Unless you believe that your employer is a kind-hearted philanthropist who pays you, not because you create wealth for his or her firm, but because of his or her charitable instincts, then you’ll very soon realize – especially if you work for a privately owned organization – that wealth in a market economy is created.

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