Scott Martens wrote:
>
> The winners
> these days seem better defined by their education and skills than their
> assets.
>
I suggest you browse in the back of one of the annual Forbes Magazine lists of the richest -- where it lists _families_ rather than individuals. "Winners" here gives the wrong flavor: It focuses on the few hundred thousand or few million who "compete" to be among the few who filter into the edges of the core capitalist class. It may be true that "A guy with computer skills has more freedom of movement than someone with a comparable income derived from property ownership," but remember that if we are talking in terms of hundreds of millions, _only_ those with income from property are even "in" the game. I imagine it varies considerably over different eras what are the routes into the positions of "higher servants" of the ruling class, but of all the very rich corporate lawyers in the u.s., only one or two a generation sire a Bill Gates! (And most such as Gates come from such a category. The ancestors of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. had been _very_ substantial farmers & feed merchants etc for several generations.
Carrol