>Dick Grippon wrote:
>
>>You can't have a socially stratified society without the same mechanism
>>at work, one which limits rewards to the deserving and punishes the
>>losers. Rewards -- the good life -- must be scarce to have any value.
>>Stratified societies produce scarcity.
>
>So, Bush is president cause he's a genius? And Rockefeller the VI? He's a
>genius too? And Bill Gates, he's like a million times smarter and more
>deserving than me?
>
>Just curious,
Why turn the spotlight on to those people? How about anyone earning an income in, say, the top 40%. You know the sales reps at SUN, the programmers, the tech writers, etc. The day leftists can turn the spotlight on the fact that they didn't do anything special to put them in their income bracket other than to be born into the right family, at the right time, in the right place is the day we make progress. Turning to a poor person and telling them to stop blaming themselves for their station in life is only half the equation. Social structure effects the winners as well as the also-rans.
If you look at the numbers on who ends up where in the income hierachy, the biggest predictor is where you started out. End of story. Programmers and sales reps and tech writers are no more deserving of their incomes than Chuck0, Dennis Redmond, Pugliese, or anyone else here earning below $15k.