Do you, the reader, own any Apple products? Are there Dell computers in your office, or at home? Have you purchased anything on Amazon in the past month?
It's a question worth asking considering all the present hysteria about wealth inequality. Figure that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died worth billions, Michael Dell is worth $20 billion, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is one of the five richest men in the world.
Their enormous wealth has surely increased wealth inequality in a substantial way, but can anyone seriously say they wish all three had been layabouts? Or on the dole? Inequality would surely be greatly reduced, but so would our living standards be.
More realistically, it's safe to say that while views differ on the subject of inequality, when presented with the individuals whose wealth has expanded the gap between rich and poor, most would say we want a great deal more of these wildly enterprising people. Life would be unrelentingly bleak without the super-rich and the staggering innovations that made them rich.
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