John Bogle, the founder of The Vanguard Group who died earlier this month at age 89, got rich by giving his mutual fund customers a better deal.
The obituaries seem to have missed that point, dwelling instead on the theory that if only Bogle had chosen to rip off his customers, he could have been even richer. That claim is highly speculative, and based on a fundamental misperception: a view of capitalism as a racket rather than as a system in which the incentives of entrepreneurs and customers sometimes align with results that are spectacularly rewarding for both.
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