> I don’t like that other people get to determine how much of the capital I pull in gets to be mine after all.
Let me paraphrase Adam Gopnik's recent book, "A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism": When you talk about "the capital I pull in," you're risking celebrating the driver while taking cars, roads, and gasoline for granted. [0]
See also Elizabeth Warren's famous talk in her first Senate campaign: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” [1]
And of course Barack Obama's correct statement, intentionally taken out of context by the right: "You didn't build that" (referring to the roads and bridges that businesses depend on). [2]
Let me paraphrase Adam Gopnik's recent book, "A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism": When you talk about "the capital I pull in," you're risking celebrating the driver while taking cars, roads, and gasoline for granted. [0]
See also Elizabeth Warren's famous talk in her first Senate campaign: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” [1]
And of course Barack Obama's correct statement, intentionally taken out of context by the right: "You didn't build that" (referring to the roads and bridges that businesses depend on). [2]
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Small-Sanities-Adventure-Lib... (not an affiliate link).
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/439207-there-is-nobody-in-t... — also YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60fQCDqXfq0
[2] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/You_didn%27t_build_that