Here's another from "Tax Facts." It speaks to the difference between fortunes which come about because of privileges granted (or grabbed), and those created through rendering service and -- not so incidentally -- employing people!
Should we continue to look the other way when we see privilege? Should we educate the next generation to continue to permit privileges, and to accept the miserable effects they create on society as a whole?
GREAT FORTUNES
President Coolidge gives his approval of the great fortunes in this country on the ground that they have been the means — through the various endowments — of promoting learning and culture.
The righteousness of a great fortune depends not upon the end to which it is put, but upon the source from which it came. If a man earns his fortune he can do so only by employing labor and producing wealth, or by rendering his fellow men some great service. A fortune made in that way benefits all.
But when a fortune is made through legal privilege, by a grant from a king, by a franchise from a republic — which grant or franchise he sells or leases to another for a great sum — the possessor of that fortune has employed no labor, produced no wealth and rendered no service to his fellow men. The owner of that fortune is a social parasite, and a burden upon his fellows. He has done society a wrong that never can be righted by devoting a part of the fortune, no matter how large a part, to public service.
Nor does the virtue of a fortune depend upon its size. One dollar gotten without adequate return is wrong. A million gotten by service may be justified.
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