Economic Lessons from the Olympics | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary
EXCERPTS:
"Civilization can only advance when individuals are both encouraged and rewarded for excellence. The men and women who designed, built, and succeeded in placing the new SUV-sized rover on Mars receive and deserve our acclaim. The late Steve Jobs is widely admired for creating the world's most valuable company and for being a genius in product innovation and marketing. Thomas Edison was even more innovative a century earlier — the light bulb, the phonograph, the electrical generation and distribution system, etc. — and he also built one of the world's largest companies, General Electric.
The good side of humanity is revealed when we praise and reward such people. The bad side of humanity is shown by those who wish to punish success. According to legend, Ivan the Terrible was so impressed by the stellar achievement of the architect he had commissioned to design St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow that he had him blinded so no other ruler could hire him to produce an equal or greater feat.
The modern day equivalents of Ivan the Terrible are those who pander to the envious and jealous by demanding higher and higher tax rates on the successful. They seek to punish success with the childish demand that they "give back." We pay our successful athletes and musicians a great deal of money because their performances "give" us great pleasure. Sam Walton made tens of billions of dollars because he developed and "gave" us a superior marketing and distribution system that enabled all of us to buy tens of thousands of products at lower prices. Those "evil" real estate developers are the ones who take great risks to build hugely expensive buildings and hire great architects who "give" the rest of us the profile and structures of the cities where we live and work.
We want an economy that produces many well-paying jobs. These are produced by entrepreneurs and businessmen, many of whom have spent considerable time developing their skills, learning from their own mistakes, and often risking their own money. Every job they create is "giving" something to those who are not as equally ambitious, talented, resourceful, hard working or skilled. Why then should the job creators be expected to "give" even more?"
