In Defense of Billionaires | by Michael R. Strain - Project Syndicate

As the researchers sum it up, “Our results highlight the risks of the paradigm that we call ‘naive meritocracy’ . . . because it underestimates the role of randomness among the determinants of success.” Some billionaires may be talented. All have been lucky. And luck is, by definition, the product of chance. Taleb, Duncan Watts, and Robert Frank ha

The advance of human societies fundamentally requires that they continuously attain a balance between order and adaptability. Entrepreneurs are vital to the attainment and maintenance of prosperity because they are, by definition, the ones who push back against incumbent interests and, in so doing, maintain that balance.

Of course, all people need to take responsibility for making good decisions that lead to good Financial Health. But it’s also important to recognize the factors that lead to high wealth and how much is due simply to an accident of birth.

The brightest, most successful and ambitious of these will emerge as truly Sovereign Individuals. At first, only a handful will achieve full financial sovereignty. But this does not negate the advantages of financial independence. The fact that not everyone attains an equally vast fortune does not mean that it is futile or meaningless to become ric

any genuine upsurge in opportunity is almost inevitably bound to lead to at least a brief surge in inequality.