"Luck"

Who is John Galt ^ | 09/17/2009 | "John Galt"

[cpurick]

Suppose Bill Gates had an identical twin brother, Walter. And suppose that Bill and Walter had identical interests, shared identical experiences. Suppose they were even identically driven.

Now suppose that one day many years ago, something split the brothers. Perhaps they were waiting together at a bus stop, and a nearly-full bus pulled up. Only one brother can get on the bus, and the other must wait for the next bus.

And let's suppose that this moment of separation had occurred at a key point in time, and that as a result it was Walter, instead of Bill, who went on to be the Gates who founded Microsoft.

Jonathan Chait devotes several paragraphs of his Ayn Rand "book report" to the role luck plays in achievement. If Chait read my supposition about the Gates brothers, he could hold it up as evidence that luck made Bill Gates, and that without luck we would be saying someone else's name -- in this case, Walter's -- when we mention the founder of the world's premier software company.

But Chait's explanation never explores a critical question, one that really leaves his "conclusion" invalid: What would have happened to Bill Gates?

[jaydee770]

I can’t recall who wrote it, but someone opined something along the lines of, “Take all of the money from the top 10 percent of our wealthiest citizens. Every last penny. Put them on welfare. Give all of their money to the bottom 10 percent of our poorest citizens. Within five years, the bottom %10 will again be poor and the top %10 will be well on their way to being wealthy again.”

I’d say that is a reasonable expectation.