I haven’t been blogging much of my own lately because I’m a bit overwhelmed with different ideas on what to write, and none of it is cohesive enough to constitute a blog entry (sometimes what emerges as an entry feels like it anyway!). But I wanted to share this article from The Freeman, a periodical published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). The article explains some of the guilt complex that successful businessmen often have when they say they want to “give back” to society. It’s really an ironic thing, because they did give back to society by providing it with goods and services that they not only wanted, they willingly and voluntarily gave up their money to attain. It’s simply called trade, and when voluntary trade occurs, it makes each person “wealthier.” That one single person becomes very wealthy (by ethical and lawful means) simply means they had their finger on the pulse of their fellow citizens. In other words, they really got it right because so many people wanted what they were providing. The author expresses similar thoughts to that of my own on this post.
Here is a link to the article. Here is a notable quote:
Successful people who earn their wealth through free and peaceful exchange may choose to give some of it away, but they’d be no less moral and no less debt-free if they gave away nothing. It cheapens the powerful charitable impulse that all but a few people possess to suggest that charity is equivalent to debt service or that it should be motivated by any degree of guilt or self-flagellation.
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