The Rich! – the visionaries that shape society

Brendan Benfield | Contributing Writer | Free Market Foundation | Visiting Fellow | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | Co-Founder | Prime Meridian Direct | Senior Executive | DuePoint | mail me |

Some say that “Jealousy makes you nasty,” but it makes you more than that – it makes you blind too.

Over several weekends of late, we have been subjected to news articles about how evil “the rich” are. A few in particular have stood out; one in the context of, would you believe it, zero rated VAT’able products. The article was titled: “Treasury says no to zero-rating VAT on more products – because “only ‘the rich’ will benefit” (BusinessTech – 16 November 2023). It turns out that the poor would benefit too, but apparently that does not make for good headlines. Another one that seemed most humorous was entitled: “Air conditioners caused stage 6 load-shedding – Eskom” (MyBroadBand – 3 December 2023) to mention just a few.

Scapegoats for society’s ills

The title “the rich” has become synonymous with all things evil: greed, crime, corruption, selfishness, and destruction.

According to populist politicians in general – many themselves newly rich and arguably the epitome of many of the evils described above – “the rich” are the ultimate cause of the poor and the source of all other economic and social evils.

The 1% – self-made & risk-taking

Of course, none of this could be further from the truth. “The rich” are a naturally occurring phenomenon among all human groups, but exclude those who have enriched themselves through taxation, theft, rent seeking or forced redistribution of the wealth generated by this small group.

Statistically, the self-made rich make up around 1% of the population. (A quick Google search will reveal the research around this statistic.) What sets this 1% apart is their willingness to take risks and diligently apply themselves. They seldom have better skills, talents, circumstances, education or environments than the other 99% but instead are willing to take everything they have, be it money, time, health or relationships, and sacrifice them for the prospect of wealth and the general progress of humankind.

This fragment of the human population loosely defined as entrepreneurs, innovators or inventers, are more often than not neither trained nor birthed into this role. To varying degrees, they occur naturally and randomly in every population group across the globe, despite the economic systems in which they may find themselves.

Historical role

Historically, it has been this small percentage of the population that has been the key to…

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