The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Wealth Creators vs Wealth Spreaders

The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Wealth Creators vs Wealth Spreaders

Also references The peasant approach to commerce by Victor Davis Hanson:

Traditional peasant societies believe in only a limited amount of good. The more your neighbor earns, the less someone else gets. Profits are seen as a sort of theft; they must be either hidden or redistributed. Envy, rather than admiration of success, reigns.

In contrast, Western civilization began with a very different, ancient Greek idea of an autonomous citizen, not an indentured serf or subsistence peasant. The small, independent landowner — if he was left to his own talents, and if his success was protected by, and from, government — would create new sources of wealth for everyone. The resulting greater bounty for the poor soon trumped their old jealousy of the better-off.