That is where your misunderstanding lies. The world is not a finite-sum game. Wealth created is not wealth taken away. Someone like Bill Gates accumulated a lot of wealth because he created a lot of wealth - not because he took it from someone else. The difference between "taking away" and "creating" is like the difference between murder and sex.

- The world is not finite from a physical point of view, because it receives gigantic amounts of solar energy from the sun. Sure, it tends to radiate much of it back out, but a large chunk of that energy is converted into "wealth" in a biological form, via photosynthesis. That continually increased wealth is what has allowed us to progress from single-celled organisms to what we are today.

- The world is not closed from an economic point of view because work has a value (something your ilk seems to be arguing for, I believe) and new work is done every day. Every bit of productive work adds more value to the system, more wealth. Some people's work is more valuable because it creates more wealth. Those people are (and should be) rewarded accordingly, in a fair system.

You should read up on Microsoft's history. Bill Gates started off as a developer. He most definitely "did the work". Also, only someone who has never done any meaningful work in a business could possibly fail to understand that "management" work is not only very hard and complicated, it is also essential. Left to their own devices, most large groups of people devolve into chaos, producing no useful work whatsoever.

Finally...

There is a capital gain in people's work and their wages are far from covering it.

Of course. You're absolutely right. The reason for that is that the people receiving those wages did not take any risk. They receive a pay check at the end of the month, and they don't need to worry about whether or not the product will be successful, whether the company will get sued, whether key members of the company will suddenly leave and start a competitor, etc - they get their money anyway. The founders of a company take most of that risk, particularly at the beginning, and it is perfectly reasonable that they should get most of the reward.

They are not.

Money is just a universal currency that we all use for work. Do you want a new ipod? Well, apple doesn't trade in man-hours, they trade in dollars. So what you need to do is get a job with somebody that will trade you some of their dollars for your man hours (think of an employer like a currency exchange). Once you have exchanged enough of the currency you have (time) for the currency that the currency exchange (your employer) has (dollars), you can take them to apple and trade them for an iPod.

Apple then reverses the transaction. They take some of the dollars that you gave them, and trade their workers some of the dollars for some of their man-hours.

Dollars are just a common currency. The INPUT (making it a non-closed system) is work.

So no, by creating wealth, you are NOT simply robbing it from people. This is appropriately called "robbery".

There is a slightly longer explanation here:

http://www.gibsonandlily.com/cgi-bin/reply.cgi?thread_id=177...

I want you to think about that statement for a while.

The game isn't rigged in favor of the powerful. The powerful are powerful because they have power. Because of this power they are able to influence things. Their ability to influence things makes them powerful.

It's circular.

I, for one, am mortally afraid of living in an "equal" world. Your website tells me you want to pursue a PhD, so let's talk about that. You are a person who has worked hard for achieving your academic goals. Would you like to be considered equal to a person who spent his life partying and clubbing and not giving a shit? Would you like it if someone gave this party animal the PhD you deserve?

Yes, Gates had an advantage. His genius lies in recognizing that advantage, and building on it. Gates came from a rich family. Instead of wasting away what he had, he used that wealth and power and built Microsoft -- one of the most recognized brands on planet Earth.

Mind you, I'm not against philanthropy. Heck, I wish my government spent 100x more cash on building schools in backwards areas, and that a few local millionaires threw some cash in, too. What I'm against is this prevalent notion that people should be "equal". Created equal? Surely. But after that, nobody is equal.

Inequality is good. Inequality makes the world go around.