People Do Not Appreciate the Entrepreneur's Accomplishment
(p. A17) Bertrand de Jouvenel, writing in 1951 about popular attitudes toward income inequality in "The Ethics of Redistribution":
The film-star or the crooner is not grudged the income that is grudged to the oil magnate, because the people appreciate the entertainer's accomplishment and not the entrepreneur's, and because the former's personality is liked and the latter's is not. They feel that consumption of the entertainer's income is itself an entertainment, while the capitalist's is not, and somehow think that what the entertainer enjoys is deliberately given by them while the capitalist's income is somehow filched from them.
Source:
"Notable & Quotable." The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., MARCH 5, 2009): A17.
(Note: italics in original.)
Original source of de Jouvenel quote:
Jouvenel, Bertrand de. The Ethics of Redistribution. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund Inc., 1990 (originally published by Cambridge University Press in 1951).
