We understand and accept this fact in sport. I tell my kids all the time “every member of the team is important”.
The same is true in socio-economics. The CEO can’t run a billion dollar company without the rest of the employees. The brilliant entrepreneur can’t bring that new gadget to market without the people who sweep the streets, pick up the garbage, grow the food, staff the supermarket, wait tables, and manage the petrol station. It’s all a giant web of interrelation. If we all need each other to make the whole damn thing work, then we should share the profit as well. This whole bizarre idea that the people who run companies or invent something deserve the 1% because they worked harder or are smarter is complete bullshit and easily falsifiable. I love Ayn Rand’s book, but the premise of Atlas Shrugged works both ways. Yes – when the entrepreneurs pack their bags and move to an island, society feels their loss. But if the rest of society up and left the entrepreneurs alone on the mainland, how long do you think they would survive on their own, without anyone to sweep the streets, grow the food and, by the way, BUY THEIR WONDERFUL PRODUCTS?
We all need each other. As Lester Freamon might say “All the pieces matter”.