"Takes a village to make a millionaire"

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"I DIDN'T DO It Alone: Society's Contribution to Individual Wealth and Success," a report from United for a Fair Economy, spotlights successful entrepreneurs like investor Warren Buffett, Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry's), and Eric Schmidt of Google, and concludes that the myth of self-made success is not only false but destructive to the social and economic infrastructure that fosters wealth creation." -snip


"How we think about wealth creation is important since policies such as large tax cuts for the wealthy often draw on the myth of the self-made man," says "I Didn't Do It Alone" co-author Chuck Collins. "Taxes are portrayed as onerous, unfair redistribution of privately created wealth -- not as reinvestment or giving back to society. Yet, where would many wealthy entrepreneurs be today without taxpayer investment in the Internet, transportation, public education, legal system, the human genome and so on?"

Jim Sherblom, a venture capitalist and former chief financial officer of the biotech firm Genzyme, says, "The opportunities to create wealth are all taking advantage of public goods -- like roads, transportation, markets -- and public investments. None of us can claim it was all personal initiative. A piece of it was built upon this infrastructure that we all have this inherent moral obligation to keep intact." -snip

64 pp report. I didn't read the whole thing, but it looks very interesting.

http://www.inequality.org/ididntdoit.html

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1. check out this site too.

http://www.responsiblewealth.org