Melançon Enterprises • a multidivision multinational since 1980

Basically, the argument that the invaluable functions of government (especially invaluable for the rich) remove any claim to sole right to acquired wealth.

Starts with "Laws concerning property or contracts, and the public agencies that enforce such laws."

Yup, that covers a lot.

If we use these criteria to determine who can legitimately claim to be “entirely self-made,” the Forbes number drops dramatically. It’s not 270 out of 400. In fact, it’s precisely zero.

If not for the legal and political arrangements that we create and maintain as a society — with contributions from us all, costs to us all, and benefits to us all — and if not for what we call “the public infrastructure,” nobody could accumulate wealth. In short, there can be no private wealth without common wealth.

As Schwalbe hints, this generalizes to society, not just government, indeed any activity that involves more than just yourself. No one has power, wealth, a billion dollars, or a million avocados all by themselves. It's physically impossible. So the question becomes what rules (legal or otherwise in force) govern people's interaction with each other, and are they fair?

1% of the population owns nearly 40% of the wealth. Lest this egregiously skewed distribution of resources evoke too many moral qualms, Forbes assures us, issue after issue, that economic inequality is the result of a fair game in which the smartest and hardest-working naturally rise to the top. Forbes tells us, for instance, that of those 400 richest Americans, 270, or about two-thirds, are “entirely self-made.”

Michael Schwalbe is a professor of sociology at North Carolina State University. His most recent book is Rigging the Game: How Inequality Is Reproduced in Everyday Life (Oxford University Press).