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Are they so rare?
When I look back through my life and even further back through history, what strikes me is the stunning lack of use of the pool of talent and ingenuity available in the world.
It cannot be that talent and ingenuity are restricted to a single class, although that is what the nobility of every country had us believe for thousands of years.
Some of the most retrograde despots are still trying to convince their people of it.
Sources of Talent and Ingenuity
So, if all things were equal, and by that I principally mean education, talent and ingenuity should be found in roughly equal measures in all strata of society.
This has to be true
The privileged obviously know this too. Therefore, they restrict the highest levels of education to themselves, and then put a bar on entering the top jobs so that their offspring are the only ones likely to get a job in those fields.
I’m British, but it doesn’t only happen here. The privileged British can buy top-flight public school education for even their stupidest progeny, while a brilliant working class student has to jump through hoops to get there.
Selfishness
Look at the British style of democracy. The working class can choose whichever rich candidate they like to represent them!
I lived in The Netherlands, and you had to pass an exam in Dutch to open a business. Some Dutch people made a great living from being silent partners in the firms of talented foreigners.
I now live in Asia, where employees have to buy the top jobs, ensuring that only the children of the rich can get them.
My point is that surely, in a fairer global society, real talent and ingenuity would rise from every class, not only one, meaning that there would be more of it about.
How much further could the human race have progressed by now if the privileged classes had thought about helping society achieve its potential instead of exploiting it for just their own families, and had fostered talent and ingenuity among every class?