We Owe Most Of Our Income To What Others Have Accomplished Ahead Of Us

This article starts out as a critique of a yellow journalist at a yellow newspaper in Britain.  It goes on to make a more important comment about our incomes.  We benefit greatly from accidents of birth and the development of institutions that enable us to benefit from prior investments.  For example, the author has a blog but he earns his income from the newspaper for whom he works.  His writing skill is the same whether he writes for his blog or for the newspaper.  He earns his living by writing for the newspaper because it is able to monetize the skills of its journalists.  It has the circulation and advertising income to do so.  In other words, his income has been determined by the success of the newspaper and only modestly by his writing skill.  Most of us, lucky enough to have been born in rich countries, owe much of our earning potential to the institutions that helped us to become literate and numerate.  We also owe a lot to the organizations for whom we work.  We share in the profits that they receive from past investments and effective management.