Top earners should then be proud that they’re contributing in two important ways, first, being a successful top earner in the business sphere of any jurisdiction and, second, helping those that can’t be as successful in the social sphere. To do otherwise is to fall into the inherently unstable zero sum game of economics in which there are many, many losers and very few winners making for a society with a very small elite with incredible wealth and an enormous destitute population. This is detrimental to both a stable economy and society. Equitable redistribution of wealth is a stable economic and social path.

And if we are a society we must ask ourselves if we are in it together or individually. Is our society to be cohesive or divisive, meaning not really a society at all. If we say we are in it together then we are saying we will also look after each other knowing that some are more able and capable than others and it would be their duty to share the rewards of their talents with others less fortunate.

However, if we say our society is not cohesive and that our talents determines and justifies ones position in the society then it becomes a combative organization of few winners and many losers. An elite will rule over the less able and capable leaving us with a simple hierarchical society. All societies based on this structure in human history have catastrophically failed. 

Competition is just that, competition, winners and losers. In any activity based on competition, business and sports for example, there can only be one winner at the end of the day. In sports many times more people try and fail to get into the big leagues of the game than actually make it to play. Out of all the teams or individual events there can only be one winner. We give them almost heroic adoration for their success for their win. And then sports reorganize themselves after every season to begin anew. Runners up get a second chance and new contenders try to make the team or qualify for events. A new season arrives and quite likely the past year’s winners will be defeated in the new season. 

This reset of each season does not occur in economics. There are periodic downturns for certain, but big money always survives. Big money also has ways of protecting itself, first by having large quantities of wealth in the first place, they can weather any storm. Second they can influence institutional policies to ensure their survival and third they can politically come to control the entire system making them invulnerable to harm. Chances to become part of this elite are exceedingly small. Big money will ensure they cannot be removed and this ultimate power gives them control over every facet of society. The goal in capitalist economics is to ultimately win the competition for business wealth. As it is a competition, the outcomes are the same, winner take all. But in economics there are no seasons, no reset, no new competitors as the game is a fix from the start, cold and continuous.