That is why I said "not explicitly stated". I listened to the book 2 years ago on tape, and I don't have the whole text available to me so I can't come up with the exact Bill Gates quote. I believe it is towards the end of the book. Really specific, huh?
Funny how we can both read a book and come to completely different conclusions.
You read it and say, "See, this is why socialism is good". Or do you not think it promotes socialism?
I read the following quote from the book...
To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success
with a society that provides opportunities for all.
...and thought, "That is overtly evil. It is blatantly socialist." I think, "How are we just one generation from the cold war, and have completely embraced an enemy ideology that cost our nation tens of thousands of deaths, and the deaths of millions of its subjects?"
Oh I think I know the quote you're talking about - something about it being better to have more Bill Gates's by increasing opportunities for all or something?
I'm hesitant to agree with you because my reading of the book is slightly less polarized than yours. Yes, there are chapter that have socialist ideas, but there are nearly an equal amount of chapters that gush about the virtues of hard work. He wouldn't have a book if there wasn't for the "10,000 hour" study. In one of the early chapters talking about the classical musicians, I believe (90%) he explicitly says that though some musicians may be more talented than others not a single at the top of their game have less than that 10,000 hours. His whole discussion of the high school that has better students boils down to the fact that they simply work harder (in an empirical way). He clearly demonstrates that hard work is a necessary condition to success.
The point he makes exceedingly well I think, is that it isn't a sufficient condition. I can certainly see some issues with his methods, but I think his point that luck plays an important factor is well made. The reason I suggested that I didn't have as polarized a view of the book as you is that I see his views as falling in the middle of the debate. Sort of like the nature vs. nurture spectrum, he seems to clearly articulate that it isn't one or the other, it's both.
I think the work part, especially judging from your posts, is easy to understand. You need to work hard to make it. But the rest of his book (non-sequentially, just overall) isn't about disproving that. It's about modifying that idea to show that things are just a little more random than that (perhaps simplistic) explanation would care to admit. That random, sometimes completely non-predictable (which is why I accused him of post-hoc analysis and contend that his real suggestions lie outside the realm of actual socialism) things can turn one person into a success and another who worked just as hard into a failure (I'm thinking of...the lawyers I believe). Your reaction to the quote seems a little over the top if you accept anything of what he said about luck - and he does present a convincing case.
Back on topic, reading this actually made me revert back to some semblance of the stance I took when I joined this thread: if you owe success to hard work
as well as luck, then I believe you are obligated in to help out the others in your society. To succeed you have to succeed at someone's expense. And I was just about willing to agree with you that because that success comes down to hard work I owe the "losers" in this semi-Darwinian idea nothing. But if
some of my success comes from nothing I've done, pure chance, then holding myself over the non-successful people and saying that by trying to take some of my monetary success from me (especially to deal with something like food or healthcare) they're stealing from me seems a bit disingenuous. Disingenuous because
some of my money isn't "mine" by anything I've done.
Does that mean all my money? Hell no. I've worked hard. I'm personally responsible for some of my success. And at a certain point you've got to admit you don't know which way and how much the ratio lies, and exactly who you have out-lucked. That's why total wealth redistribution would be awful - it takes out my personal responsibility. And also why the opposite stance would be bad - it takes out what luck has to do with it. At this point, maybe 24 hrs after finishing the book, I'm tempted to say that my duty is met by taking part of programs that give basic needs to non-successful people: food, water, shelter, and yes, healthcare. I didn't say rights, I said needs.
