A Well-Deserved Reward

I just searched for the lyrics of a tune recorded by many artists in 1942. And I found them on line. I don't know how I would have discovered them otherwise since I didn't remember the name of the song. Remembering some of the words, I used Google^®, which is amazing. But I suspect that I would also have found what I sought using one of the other “search engines” instead.

Clearly the person who conceived of the concept, made it practicable, and found a way to display it to the rest of us, is a genius – both in computer skills and in his entrepreneurship. And he's (or she's – I didn't bother to Google^® it so I don't really know) helped us all. I assume he's been well rewarded and he deserves it. He's opened up a new world to us by providing a means of negotiating the information highway. By now he's probably in the “1%” (actually the 0.1%) and everybody hates him. Not what he did, but him. He's rich and we're not.

Not me. All I have for him is praise. He earned what he earned. And computer users (that's a lot of us) benefit directly from his work. He should be rich. He's enriched the rest of us. I'm especially happy that the service is free, even if I have to tolerate the ads.

I wonder if, whoever he is, he took “shortcuts” along the way – both in the development and in the implementation. If he did anything unethical or criminal, he should be punished appropriately, but that does not take away from his accomplishments. For those he should be rewarded. And the reward should be his, not one that is shared. He did it, and he should profit from it.

It's not a unique story. Creativity – originating something that no one thought of, or could figure out how to implement – is a rare commodity. And it's something that seems to be part of American DNA, which is why so many new ideas originate here. There are creative ideas in all fields, and we're all better for learning what they are and utilizing those that help us. There are ideas in all fields: new medicines and medical techniques have increased our life spans; new ideas in agriculture have made nutrition available to more people; and better mouse traps have made for both improves aesthetic and health situations.

But I want to focus on the ones whose primary purpose is to make a buck. Those are the ones that are most apparent to us and most likely to earn our anger. Even if the product is something we need and the originator has produced something that makes our life easier, we resent the fact that we have to shell out the money that makes him rich. He should be paying higher taxes. He should be helping the poor by supporting entitlement programs. He has taken advantage of the rest of us.

Such penalties of the creative, however, are counter productive. They are our way of convincing ourselves that there are others whose main aim is to take advantage of us. They are creating what we consider useless variations of already existing products – variations that we don't need. But we buy them anyway. We don't need them but the guy down the block has them and we don't want to be left behind. And, of course, we'll pay anything for something that makes us healthy.

We tolerate the developments that don't cost us money – like Google^®. We know that its developers are making lots of money from ads and fees – money that should be taxed and given to the needy – but we don't realize that our tax money is going into the same programs. So since the new tools that others develop are free and of value to us, we use them.

We don't realize that the use of economic penalties lessens the likelihood that creativity will continue. Creative people are like the rest of us – they want to earn (or “get” if they don't want to work) as much as they can, however they can. Thomas Edison didn't spend his 99% perspiration simply out of the goodness of his sweat glands. He expected, and received, a reward for it. And modern drug companies don't develop drugs that will lose them money. Perhaps they overcharge; perhaps they could get by with smaller profits, but we'd be less healthy as a society if we discouraged their development of new products. Suppose, for example, that drug companies, in fear of taxes, opted not to develop antibiotics. We'd all suffer.

That's not to suggest that there is no room for tax law review and change, but stifling the impulse to be creative, by taxing the rich to help the poor. is not the best idea. Let's start our search engines and look at the ways creativity has been encouraged around the world, and look as well at the policies that discouraged it. Lest we dissuade the creative from their activity, it's better to support their efforts to help us all. Society will get its cut even if taxes aren't raised.