Most of us work for “The Company”. We do what’s assigned, and we go home. We come to expect that The Company should pay us a fixed amount each year, and that this should be secure. This is what most of our parents taught us to do. It worked quite well for them, after all.

We watch TV news, and listen to politicians who talk about dividing all the stuff between all the people. We sometimes think a “good system” is one which divides it equally so that nobody goes without. We hate the idea that 1% of the people have 99% of the stuff – at least unless we find ourselves in the 1%.

But The Company, just like our politics and our media, is an averaging machine. It take a group of people, some of whom are really good and some of whom do very little, and gives them all a secure income. (The bigger the company, the less significant the individual, the more secure the income.) The Company ensures that everyone is taken care of and that, on the whole, there’s something left over. This leftover money, a beautiful concept, goes to the shareholders / evil bastards / people who made smarter choices. They become wealthier.

Getting our money at the end of the month, rain or shine, is great. I love it. But what if you want more than your equal share? What if you realise that the amount of wealth in the world isn’t a finite quantity and that The Company is creating new wealth (i.e. profit)? What if you wanted to create your own little bit of wealth that didn’t exist before?

Paul Graham’s essay, How to Make Wealth, isn’t new (2004), but one of the best things I’ve read for a while. It’s one of those pieces which deconstructs how the world works, and puts it together again with a different perspective. It helps us unlearn those beliefs which, I think, lead to entitlement and to see that, whether we’re The Company or the employee, both money and wealth only come from selling good stuff to people who want to buy it.