“A Work of Art, Too Precious to be Meddled With”

Remember Samuel Butler's Erewhonians? Smart cookies.

Entrepreneurs who became insanely rich were, the Erewhonians realized, the true philanthropists:

He who makes a colossal fortune in the hosiery trade, and by his energy has succeeded in reducing the price of woollen goods by the thousandth part of a penny in the pound—this man is worth ten professional philanthropists. So strongly are the Erewhonians impressed with this, that if a man has made a fortune of over £20,000 a year they exempt him from all taxation, considering him as a work of art, and too precious to be meddled with; they say, “How very much he must have done for society before society could have been prevailed upon to give him so much money;” so magnificent an organisation overawes them; they regard it as a thing dropped from heaven.

Today's economists are also beginning to appreciate the contributions of the amply-moneyed. In The Wealth Report, Robert Frank notes that the top 10% of households, ranked by income, are thought to account for nearly a quarter of all economic spending.

Another study suggests that the top 25% of households, income-wise, may generate as much as 70% of all personal spending.