![]() ![]() ![]() Bluegreen also provides very attractive employment opportunities for 4,500 people of diverse skills and backgrounds and gives generous financial support to philanthropic organizations that significantly improve the lives of the poor.3 Today, the Bluegreen Corporation maintains 60 beautiful properties and boasts a net worth of $1.08 billion.2 But that's not all it does. Over time he saved his earnings, began developing his own properties, branched off, and created what is now Bluegreen Corporation. Along the way he endured ups and downs, including $45 million in losses in 19 alone, but Patten persevered, worked hard, took risks, and sought out needed expertise. Founder Harry Patten started out as a salesman for American Central, a developer of vacation home sites. So how is this possible? Consider, for example, the private vacation ownership company, Bluegreen. Before then, more than one in four people around the world were living on a dollar a day or less today, it's about one in twenty.1 No bureaucratic initiative or government policies even come close to this unparalleled achievement that has benefited literally billions of people. In fact, it is because of American capitalism that the percentage of people living at starvation-level poverty has decreased by more than 80% since 1970. It's true that the entrepreneur, who personally takes on all of the risk, ends up with a lot more money when his idea succeeds, but he is not the only one who benefits. In a capitalist economy, entrepreneurs create new ideas, new technologies, new organizations, and new wealth, and the result is that many people benefit. There is not a finite amount of wealth in a capitalist economy as there is in the board game. In other words, one person's gain is not another person's loss. One major difference is that real-life capitalism is not a zero-sum game. ![]() However, there are critical differences between this board game scenario and real life. Is this representative of a capitalist system? The majority of those who have shared and commented on this meme sure think so. Sounds pretty hopeless and unfair, right? There is a limited amount of wealth, and since most of it goes to them, there is nothing left for the others. In this allegory, the player who is given most of the money and properties at the outset represents those who come from wealthy families. ![]()
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