“The Money-Maker is the discoverer who translates his discovery into material goods. In an industrial society with a complex division of labour, it may be one man or a partnership of two: the scientist who discovers new knowledge and the entrepreneur— the businessman— who discovers how to use that knowledge, how to organize material resources and human labor into an enterprise producing marketable goods.
“The Money-Appropriator is an entirely different type of man. He is essentially non-creative— and his basic goal is to acquire an unearned share of the wealth created by others. He seeks to get rich, not by conquering nature, but by manipulating men, not by intellectual effort, but by social maneuvering. He does not produce, he redistributes: he merely switches the wealth already in existence from the pockets of its owners to his own.
“The Money-Appropriator may become a politician— or a businessman who ‘cuts corners’— or that destructive product of a ‘mixed economy’: the businessman who grows rich by means of government favours, such as special privileges, subsidies, franchises; that is, grows rich by means of legalised force.”
~ Ayn Rand, from her speech ‘The Money-Making Personality,’ quoted in the new book by Don Watkins & Yaron Brook: Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality
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