Obama: "If You’ve Got A Business. You Didn’t Build That. Somebody Else Made That Happen"

"There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for president – because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.”

To acquiesce in a philosophy stressing the inborn inequality of men runs counter to many people's feelings. More or less reluctantly, people admit that they do not equal the celebrities of art, literature, and science, at least in their specialties, and that they are no match for athletic champions. But they are not prepared to concede their own inferiority in other human matters and concerns. As they see it, those who outstripped them in the market, the successful entrepreneurs and businessmen, owe their ascendancy exclusively to villainy. They themselves are, thank God, too honest and conscientious to resort to those dishonest methods of conduct that, as they say, alone make a man prosper in a capitalistic environment.

I was reading an article similar to this line of thinking from Mises on Equality and Inequality:

Do you have a link to the whole article by chance?

This is just not true. There are people who worked hard on their OWN and become a huge success.

"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own."


I actually think what's going on here is Obama going off the teleprompter and getting ahead of himself, as he tends to do when he's not working off of a script. I think his point was 'if you have a business, you didn't build the roads on which your commerce depends'.

That said even though I perceive this as a slip of the tongue, I don't think it really clashes with his true feelings.

Isn't the point that they had help at somewhere at sometime whether it was advice or mentoring or whatever?

Clearly, infrastructure made my success possible, just as it makes it possible for someone else to eschew hard work and sacrifice, be a lazy idiot, and take advantage of every government program and subsidy.

The difference is, I pay a significant share of my income back in taxes that goes to those kind of folks. Obama want's more from me, and tells the lazy and non-productive, that it's not their fault they don't have as much as I do.

There was an article in the WSJ in 2007 or 08 that made the case that what we might call the 'advocates of growth' had been in power for a generation or so, and with that movement having run its course, we would face slower growth in the coming years as what we might call the 'advocates of government' or the 'advocates of equality' gained and solidified their power. Here we are.