Table of Contents The Great Divide . Some day, if you are lucky or clever or thrifty enough, you may amass enough personal wealth to cross the Great Divide. That is where your investment income exceeds your living expenses. Then you can be an absentee owner, calling on the labor of others while you clip coupons, cash dividends, or collect rents.
Wealth begets wealth.
Beyond a critical mass, like a chain reaction it can produce more than it consumes. Obviously only a small fraction of the population can cross that divide. Of course, real wealth is created out of labor which leads some to take umbrage at the absentee ownership of capital. Yet unequal wealth is an inherent aspect of a market economy and the capitalist system. Its redeeming feature is that everyone is equally eligible to become a capitalist.