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Do the rich deserve more and better than the rest of us?
“…if it is true that some degree of talent is necessary to be successful in life, almost never the most talented people reach the highest peaks of success, being overtaken by mediocre but sensibly luckier individuals.”
~ Alessandro Pluchino et al. (from Talent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and failure)
I was recently talking to a very wealthy friend and he was complaining about needing to wait for hours and hours at a hospital to see a doctor.
This was by no means news to me. We both live in Canada, which has a public healthcare system, and wait times at hospitals for non-life-threatening conditions can be brutal. Rarely do I hear of anyone spending less than four hours in a waiting room, and it’s often much more.
What he said next was more interesting.
He told me that it didn’t make sense for him to wait because his time is too valuable. He has a business to run and people counting on him. Why should he wait behind other people who have less of an impact on society?
My antennae immediately perked. I didn’t like the sound of this at all.
He continued.
Wouldn’t it make more sense if I could simply jump the queue and see a doctor immediately?
