> Someone from a former communist country could chime in
I am from a former communist country. If you ask my opinion, communism was the most repulsive and despicable experiment in the history of mankind. Nazism was communism under a different name. The way people bonded with each other was through vile and resentful hate of the westernized upper class (communism) or the Jews and the British (nazism). Schoolteachers brainwashed children from the early age to become haters as well. Both were populist movements enabled by "liminal" conditions of post-WWI period and spearheaded by ruthless Machiavellian manipulators of public opinion who harnessed the newly emergent mass-media to appeal to the disgruntled poorly educated populace lacking a better leader. See any Dostoyevsky's novel where he portrays the character known as the "Underground Man" for a better background, as well as the following links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality#Imitation.2C_leaders...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0458375/.
You introduce a dichotomy between wealth (aka Bill Gates) and fame (aka Michelangelo, Einstein). It's a false dichotomy. As PG wrote, money is not wealth. The way money works is that it makes you important in the eyes of a number of people. The way fame works is it makes you important in the eyes of a number of people as well, perhaps a different kind of people, but the underlying logic is the same. It's not one against the other, and whoever ardently defends that idea carries an agenda. Ultimately both money and fame are tokens for power. If you were infinitely powerful, you would need neither.
I am from a former communist country. If you ask my opinion, communism was the most repulsive and despicable experiment in the history of mankind. Nazism was communism under a different name. The way people bonded with each other was through vile and resentful hate of the westernized upper class (communism) or the Jews and the British (nazism). Schoolteachers brainwashed children from the early age to become haters as well. Both were populist movements enabled by "liminal" conditions of post-WWI period and spearheaded by ruthless Machiavellian manipulators of public opinion who harnessed the newly emergent mass-media to appeal to the disgruntled poorly educated populace lacking a better leader. See any Dostoyevsky's novel where he portrays the character known as the "Underground Man" for a better background, as well as the following links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality#Imitation.2C_leaders..., http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0458375/.
You introduce a dichotomy between wealth (aka Bill Gates) and fame (aka Michelangelo, Einstein). It's a false dichotomy. As PG wrote, money is not wealth. The way money works is that it makes you important in the eyes of a number of people. The way fame works is it makes you important in the eyes of a number of people as well, perhaps a different kind of people, but the underlying logic is the same. It's not one against the other, and whoever ardently defends that idea carries an agenda. Ultimately both money and fame are tokens for power. If you were infinitely powerful, you would need neither.