The Final Lesson Of Steve Jobs (That Nobody Is Talking About)

There is no pie.

When you feel frozen in a moment, it can be impossible to see tomorrow or remember yesterday.  This is the moment of Steve Jobs death and right now we are trapped by sadness, pride, admiration, and total lack of understanding for the untold lesson of an American genius.

What if I told you that Steve Jobs has given us the answer to the greatest political and economic questions of the day?

Today and tonight thousands of young (and many not so young) Americans believe themselves to be trapped in a box.  Dare I say... 'a dogma'.  They have gathered and will gather in larger numbers over the coming weeks to express anger, disenfranchisement, expletives, but most of all - delusion.  

Q. Where is our wealth; what have you done with it?

A. Wealth is not static. 

If you asked a protester sleeping tonight in Battery Park if wealthy people or corporations were taking too much of the pie - the universal answer would be 'Damn Right!'

The Jobs example: Damn wrong!

The same group would freely admit that their lives were changed for the positive by the genius of Steve Jobs. They would say that the hard earned or hard borrowed money that they spent on Apple products were for their betterment and that they would be worse off without them (we all would).  They couldn't be more right.

That is the moment of truth - wealth is not static.  Wealth is created and need not be taken from one to share with another.  The creation of technology, efficiencies, and concept adds not to the individual but to all. Sound like a model for a Communist Utopia?  Nope, just a plain utopia.

The amount of money and wealth in the United States of America is not static; it grows and sometimes it shrinks. But over time the amount of wealth of America has skyrocketed. Collective wealth is increased every time a new idea is put forth to save energy.  Collective wealth is manifested every single time a new technology creates a synergy where none existed before.  Collective wealth is generated every single time one additional person participates in the ultimate capitalistic venture of... demand meeting supply. 

Steve Jobs made America and the world wealthier than it could have been without him.  No person or company (including Microsoft) went without so Steve Jobs could have more .  While we all went along for the ride, no person gave so he could take.  This is the nature of all free market business; the result of innovation, the reality of competition, the risk of investment.

The enemy to innovation and the foil to wealth is corruption. But corruption cannot create wealth; it can only imprison it and destroy it.  The Protesters believe they are called to action to right the wrongs of corporate abuse; after all, where is their piece of the pie?

There is no pie.

The call to tax one at a higher rate than another demands the corruption of thought that wealth is static. It demands and implies that the concept of real demand meeting actual supply can't possibly be fair. Certainly the omnipresent nature of greed must be righted by a third party; a third party that need not participate in any fair market for its own success or failure.   

Steve Jobs added tremendous wealth to the human experience.  Even after he was thrown from his own kitchen, he baked his own delicious pie and all 99% of us get to eat it.   

We are the 99%. We can only be trapped by our own dogma.