“Historically, are the winners usually aware of their privilege sitting at the top of the pyramid, or is myopia common?

I think that myopia is very common, especially when you believe that what you have is fully deserved and that you are not only richer but morally superior. It was Hayek of all people who many years ago noticed that one of possibly fatal weaknesses of capitalism as actually practised is that it tends to ascribe moral virtue to economic success. Let me quote him: ‘it bodes ill for the future of the market order that [identifying success with virtue] seems to have become the only defence of it which is understood by the general public.’ If you believe this then you cannot understand anyone who questions the existing order; he must appear to you either as a brute or a villain.”

aus: To Understand 2016’s Politics, Look at the Winners and Losers of Globalization. An interview with economist Branko Milanovic. By Vincent Bevins, The New Republic 20.12.2016, auf der Webseite der Zeitschrift, Langfassung auf dem Blog des Interviewten.

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