The Businessman's Hall of Fame

The New York Times, without intending it, has published the businessman's hall of fame. By ranking these great business figures in order of the wealth they created, the NYT has allowed us to honor the greatest businessmen of the past 200 years, ranked by the measure of their achievement.

Wealth is the measure of the businessman, for what is wealth than the measure of the value of the products he has made? Wealth comes from profit, which is the difference between value received for a product less the cost of manufacturing it. If consumers everywhere pay more for the personal computer or the Model T Ford then it cost to make it, that difference is an objective measure of the value created. If the product is so popular that millions of PC's and Model T's are sold, then millions of customers have benefited from the entrepreneurial ingenuity of the businessmen.

I honor the wealthiest businessmen. They are those who have created the most beneficial, useful, enjoyable products that all of us enjoy. Hats off to Bill Gates (the 5th wealthiest) and Warren Buffett (the 16th wealthiest), for making the software for the fabulously useful personal computer on which I am writing this, and for providing capital to America's most efficient companies, respectively. Hats off to John D. Rockefeller, the leader of the Hall of Fame, who created the modern oil industry, the seminal industry that continues to fuel our industrial economy.

Hats off to all of the Hall of Famers. In a future world, we will see sculptures of your figures in a real world Hall of Fame. Schoolchildren will learn your stories, and emulate you, and some of them will add themselves to your august glory.

[Hat tip to NoodleFood for the link to the New York Times article.]