"A successful economy requires outsize rewards for the able (and lucky) few..."

"... who overcome very long odds to produce valuable innovations that others are willing to pay for," according to Edward Conard (who was a partner of Mitt Romney's at Bain Capital).

Mr. Conard embraces economic Darwinism as not just the best but the only route to prosperity and economic growth—to more jobs and higher standards of living. "Survival of the fittest," he writes, "pits new ideas against existing alternatives . . . [and] ruthlessly prunes away less capable alternatives, ensuring that only the most valuable and robust remain."...

[Conard also] shows that money invested by the well-to-do throws off more wealth to society—what economists call the "consumer surplus," or the value to consumers of the new products produced by investment—than the same amount of money when it has been taxed and redistributed. Even charity is bad for the economy, Mr. Conard says, because it diverts potential risk capital to less productive uses.

Here's his book: "Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong."