Imagine two Americans.
One wants to build a company worth a billion dollars.
The other wants to paint landscapes, repair old radios, play in a band, raise children, study insects, or write novels that may never sell particularly well.
There is no obvious reason that a healthy society should require either person to adopt the other's definition of a successful life. Nor is there an obvious reason that the first person becoming extraordinarily wealthy requires the second person to face homelessness if things go badly.
That suggests a political bargain that does not fit especially neatly into the usual American argument between capitalism and the welfare state:
Guarantee the floor. Leave the ceiling open.
Under such a system, every citizen would have some basic assurance of healthcare, housing, food, and enough income to remain an active participant in society. Losing a job would still hurt. A failed business could still wipe out savings. Choosing an economically unproductive life would still mean having less money than someone who spent twenty years building a successful company.
But illness, unemployment, or failure would no longer carry the threat of material catastrophe.
At the other end of the distribution, there would be no predetermined maximum fortune. If somebody builds something that millions of people willingly pay for and becomes fantastically wealthy, good for them.
We could even admire them.
