But most infantile is his metaphor of the chair maker. Yes, we know in fact that economy is not zero sum game. But economic inequality is not generated by chair makers that gain an advantage over those who don't make chairs. Economic inequality happens because the owners of chair factories (who, are not, the chair makers) get to own both the factory and the chairs that chair makers make. Hence, while the chair makers get a salary to support themselves, the owners accumulate the surplus value of the chair producing business allowing them to expand their business, acquire more assets and, too, influence politics to turn the game in favour of capital instead of labour. This is too a simplistic metaphor, but hey, it's at least a bit closer to reality than PG's view of the world.
Of course, he is a venture capitalist, not a chair maker. His way of living is extracting surplus of founders that in turn extract surplus of engineers and other workers and contractors that support their businesses. He is in the business of selling ever increasing inequality.
This PG article is pure ideology. Ideological class war. It's a hoot--a network of fallacies building some sort of implausible moral self-justification. PG, you are not a wild animal in a room of hunters. It's more like you are the hunter, and this is a bait that we won't bite.
I'm sure he would argue that my chair makers are exploited only because they are not smart enough to start their own chair making business. His utopia is one in which everyone is an entrepreneur--a CEO or a VC. I wonder who makes chairs in that world (if it's machines, someone has to keep the machines running). See, not everyone can be a winner. It's not about killing the rich. It's about making sure that those that lose in the game--who are in fact, too, valuable and indispensable to society--have a chance to a decent and realized life in dignity.
But even in a legal and political system that are very much (and increasingly) biased towards capital, I've seen coops, foundations, institutions and other forms of sustainable and non-exploitative businesses that succeed and provide real value pushing the game out of the zero sum. We can also see this in the libre and open source world--it's an outcry from software makers to collaborate on producing value in a way that they still own (instead of the proprietary firms that they work for). It provides collectively a leverage to our society that very few SV startups can claim to. In a way, in this other utopia, everyone is as well a business owner. A business owner and a maker, organized in the democratic networks of both competition and cooperation. No VC's needed though. Sorry Paul.