In light of Obama's recent comment slapping McCain for daring to challenge redistribution, I thought I would repost this quote. Pursuing self-interest is good. Discouraging the pursuit is unwise.
As Adam Smith described:
"Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer employment which is most advantageous to the society . . . . [H]e intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." -- Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk. IV, ch. 2, 397, 399 (D.D. Raphael ed., 1991) (1776).The point is that by acting in our own self-interest, society is advanced. But if investment and production are stymied by "spreading the wealth", society loses.
And take a listen to Milton Friedman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A