We are all wealthier than Emperors and ice cream proves it!

For those who are critical of capitalism, they should probably take a closer look at history to obtain some perspective of the real world.

Peasants of today (like me) live a more comfortable existence with a greater variety of produce and services, than an emperor could ever have done so in years gone by.

Sure you don’t have slaves waiving big leaves over you and you don’t have the ego boost that comes with being a ruler, but you also don’t run the risk of being assassinated.

I’d certainly take being a peasant today over being Julius Caesar!

No clearer indication exists than the abundance, variety and convenience we have today when it comes to ice cream.

I absolutely love ice cream (how could you not). And my love of ice cream is sincere.

A few years ago I took my dad on holiday to Benidorm and each day I walked a few kilometres just so I could get Livanti Gelato. My dad said I was mad, but of course he still came with me.

Forget controlling the money supply. If I were alive in roman times I would have become a tyrant just to gain control of the ice cream supply!

In roman times, Emperor Nero used to send servants to collect mountain snow and then added fruit to make ice cream. I dread to think of the amount of manpower and costs involved just so he could get his ice cream treat.

Now, there are dedicated ice cream stores that sell high quality ice cream with a variety of flavours.

Go into Tesco and you will find an entire shopping isle filled with wondrous varieties of ice cream.

The biggest challenge we have nowadays is deciding what to choose. I go to an ice cream store and waste 15 minutes deciding what I want.

Capitalism is wonderful. It has helped create the age of abundance that we are living in. Our range and abundance of ice cream wouldn’t have been possible without entrepreneurs freely pursuing profit, otherwise known as free market capitalism. Socialists who think they are smart enough to control every aspect of economic life wouldn’t even know how to make a pencil. If you don’t believe me, you simply must read this essay.

Sure there is far too much wealth and income inequality in the world, but a lot of this has been caused by financialization, not capitalism.

I think we spend so much time looking up at those who have more than us, we forget how wealthy we actually are.

There is a very crucial point that socialists frequently miss,

I’d much rather be unequally prosperous, than equally poor.

I frankly couldn’t care less if people like Richard Branson are billionaires. Let them buy their own island. As consumers we are the ones who benefit from their obsessions, innovations, egos and greed.

They commit their lives to create things that are better than what was available before them.

You and me get to enjoy the fruits of their entrepreneurial endeavours in our homes and shopping baskets.

And we don’t have to go through an Emperor’s struggles of gaining control of nations to achieve this prosperity. For most of us, we just have to do some quite comfortable and easy work to enjoy the rewards that our level of prosperity brings.

So next time you enjoy an ice cream, remember how lucky we all are to live in such an age of abundance.

I’m a little lost as to what wealth redistribution will actually achieve. Okay let’s take all the money from the UK’s top 1000 richest people, totalling £547.126 billion. Divided equally by the British population of 64.1 million people, that’s £8,535 per person.

I’m sure we all wouldn’t mind receiving that money via some modern form of Robin Hood, but how long will £8,535 last?

Would it not be better for these people to keep this capital and put it to use developing new products and services that we can all benefit from?

Maybe they will use this capital to create new flavours of ice cream, or improve production and transport so that ice cream becomes even cheaper than it is today.

One can only hope.