Elizabeth Warren: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own"

by Lucy Madison, CBS News, September 22, 2011

[Readers, this is so weird because I was thinking exactly the same thing just the other day, and am happy to have found this put into words so clearly by candidate Elizabeth Warren.]

An August video of Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren on the campaign trail is heating up on the internet, and some commentators are pointing to the clip - in which Warren makes a case for progressive economic policies - as evidence that the newly minted Democratic candidate could give incumbent Republican Senator Scott Brown a run for his money. 

In the video (at left), which was filmed at an event in Andover, Mass., Warren rebuts the GOP-touted notion that raising taxes on the wealthy amounts to "class warfare," contending that "there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody."

Warren rejects the concept that it is possible for Americans to become wealthy in isolation.

"You built a factory out there? Good for you," she says. "But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did."

She continues: "Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

Warren's entrance into the Massachusetts Senate race marks her first-ever political bid - and while the longtime consumer advocate is beloved by a number of liberals, some wondered if her lack of political experience would prove crippling in the contest.

The Washington Monthly's Steven Benen, however, points to the video as an explanation as to "why Warren has a strong base of supporters who adore her." 

"If there are lingering concerns about whether Warren could be an effective speaker on the stump, I think those questions are being answered," Benen writes. "If more Democrats were able to make the case for the underlying social contract as effectively, our discourse would be vastly less mind-numbing." 

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20110042-503544.html