Sure, Bill Gates tops Forbes magazine's most recent list of the richest 400 with a net worth of $85 billion, but entrepreneurs like him, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison and others who made the list have already given so much to society.

Not only do their companies have millions of satisfied customers, but hundreds of thousands of people are earning decent paychecks and pensions from the companies that made these billionaires.

Because of stock options, many of the employees themselves have become millionaires and either retired early or left to start their own successful companies spreading the wealth even further. And, of course, the Forbes 400 entrepreneurs have indirectly created hundreds of other ancillary companies with thousands of additional products and jobs.

No one who appears on the Forbes list needs to work another day, yet many continue to log long hours running the companies that launched them into the three-comma club.

To a degree not seen before, members of the upper, upper class weren't born with great wealth. Of the Forbes 400, 251 are entirely self-made. Fifteen years ago, only 159 could claim that right.

If the Forbes list had been around at the end of the last century, it would have certainly included a majority of old-money members.

Those of you who sneer at the income of "the rich" should ask yourselves, "How many jobs have I created? What have I done to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people?"

J.D. Rockefeller is noted to have said, "I believe the power to make money is a gift from God." I would add that the entrepreneurial ability of many who have reached the rank of super-rich has created and distributed more wealth than most charities could ever even imagine.

If the rich of today choose to give their money away, that's their prerogative. To insist that they do in order to fulfill a so-called obligation to society is absurd. They've done enough already.

© Copyright Deborah A. Ayers 1999. All rights reserved.