What is the 90/10 rule of Life?To understand this passage, it is important you know what the 90/10 rule means.
In a country or in the world, the 90% are the middle class or the Average worker, these people control just 10% of the money in the economy. while the 10% are the wealthy one's, these people control 90% of the money in the country.


In the Agrarian Age, the rich were those who lived in a castle and owned lots of fertile Agricultural Land. These people were known as the Monarchs and the nobles. If you were not born into this group, you were an outsider with very little chance of becoming an insider. The 90/10 rule controlled life. Therefore, the 10% who were in power were there because of marriage, birth, or conquest; the other 90% were serfs, peasant or commoners who worked on the land but owned nothing.
During the Agrarian Age, if you were a good, hardworking person, you were respected; the idea of being diligent was handed down from parent to child. It was also when the idle rich began to be loathed- 90% of the people worked to support the other 10%; who appeared not to be working; that idea was also handed down from parent to child. These ideas continue to be popular and are still handed down from generation to generation.


Then came the Industrial Age and wealth shifted from Agricultural land to real estate. Improvements such as buildings, factories, warehouse, mines were now where money comes from.
Suddenly, rich fertile Agricultural land dropped in value because the wealth shifted to the owners of the buildings upon the land. In fact, an interesting thing happened, rich fertile land became less valuable than rocky land, where farming was difficult. Rocky land suddenly became more valuable because it was cheaper than fertile land. It could also hold taller buildings such as skyscrapers, factories and it is very rich in minerals resources such as irons, oils, coppers, which were needed in the Industrial Age. When the shift in Ages occurred, many farmer's net worth went down; to maintain their standard of living, they had to work harder and farm more land than before.
It was during the Industrial Age that the "Go to School so you can find a job" idea became popular. In Agrarian Age, a formal education was not necessary since professions were handed down from parent to child; bakers taught their children to be bakers, and so on. Near the end of this era, the idea of "One Job" for life, became popularized. You went to school, got that one job for Life, worked your way up the corporate Ladder or up the union ladder, and when you retired, the company and government took care of your needs.


In the Industrial Age, those not of Noble birth could become rich and powerful. Rags-to-riches stories spurred up. Entrepreneurs started with nothing and became billionaires. When Henry Ford decided to mass produce automobiles, he found some cheap rocky land that farmers did not want near a small town known as Detroit, and an Industry was born, the rest as you know it was history. The Ford family became, in essence, the new nobility and anyone around them who did business with them also became the new, rich nobility. New names became as prestigious as those of Kings and Queens- names such as Rockefeller, Stanford, Carnegie. People often respected as well as despised them for their great wealth and power.

In the Industrial Age, as during the Agrarian Age, however, only a few controlled most of the wealth. The 90/10 rule still held true, although this time, the 10% was not determined by birth but by determination itself. The 90/10 rule held true simply because it took great effort and co-ordination as well as a lot of money, people, land and power to build and control the wealth for example to start an automobile company or an oil or mining company is still capital intensive; it takes massive amounts of money, lots of Land, and many smart formally educated people to build that type of company. On top of that, you often must get through years of bureaucratic such as trade Agreement, environmental studies, labor laws and so on- to get such a business off the ground. In the Industrial Age, the standard of Living went up for most people, but the control of wealth continued to remain in the hands of a few.

THE 90/10 RULE HAS CHANGED.
When the Berlin Wall came down and the World Wide Web went up, many of the rules changed. One of the most important rules that changed was the 90/10 rule. Although it's likely that only 10% of the population will always control 90% of the money, the access or opportunity to join that 10% has changed. The World Wide Web has changed what it cost to join the 10%. Today, it does not require massive sum of money, land and people to join the 10%. The price of admission today is an "IDEA" and ideas are free.
In the Information Age, all it takes is information or ideas to become very, very, very wealthy. It is therefore possible for individuals who are financially struggling one year to be on the list of the richest people in the world the next. Students who have never had a job becomes billionaire.
Personally, I think all of us have a brilliant creative idea that is unique to us, an idea that could be turned into an asset. If we do so, our prosperity will only increase as the Information Age expands around the world.


For the very first time in world history, the 90/10 rule to wealth may no longer apply, No longer does it take money to make money. No longer does it take vast tracts of land or Resources to become rich. No longer does it take friends in high places to become rich. No longer does it matter if your relatives came from wealthy Lineage, it does not matter what University you went to, or what sex, race or religion you are a part of. Nowadays, all it takes is the most valuable commodity "INFORMATION".