Combining the results of IQ to person's success (gathered from various sources) and that of IQ and the Wealth of Nations, I conjecture that about half of person's intelligence, where it differs from the average of their environment, benefits his/her society (value added) and the other half him/herself when measured objectively.
If I considered intelligence as a economic resource, I would say that the intelligent people could do a better deal with using their intelligence. They could withold it from improving the society unless they get paid for it. Too many intelligent people give their intelligent ideas away, diluting the economic value of intelligence, because it is being made a commodity that way.
Well, on the other hand, I might say that hard-working people are giving the efforts of their work away half-free. Just as an example, in my old work, those working twice as hard got about 15% greater salary than the rest. It was considered a good incentive to work harder.
Perhaps it is with many talents, that in a society, the talents end up benefiting the person themselves and the others in proportions that are determined by the demand/supply of such skills and the bargaining power of respective parties.
I have thought a lot about this. I think it might be more useful to be one having bargaining power rather than to be one holding a set of skills. That's how people regularly do in my country. They stack up 100,000 people who are collectively responsible for keeping the horse manuer off the streets (figuratively speaking), then once they have the people in position, they announce "double our salary or we quit". It works, and absolutely no skills are required. This is why I understand that labour unions are not seen in such a good light in USA.
It seems like the skilled people are benefactors to society (and for themselves) whereas the bargainers reap the benefits, as a net effect. For individual profit, it would be best to belong to the both groups.
