The Sunday Times Rich List shows that of the top 1000, most are business people or those who have made their own fortunes. You have to search hard for the mega-wealthy who simply inherited their wealth. Industriousness and intelligence got most of the people there.

Most  young people think that they are 'wealthy in waiting'. Give them an opportunity, and they'll get there. So the old Marxist and class rhetoric and divides are not only uninteresting - they are also irrelevant.

What Alastair Darling's budget does speak volumes about is how a party comes to and stays in power, and tries to buy an election. For this government has made customers of the electorate that has put it in power. In that sense, Brown's government's values are feudal, not fair. They will spend money on anything in order to engender loyalty and grow their influence.

The problem for the Labour party though is that their only mission is to convince their clients that they are the answer to whatever happens in society. If you believe that people are best placed to be the architects of their own lives because the tools are there today to do it - education, the internet, low cost of setting up a business, less sexism and racism then ever before, no matter where they start from - poor, middle-class or wealthy - then literally, the Labour party loses any raison d'etre.

The genie is well and truly out of the bottle. Company-man has given way to Micro-entrepreneur. Avon, the cosmetics company, illustrates this point. For full-year 2008, Avon reported that total revenue grew 8% to a record $10.7 billion. Avon representatives grew 7% in 2008, reaching 5.8 million around the world in more than 100 countries, with a significant presence in the UK. Indeed, one in three women in the UK is an Avon customer. Every second of every day four Avon lipsticks are sold somewhere.

Individual capitalism is  the biggest long-term trend in society; all of society is accommodating it. That mass of micro-entrepreneurs, whether Avon representatives, remote home workers, portfolio career people, freelance consultants or recipients of Fredericks Foundation grants, aren't counting on Gordon Brown to fight their corner.

They've taken matters into their own hands, and are building businesses and wealth, leading to a golden age of the entrepreneur in the 21st century. That is the silver lining which will soon emerge.

Read Julie's immediate impressions from Budget Day and join the conversation on the Entrepreneur Country Budget 2009 Forum.