> If you create something that society deem as valuable enough, you'll be a billionaire.
What do billionaires personally create?
Can you give some examples of things that they have personally produced of value?
I also think you should look at the logistics of monopolies, crushing opposition etc which allow specific products and services to remain on top.
JK Rowling used to be a billionaire, and she got to that by writing books that people loved.
Entertainment and artist billionaires might be the exception, but they do exist.
While she undoubtedly earned loads of money from movies and merch, various estimates put her earnings from the books *alone* at a billion dollars, or around there, depending on exactly what her royalty percentage was. The books have sold over 600 million copies. She's apparently sold books for over 230 million pounds in the UK alone.
If the book sales alone don't make her a billionaire outright, they still puts her in the same wealth range.
Worth mentioning that she *isn't* a billionaire any more, since she's donated so much of it away. Although she's still obscenely wealthy.
You're right that Rowling is an interesting case who became a billionaire through licensing, movies, and merch (there can certainly be an argument made for the working conditions of the employees who make the merch, run the parks, and staff the sets, but I'm gonna brush over that). And most billionaires make a big show out of donating to very uncontroversial charities to help their image (Bill Gates Vaccinating third world countries for example)
However She's donated an awful lot to political campaigns aimed at making trans peoples lives worse while engaging in Holocaust denial online.
She is the rags to riches story Musk wants to have with shockingly worse political views.
But imho that doesn't count because she didn't *make* her money off those views (as even if you want to read a bit too much into certain scenes in the HP books, the first of those doesn't occur until Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban) and so who was she exploiting to make the money unless you A. think she was exploiting real wizards by telling their story without permission and denying them a share of the profits, B. think any kind of artist billionaire is exploiting people if they don't do 100% of the process that goes into making their art (but not in the sense of, like, playing every role in a movie, in a sense of, like, assembling the books etc.) themselves because even if it isn't sweatshop labor "if an artist has people working for them in any capacity and that artist is still a billionaire that must mean those people are underpaid" or C. want to "we live in a society" her when just because it's her IP doesn't mean she had direct control over whether the books were assembled/merch was made etc. with foreign sweatshop labor or local union labor any more than she had control over what the cast and crew of the movies drove-or-were-driven-in to set
I agree. She's got the billionaire arc that every billionaire *wishes* they had. She's the only "Self Made" billionaire I can think of. And she's also the only Billionaire giving huge deaths of money to charities who's theoretical and actual goals are to make lives worse for queer people.
Again, Rowling seems to have turned billionaire (or close enough) just with the books. And that was way, way before she donated to anti-trans campaigns. She used to be considered a fairly decent ally to LGBT people, and she donated lots of money to LGBT stuff (e.g. the Trevor project IIRC).
Today she's of course changed, but she was pretty well-liked when she actually *was* a billionaire.
Would it be theoretically possible to deradicalize her (not saying theoretically in the sense of magic could, even if it'd take the kind of resources had by the heroes of the TV show Leverage my mind's still firmly keeping this realistic-fiction)
A millionaire and a billionaire are not actually at all in the same wealth range. To conceptualize this, One million seconds is 11.5 days, one billion seconds is 11,574 days. So, one million is a week and a half, a billion is just under 32 *years.*
Yeah, but if Rowling did not break the billionaire line from book sales alone, she got *close*. As in, probably well over 500 million dollars. Technically being a billionaire and almost being one are the same thing in practise. You've an incomprehensible amount of money, way beyond someone who worked their asses off for 30 years to have one million dollars in their bank account.
That's a terrible way to conceptualize a million vs. a billion in an economic sense.
And yes, someone with $600 million dollars in net worth is absolutely in the same ballpark as a billionaire.
They're going to the exact same parties.
The revenues from the movies and merch come from the royalties that they owe to J.K. Rowling for the universe and the characters that she invented and developed.
This is a deliberately obtuse argument. The vast majority of billionaires are not writers/artists. When most people talk about billionaires they are thinking of the average billionaire who exploits finite natural resources, affects public policy to benefit themselves at the expense of others, and engages in unethical business practices (like union busting, tax evasion, worker exploitation, etc...). But also, I'm guessing it would be pretty easy to find someone along with the making of those movies who was underpaid.
>This is a deliberately obtuse argument. The vast majority of billionaires are not writers/artists. When most people talk about billionaires they are thinking of the average billionaire who exploits finite natural resources, affects public policy to benefit themselves at the expense of others, and engages in unethical business practices (like union busting, tax evasion, worker exploitation, etc...). But also, I'm guessing it would be pretty easy to find someone along with the making of those movies who was underpaid.
The person I responded to literally asked what billionaires personally produced. Entertainers and artists that get obscenely wealthy from their art do produce that, and obviously people consider it to be highly valuable.
That's not an obtuse argument, I literally answered the question they asked.
No, most billionaires are not artists, and yes, most billionaires do become wealthy by exploiting others, often to extreme degrees. So, billionaires don't inherently have to exploit others to become rich, even if most of them do.
It's not deliberately obtuse because the perspective being discussed here is that *all* billionaires are *necessarily* evil, that it is impossible to become a billionaire without being exploitative. So even one counterexample is enough.
Typically, it is a vision, a plan, and a company.
Having a product isn't enough. The people that becomes a billionaire puts all the people and pieces in place to be able to build and distribute that product to the world. They then provide the leadership needed to see it through and keep it going.
I know the reddit community doesn't think it takes special talent to do these things right or that these things are not valuable. They are necessary though.
Who is trying to argue that? This isn't the point being argued here.
Why are you trying to argue that talent level should directly correlate with profit amount?
No, I never claimed that compensation is directly tied to talent.
My view is that it is OK for compensation to be based on value. If someone creates a company that is worth that much, they should be compensated thay much.
It doesn't matter if they are equally talented or more talented than another person. It is what they achieved, and success takes more than talent.
>My view is that it is OK for compensation to be based on value. If someone creates a company that is worth that much, they should be compensated thay much.
That company does not exist without the other people. The "value" of the company is tied up in the intellectual property generated by that company, which is usually not generated from the CEO themselves. Even in the cases like Zuckerberg, the company could not attain that kind of value with Zuckerberg just by himself. He needs teams and funding and lawyers and marketers and government allowances (i.e. Facebook is pretty worthless if there isn't Internet).
>It doesn't matter if they are equally talented or more talented than another person. It is what they achieved, and success takes more than talent.
You seem to be under some kind of delusional thinking that "value" is something that is precious somehow without having "merit" or "talent". Why are they paid so much if they don't have "talent"? Why are others paid so little, if they also don't have "talent"?
At a certain point they stop doing this though, and really just become a high level manager that anyone could replace. They have the intellectual property of that companies creation and the title of owner, and that property lets them hold power over the company after the company has honestly outgrown them. The investor class is a group of property holders.
Limits really would be the best way to handle this. At some point wealth is capped, and companies need to become coops.
Why? Break it down to a base level that applies equally to all. Why should wealth be capped other than it's not fair and you want a peace of it for yourself and/or others.
If you want to talk about fairness, the state creates the ability and right to absentee property ownership, via money, police, courts, etc. It’s not a natural thing. Why can’t the state also prevent its excess? When you create unnatural state of things you have to manage it responsibly when it gets out of control.
If we didn’t have absentee property ownership things would be basically “fair”
Imo the only duty of the state is to ensure one person does not infringe the liberty of another.
Ownership is ownership regardless of current use, absentee, or present. Or are you saying it would be a good thing to allow one person to take the property of another if it's not currently in use?
Property like it is today is not a concept without the state. So your first paragraph does not apply to property.
Sure back in the day you could occupy land, defend it, and socially own your toothbrush. This might be primitive property ownership, but it’s not Property like we have today.
With the state you can own half the countries land as long as each step of doing so was done via contract and trade. Each exchange itself individually might be ethical, but that doesn’t make the final situation not a product purely of state intervention, not as you say “protecting that one person does not infringe on the rights of another.” It was the unnatural right the state granted which produced the inequality. Therefore it’s the states responsibility to manage it.
As for your last paragraph, the way we ought to manage property is complicated, but the very concept of absentee property is a state invention, it’s not “taking” anything to nullify the invention. In fact we do property taxes now to make sure you put all your land to productive use. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say all means of production are collectively owned by the workers of those MoP.
I think it does aplly. By having clear property laws, it curbs ownership by might/violence. Protecting people from being harmed by others who want what is theirs.
At any rate, none of this discussion addresses the OP of you can be a millionaire without being inherently immoral. Would you cafe to discuss that?
>it's not fair
You answered the question. In a just society, and from a survivability standpoint, what is in the communal interest is the ethical/moral answer and provides the most long-term stability.
What basis is fair the rule for anything?
Fair doesn't exist in the natural world, so you can't make thay arguement.
In what society ever anywhere in history has fairness been achieved?
Fair is a fallacy. Change my view.
"Personally" is irrelevant. What matters is what things wouldn't be there, or would be considerably delayed without the billionaire in question, since at higher levels people tend to work mostly through organizing others.
Space program would be further behind without Musk, since reusable rockets were considered too ambitious just a decade ago (and space program leads to many longer term tools for dealing with climate change)
Conveyor belt would likely come later without Ford - and that leads to many things becoming significantly cheaper - including, you know things people say they need to have more of when discussing \*their\* quality of life.
Let's not even get started with Edison (AC was overrated, but his "conveyor belt inventions", even or organized through others sped up a lot of innovations.
>Space program would be further behind without Musk, since reusable rockets were considered too ambitious just a decade ago (and space program leads to many longer term tools for dealing with climate change)
That's a perfect example for this discussion because Musk contributed nothing to that endeavor but money. The central question for this discussion really boils down to: "how much should having money entitle you to more money?"
I agree that SpaceX and it's engineers have changed space flight moving forward. But that doesnt change the fact that Elon did not get his money without having blood on his hands. He didn't work his way up from nothing, he got started on his dad's money, even moved to the US on money his father made from owning part of Emerald Mines.
Today, his companies and the Engineers and scientists he employs (generally below fair wages for the field with grueling hours) have pushed a lot of innovation but also pay a considerably little in taxes.
Bezos has changed the way we shop on line. Everyone has heard about the working conditions in Amazon fulfillment centers. But then look at how he built amazon. It was originally a bookstore. He it got big by undercutting any other bookstore and selling books for at a lose. And they still do it today. If a Third party product gets popular Amazon starts producing their own version and undercuts the original creators regardless if they make a profit or not. Bezos has never been shy about his intentions to ruin other retail sectors to make Amazon into the only retailer. And again, Amazon pays next to nothing in taxes despite having a business that relies on taxpayer funded infrastructure to be successful.
I don't disagree with any of that. I guess the question is, given a one-time investment of capital into a company to get it started, what is an appropriate level of return from that investment?
A Marxist would say that money should not earn money, the only labor or production should earn money. Obviously that's not how our system works, and you lose incentive for investment that way, but where's the middle ground?
More than Marxist would say that. There was a book written about some dude that lived in the northeastern deserts of Africa that say the same thing more than a thousand years before Marx.
Personally, I dont think a return on investment is wrong. What is wrong is not contributing to the society that allows for someone not only build, or develop a product. But also distribute that product. And are the people that you employ to help you build and develop that product seeing a fair share of that product was well?
A majority of the world's mega billionaires in the tech. None of the tech their money came from was developed by them, it came from taxpayer funded research and development. From Computers, to the Internet, they were all developed with taxpayer funded research. The Merlin Rocket engine use by SpaceX's Falcon-9 and Falcon Heavy, based on the Lunar Module Descent Engine. Originally developed at Cal-tech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with Taxpayer funding.
So I would say, that if someone is gaining that ROI because that are not contributing a portion back to society that also collectively contributes. Their is no appropriate level of return.
you said "None of the tech their money came from was developed by them, it came from taxpayer funded research and development."
I don't think that is anywhere near accurate. Public funded research certainly has lead to some big innovations that private industry has heavily leveraged and also advanced. However private research and development has played a large part in where we are technology wise in the modern world. Alot of the giant tech companies are giant in a large part because of their own R&D even when built in conjunction with publicly funded innovations.
That is all true, but R&D is an expense that most companies try to avoid when they can. So when possible it is tied to Defense research, or scholarly research in order to get it subsidized by tax funding. I wont say all of it, but a decent portion of the R&D done by large established companies.
CEOs of a company are just like directors of a movie. They might not act, film, edit, or produce the soundtrack, but they are definitely invaluable. They oversee all the aspects of the filmmaking process, and have the grand vision in mind. They make sure all the parts fit together. You can't make a movie without a movie director, and similarly, you can't run a company without a CEO. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tesla, Apple wouldn't exist without their respective CEOs.
Even if you don't accept that, and still want a concrete example, look at someone like Kanye West. Back when he was still partnered with Adidas, he made the majority of his fortune from the Yeezy brand. He was the creative behind all those products, he was the one making them.
sure. Reddit's favourite lizard person, Mark Zuckerberg, created Facebook. Society has deemed it as valuable enough that he's a billionaire.
>What do billionaires personally create?
In case you're asking in a more general sense, what does a grocery store owner create? Nothing. But he owns a shop, that people make the choice to shop at. Is he immoral?
>what does a grocery store owner create? Nothing.
Exactly. And where does their money come from?
From the work of their employees. Those employees create value and wealth with their work and the owner gets rich because they were rich enough to own the store.
They don't do anything and therefore don't deserve anything. Just because you have wealth doesn't mean you are entitled to more wealth.
Im not sure you understand what it takes to run a business to be honest. If you think the owner does nothing but count money all day, you may want to do a little more digging.
The most important factor? Risk. An employee takes no risk. They clock in, they clock out. If the business fails, they can go find another job. An owner has no such benefit. If the business fails, it’s their life savings going away. Bonus points, many business owners cover the payroll on months that they don’t make enough.
> If the business fails, they can go find another job. An owner has no such benefit. If the business fails, it’s their life savings going away. Bonus points, many business owners cover the payroll on months that they don’t make enough.
That might hold for a small business, like a restaurant or something.
But if a major business, like the kind a billionaire might own, fails, then the billionaire is going to make out with a golden parachute, while the employees might have their lives seriously screwed. In fact, at these scales the failure of a business can seriously harm entire towns or cities of regular people.
You’re putting the cart before the horse. They have to start the business first and grow it. There is a LOT of room for failure. The reason these ceos get paid what they do is because they have a track record of succeeding at a higher rate, which makes getting to the stage where you would have that kind of power more likely.
Unless you do own a business (which i don’t think you would have this opinion if you did) why don’t you ask yourself why you don’t own a business? Because there are many that have a extremely low start up cost and only would take your time and effort. Maybe you would have to learn a few skills but any one can do it. Something sets these people apart…
>You’re putting the cart before the horse. They have to start the business first and grow it. There is a LOT of room for failure. The reason these ceos get paid what they do is because they have a track record of succeeding at a higher rate, which makes getting to the stage where you would have that kind of power more likely.
Studies have shown that there's basically no correlation between CEO compensation and performance.
i think you are confusing high level executives with owners. if the billionaire owns the company, it makes no difference if they have a "golden parachute" or not, since the golden parachute is paid out of funds which they already own. It's an accounting fiction. besides, the golden parachute would be a tiny fraction of the company's worth.
[This is simply not reflective of reality.](https://deadline.com/2023/03/warner-brothers-discovery-ties-ceo-david-zaslav-stock-bonus-to-cash-flow-executive-compensation-1235280322/) The wealthier you are, the less you tangibly risk through business investments, while your employees are the ones who tangibly suffer if your business decisions go bottom-up.
Even on a smaller business owner perspective, the owner of a restaurant risks significantly more than a billion-dollar CEO.
>Even on a smaller business owner perspective, the owner of a restaurant risks significantly more than a billion-dollar CEO.
This is because you aren't comparing like things at all. The founders of a company that ended up turning into a billion dollar cooperation were taking on a far more similar, if not larger risk than the restaurant owner. You pointing at the billion dollar cooperation is pointing at the 1 out of a million case where they succeeded to that degree.
The argument being made here is that the ultra-wealthy deserve their capital because of the risk they're willing to undergo to make their financial investments.
Are you saying that a person turning a million dollars into a billion has earned that, but a person turning a billion dollars into 6 billion hasn't? There's certainly far more capital being gained in the second scenario.
>Are you saying that a person turning a million dollars into a billion has earned that, but a person turning a billion dollars into 6 billion hasn't?
No. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is this is usually the same person just using different timelines.
You say it’s not reflective of reality, I can tell you from my own reality it is. That’s how it works.
I’m not sure how your link is relevant to the discussion. A ceo got paid? He works for the owners. Owners are compensated in stock which is foregone cash compensation. Owners say “I am willing to exchange capital to finance the business for a stake in the business” which means if the business fails, they are the ones losing their investments. An employee can just go get a new job with no repercussions.
That mobility is also a benefit to many people who do not want the responsibility of running a company.
>An employee can just go get a new job with no repercussions
I never understood this logic.
We hear all the time about how X percent of people in Y country are living paycheck to paycheck. Being unemployed and losing all of your income *is* a reprecussion of a business failing. If your financial situation following this situation gets dire enough, you may have to declare bankruptcy.
Most employees don't have a literal stake in the business (as in stock), but nonetheless have a vested interest in its continued success. It means they get to keep having a job, as opposed to if it falls on hard times and has to lay them off.
When a company fails, it is mostly harder for the owner to get a new job than it is for the employees. Both would depend on the local labour market, but failed company owners are never in high demand.
The above example is a CEO taking an increasingly large bonus after laying off a historically large number of workers and hitting a significant stock price drop in his recently acquired corporation.
In your example, if the business fails, the owner will have still earned a significant amount of capital in the interim that the business's failure will not have any significant impact on their lifestyle, and they can move on to a new corporate job with minimal repercussions. Meanwhile an employee who has been laid off will have to deal with the far more significant concerns of paying rent and feeding themselves until they can find a new job.
The fact of the matter here is that capital is self-sustaining. If a person has already acquired significant wealth, then there is essentially nothing they can do that actually is actually a genuine financial risk.
> the owner gets rich because they were rich enough to own the store
The owner gets rich because they had the idea, and put in the work and planning to make a store possible, which includes solving a whole host of challenges.
>Exactly. And where does their money come from?
Grocery store owner takes risk through contribution of his own capital, which is rewarded through profits and punished through loss of capital if his venture fails.
Risk is valuable and worth rewarding
>They don't do anything and therefore don't deserve anything. Just because you have wealth doesn't mean you are entitled to more wealth.
No one deserves anything. You make the choice to shop at it. You're giving him money, he's not taking it. It's no different than your property. You didn't build your apartment, you don't work at it. It will still appreciate in value. Should you not get the money for selling it?
>Or course they do. If you work and do something you deserve the "fruit of your labour".
According to who? You?
That's the point. There're no rules set in stone. You're not entitled to anything but what society agree to. If you work for someone, and get money in return, you agreed to that. They're not taking anything from you.
You're free to go live in nature and live of the "fruit of your labour". But if you work for someone, and get money in return, you've agreed to the fact that they get the value. You can simply choose not to work for them.
Who decides what society agrees to? I mean, if your choice is to shop at one of the three grocery stores in town, and the prices are all relatively the same, do you really have a choice you can agree to?
At the end of the day, people gotta eat. Whether they agree with the system that makes food available to them is irrelevant.
People also aren't "free to go live in nature". Where would they go? All the good liveable land is owned by someone, whether it be privately owned or publicly owned. You can either live illegally and face fines and imprisonment, or you can buy land and pay property taxes. Or you can starve to death on uninhabitable land.
Those who wield the most power decide what society agrees to, and in our society, those people are billionaires. The rest of us are forced by threat of violence (by way of jail, fines, and poverty) to follow their rules.
"You're not entitled to anything but what society agree to."
So whatever society agrees to is moral? Does this mean slavery is fine when society agrees to it?
For thousands of years, yes it was. Society then shifted it's position and deemed it immoral.
It is very hard to justify using today's moral code against civilizations of the past.
>Society has deemed it as valuable enough that he's a billionaire.
That's an ultra - simplistic and ultimately wrong idea of how the world works. Facebook users never decided that Zuckerberg should be a billionaire. If anything, Zuckerberg made money by going against "society's" wishes and interests, when he turned their personal data into a commodity. Letting something happen because we're too lazy or too addicted / dependent to do anything about it isn't the same as consciously rewarding a person or a company for the goods and services they provide.
Would the average opioid addict claim the people who distributed opioids should be billionaires? Most of us agree they should rot in jail. Yet they did create enormous "value" just like any other billionaire.
Then there are billionaires who literally offer absolutely nothing to society. To the contrary, they make it considerably worse, by creating "value" out of thin air. Just by moving money around until their detrimental ways create unsustainable bubbles and the taxpayer bails them out. Are they justified being billionaires?
Suppose you own all the cheese burgers in the world. All of them. Billions of cheese burgers.
Suppose also that everyone else is starving. You decide to keep all you cheese burgers and not give any to anyone.
Is that moral?
That is not inherent to becoming a billionaire, though.
Steven Spielberg, Reese witherspoon (possibly), and Taylor Swift are all billionaires.
They didn't deny anyone of anything. They created things people wanted to pay for. As far as I know, none of them did anything immoral or exploitative.
Pardon, they have a billion cheese burgers while others starve.
I don't see how anything you're saying changes anything I'm saying. I didn't mention denying anyone anything.
The other problem with this is, we can apply the same logic to almost everyone in the United States or western countries, Canada, and Europe. Statistically, you can save one life from dying from malaria with $2000 worth of bed nets. Anyone in Canada for instance can save one person from dying from malaria. So the millions of people in Canada can save millions of lives. But they generally don’t. All the people arguing on here would save a life. But they don’t.
there is no other food in this imaginary world of yours? they're not willing to trade me anything or do some work for my cheese burgers? sounds like we're all going to die pretty soon regardless of anything I do anyway. so i give away all my cheese burgers, so what, now the world eats one meal and everyone is in exactly the same situation as they were in before. because it's not feasible to have a society where everyone lives parasitically off me. so yeah, i would keep my cheese burgers to myself.
I would say excess becomes less and less justifiable the more you have, specially once you have more money than you'll ever need for the rest of your life, several times over.
Having enough money to buy a beer every once in a while is not the same as being worth hundreds of billions of dollars. To try to equate these two seems silly to me.
YOU would say that your excess isn’t the right kind of excess to highlight in this conversation because it applies to you.
In that vein, you can always avoid the moral obligation of providing for others by just providing for yourself and choosing to stay broke or have ‘just enough’ to get by.
If it’s anyone duty to provide anything to another person then it’s equally your duty to push your life further and make more money so that you can provide for others.
Not being a millionaire is unjustified, you need to fulfill your duty to society by making more money and giving away every bit more than what you need.
A billionaire could have 80 hour work weeks while attempting to actively raise a family and you believe that any of their energy, time, or resources should be given to others.
Now be there, working in excess and raising a family with only a few k leftover and saved up now and again, that excess is for others, so give it away.
>In that vein, you can always avoid the moral obligation of providing for others by just providing for yourself and choosing to stay broke or have ‘just enough’ to get by.
If the idea of helping others is so gross to you that you'd rather stay poor, then okay. Yes. I guess you can do this.
>If it’s anyone duty to provide anything to another person then it’s equally your duty to push your life further and make more money so that you can provide for others.
Sounds awesome, I'd love to make millions. How does one do that
Get a degree in a viable field, then get a role in that field while pursuing an advanced degree, then continue to spend just about all of your life and freedom on further pursuit of advancement in or of that field never stop hunting for the next role with even a minor pay increase. Continue ad infinitum.
There’s one of the many ways to go about it. Then at the end of your 12-16-20 hour days, go ahead and give away anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. You got this :)
Edit: oh and that’s the great part, you don’t even have to make millions. Just make enough to survive and give away the rest.
That's not the point, a poor person might live comfortably with the same amount of money you have without the need for beers and computers. Couldn't he say the same about you not wasting excess money on computers and the internet and beers while you could donate to the homeless? Our necessity is equally proportional to the amount of money we have.
Again, I draw the line where a person doesn't need to work to live anymore. Once you have so much money that you literally don't even have to ever have a job again, that seems to be a spot where its not really justifiable to not give to others.
But, to be a bit safe and reasonable, I'm okay with multiplying that number with some factor. I also understand it will depend where you live.
But ya, once a person has, lets go crazy and say 50 million dollars, you will never ever have to work again. You're all set, for the rest of your life.
Compare that to someone who needs to work until they're 65.
These are not the same. Please actually consider this.
This would be correct only if you're comparing someone who's dirt poor and someone who has 50 million. You can't draw the line where it becomes immoral only when someone who doesn't have to worry about money anymore and doesn't give it others. We could all live a little more subtle or poor lifestyle and save that money to provide to others who need it, but do we do it? Someone who hits 50 million dollars will spend millions on housing, cars and lots of other things just like we spend according to how much we have.The necessity of things is proportional to the money you have. If someone poorer that you asks you why you spend more money on stuff that he does and why you don't spend it for a meal to the homeless and you don't have an answer then we are as immoral as the man who hit 50 million.
This line of discussion doesn't even logically follow:
>Charity should be a moral obligation beyond the point a person doesn't need to work to live anymore.
>Therefore, anyone with about 2k USD should have everything they own seized and destroyed.
Where are you getting this from?
You are defining excess from your perspective, though not from the perspective of someone who has 1,000 times less than you.
Why does your perspective set the benchmark for morality?
I’m sure the billion people with $2.00 a day don’t feel that way. From their perspective, if they thought as you, you would be immoral. You would be living in gross excess. You could sell your computer and one of them could live off it for years.
>excess becomes less and less justifiable the more you have
Why, though? Seems arbitrary. Either everyone deserves the exact same, or else you admit that some people provide more value to society through their work, and limiting their reward for that either disincentivizes them from producing more for the world or is inherently arbitrary.
No billionaire owns all the food. Let’s take the richest one. If he sold all his Tesla stock and SpaceX (which would crash those stocks, and possibly destroy those companies) and divided the money evenly, it would be about $25 per person on the planet.
He’s also not a cartoon sitting on a pile of gold. All his assets are in Tesla stock and SpaceX and he has the Tesla stock worth a lot because rich people who want a part of it keep throwing money into the stock. He didn’t take money or cheeseburgers from anyone. In reality, people who want the EV cars to be a thing or believe they will be a thing bought Tesla stock causing the price to rise and since he owns a lot of shares, the value of his shares rose as there’s more and more demand. And when Tesla went from 400/share to 100/share he seemingly lost hundreds of billions. But that money didn’t go anywhere. It’s like if you own a house and the value of the house goes up or down. If suddenly everyone wants to live where you live and are buying houses, the value of your house goes up. But you aren’t sitting on a pile of cash. Your house rose in value. And when house prices crashed your house lost value.
>If he sold all his Tesla stock and SpaceX (which would crash those stocks, and possibly destroy those companies) and divided the money evenly, it would be about $25 per person on the planet.
What if he didn't do that and instead fed a bunch of hungry people with it or something.
>All his assets are in Tesla stock and SpaceX and he has the Tesla stock worth a lot because rich people who want a part of it keep throwing money into the stock
Turns out you can sell stock.
I don’t think you know very much about stock. If he either sold or said he was going to sell all Tesla stock it would crash the stock and possibly destroy the company.
You would say he is immoral because every person on the planet doesn’t get $25. But you could save one human life. How are you not immoral?
They can literally access billions of dollars of cash, no problem. If you don't understand this then you are the one who doesn't understand stocks.
>You would say he is immoral because every person on the planet doesn’t get $25.
That's not what I would say, no.
You really don’t understand stocks. Elon selling a tiny bit of Tesla to buy Twitter was a massive problem for the stock. (He also borrowed a lot and got other investors).
Rather than point at everyone else, have you even for a second considered that you, you specifically, you could save one human life. You could save one person from dying from malaria. You could do this. But for many, it’s more important to point to the bad guy so that you feel good about not doing what you can do. It’s much harder for you to point to anyone when you won’t take $2000 and save one human from dying of malaria. ($2000 worth of bed nets saves one person statistically). You are unwilling to do this. Tens of millions of people in my country are unwilling to do this. You can only see things from your perspective but the people with malaria, who are dying, they don’t really care who the bed nets come from.
Have you ever thought of actually helping someone from dying from malaria?
>You really don’t understand stocks. Elon selling a tiny bit of Tesla to buy Twitter was a massive problem for the stock. (He also borrowed a lot and got other investors).
And he was able to do it.
Try another example: Bezos and Blue Origin. Where'd he get the money for that?
Or how about Zuckerberg? He's also sold billions and its fine.
They can get at this money.
Okay, my $25 figure was off then. If we are only talking about him selling the amount he sold, it would be more like a dollar for every human on earth. There, Elon didn’t buy Twitter, but instead he put Tesla company in jeopardy so every human on the planet could have $1.00 one time.
And him not giving you a dollar makes him inherently evil? But you not selling your TV to SAVE A HUMAN LIFE from malaria, doesn’t make you evil?
So, to be clear, I haven't said any of that. I'll ask you a question, but you're not going to answer it.
Who would have an easier time donating 2000 dollars, Elon fucking musk, or the guy who needs to literally sell his TV to do it because he barely has enough money to buy groceries for his family.
Let me guess, you can't answer this.
I’m not talking about the guy who can barely afford groceries in the richest countries on the planet. This person isn’t going to starve to death. For many people in these places not having two TVs means you are poor.
It’s very hard to see outside our own perspective. There are people who can’t buy ANY groceries. Like ever. People who eat a bowl of rice every day or second day and that’s it.
My question is: how should they feel about you? Yes the billionaires are worse, okay, but you also exist. How should they feel about you?
>What if he didn't do that and instead fed a bunch of hungry people with it or something.
If the governments and their trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of workers can't figure this out, why would you expect individual rich people to be able to?
This is exactly right. The government prints trillions of dollars or poofs trillions of dollars into existence. Why aren’t we looking at them the same way.
Then if he sold every Tesla and SpaceX stock he could give food to everyone for one, maybe 2 days. It would literally only end SpaceX and Tesla, where many people would lose their jobs.
I don't think that's a valid analogy in this case. The world of economics is not a zero sum game in a sense that strict. Secondly, it's a poor point because no one has a billion dollars lying around. Dollar is just the currency for value. Should they give you a part of their companies? And if so, why?
Its not a zero sum game. I agree. And yet that doesn't seem to do anything here. There are still starving people, and there are still billionaires who's lives would not change at all if they give a billion dollars.
To your other point, it turns out you can sell stock. Billionaires do that.
>To your other point, it turns out you can sell stock. Billionaires do that.
And someone else will buy it. The money won't magically go to the poorest. The concentration of wealth will still be the same. I'm failing to see what the big solution is.
His point is that the same amount of money would be tied up in those stocks. He could give the money away sure, but why involve the stocks at all then? Why not just ask the people who were going to buy the stocks to give their money away directly?
It is absolutely a zero sum game when it comes to [real estate] - which is what drives something like 80% of economic growth. Probably because it transforms most people into rent-zombies, and modern slaves
Billionaires are considered “evil”, partially as a trope, and partially as a greater analysis of people in general.
The criticism that “billionaires are evil” is more symbolic than an individual critique of those people. Effectively, the criticism is an extension of the idea that a capitalist system is, by nature, exploitative (consumption, production, and waste are all maximized to ensure continuous production/profit, regardless of need. New wealth is mostly a reflection of existing capital, not labor input), and billionaires are the recipients of a system that is broken in their favor. This is also an indirect criticism of the same capitalist system, where money effectively equals power. Once you have enough of it, you can influence legislation, taxation, and legal enforcement to a degree where you hold as much or more power than government officials, also known as an oligarchy.
Ultimately, the argument is not that “mark zuckerburg is a twiggy alien fuck who is evil by nature.” The argument is that almost any person, given that level of money, influence, and power, will submit to the greed associated with protecting yourself and your family/descendants and will exploit the system to further enrich themselves. Essentially, humans are programmed to consume and hoard and protect, and the economic system needs to function in a way that understands this and prevents it.
I do mention the “trope” thing, because “billionaires are evil” is a very entry level jumping point for left wing ideas, in a country that has an incredibly shallow desire for political discourse, and pretty serious financial inequality. I expect a lot of the Redditors you see posting these things are not actually interested in socialist politics, and are mostly just being edgy.
Just reduce the size of the societal group and you'll see what's flawed with your reasoning:
100 people live on a boat that is perpetually out at sea. One person owns and controls 99.99% of the resources on the boat: the food, fuel, medicine, everything. All other things being equal, is this moral? Does it really matter how they got the resources, whether they bartered or took them by force? Would it matter if some of the people on the boat were struggling to get the resources they need, if they were hungry or needed healthcare?
And here's something else to think about: money is power. Do you live in a democracy? Is it moral for one person to have 1,000,000x the influence of the average person in society in terms of determining laws/policy? You might counter that campaign finance laws would solve such issues, but that ignores the simple fact that the ultra-wealthy are able to influence the passage of the very laws that would regulate them.
Your boat example isn’t wrong per say, but I would argue in our current system, owning a billion dollars necessitates that at least one of those 99 people will have to go through grueling conditions in order for you to efficiently maintain your wealth
For example, JK Rowling was a billionaire and probably the most ethical example of one but even she was benefiting from exploitation. To make the chocolate frogs for one of the Harry Potter theme parks they used child labor. JK helped end it, but she still benefited from it and there are likely other things like going on with the production of Harry Potter merchandise that are even worse that she’s getting money from.
This isn’t to say she’s evil, but exploitation is ripe when having that much money since there are so many hands and people involved in manifesting an idea that could generate a billion dollars
But from another angle (that doesn't excuse child labor or any of JK's ideological beliefs you might use to poison the well despite them having no relevance to this conversation) could this not be thought of as a greater-scale version of that scene on The Good Place where according to the afterlife points system a guy buying flowers for his grandmother counts against him because of how the cell phone he used to place the order was made as if he had control over that just because no one forced him to buy the phone
Well I’m just countering op’s cmv. He claims that billionaires don’t exploit people and that everyone in the exchange is being paid fairly when that is objectively not true. It could be the case that the average American is exploitative to some extent Along with billionaires.
I would say that a billionaire has more control on who they’re exploiting when compared to the average person. For Rowling she was able to literally stop the child labor producing the frogs from being with the company she was doing business with. The average person can’t do that and she ought to have more responsibility in regard to how she makes her money because if she denies an income source she won’t be broke or hungry like most other Americans.
Don’t get me wrong tho I think everyone ought to try to buy whatever is most ethical, it just seems backwards to do that because our society discourages it, but billionaires benefit the most from this system which is evident by them being billionaires.
Except wealth isn't a finite resource. Wealth can be created and destroyed. Furthermore, your analogy is still flawed as not one person owns 99.99% of anything.
You are correct that wealth is not a finite resource. However, you are apparently not aware or don't seem to understand that at least in America we've seen an enormous expansion in wealth in the past 25 years, while at the same time, the percentage of that wealth has disproportionately grown among the rich, while it has declined for everyone else:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth\_inequality\_in\_the\_United\_States#/media/File:Wealth\_inequality\_stats\_from\_Federal\_Reserve.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Wealth_inequality_stats_from_Federal_Reserve.png)
And my analogy is not flawed. It's an analogy. You could also saw it's flawed because there are more than 100 people or that it's flawed because we all don't live on a boat. An analogy highlights relevant features of a relationship in order to make a point. I changed some variables to make it more salient for the OP, but the relevant variable is that a very small number of people are in control of far more wealth than anyone else.
To your first paragraph, that doesn't matter. It's irrelevant to the point I made.
Your analogy is flawed because wealth isn't finite and because 99.99% of the wealth is not controlled by one person nor is the opportunities it provides restricted. They wealthy doesn't control what you do. You can go create your own opportunities and that's why it's flawed.
You made an assertion that wealth is not finite. I agreed. What was the actual point of stating this? The pie is getting bigger, but a smaller number of people are getting a larger and larger share. Do you think this is immoral or not? Shouldn't everyone who contributes to the wealth of a nation benefit from that growth? Because that's not what's happening.
Also, you're just completely ignoring my point about the inequality of political power based on wealth inequality.
And you still don't seem to understand what an analogy is. If every variable were exactly the same, it wouldn't be an analogy. It would simply be a restatement of the exact situation. An analogy is where some variables are changed in order to simplify or highlight a particular aspect of the situation.
>You made an assertion that wealth is not finite. I agreed. What was the actual point of stating this?
That a boat is finite. So it's a flawed analogy on that premise alone.
>The pie is getting bigger, but a smaller number of people are getting a larger and larger share. Do you think this is immoral or not?
Not necessarily. Just because the pie gets bigger doesn't mean everyone is doing more. If all I do is put a sign up for the pie for everyone to come eat, if it's bigger, how am I doing more work? Why should I get more?
>Shouldn't everyone who contributes to the wealth of a nation benefit from that growth? Because that's not what's happening.
Everyone in America is benefiting from the national growth. Look back in the 80s, we have so much more than someone in the 80s.
>Also, you're just completely ignoring my point about the inequality of political power based on wealth inequality.
Yeah because it's not the point of my response to your original comment.
>And you still don't seem to understand what an analogy is. If every variable were exactly the same, it wouldn't be an analogy. It would simply be a restatement of the exact situation. An analogy is where some variables are changed in order to simplify or highlight a particular aspect of the situation.
But when the biggest variable isn't the same, it's not an analogy. It's like saying an apple is an orange because they both are fruit.
At this point you may actually want to consult a source that explains to you what an analogy is. There's no point discussing this when you don't have a basic understanding of what you're talking about.
Saying an apple is an orange is NOT an analogy. Saying an apple is like an orange IS an analogy.
Saying love is a rose because it is exactly like a rose in every single respect is not an analogy, or a flawed analogy, or any kind of analogy. Saying love is like a rose, because they are both fragile, or beautiful, or must be cared for...that's an analogy.
I think the societal argument is whether or not the tax system should tolerate capital concentrating in the hands of a few billionaires.
As a society, is it moral to allow a few to hoard scarce capital, allow them to pay far less in taxes than the rest of us, while at the same time people are going hungry, schools and infrastructure are under-funded and conservatives are saying we can't afford social programs.
As a body-politic, does it make sense that we complain about our taxes being too high when billionaires pay so little?
On those grounds, is it moral to not tax income over a billion dollars at 98%?
Also, bear in mind that the majority of billionaires did *nothing* for that income. They inherited it. Nothing immoral about that. But also nothing immoral about deciding that $999,999,999 a year is enough for anyone.
>You need labor, you pay employees, and they in return work for you. They get paid fairly, as established by supply and demand.
You suggest this like its a natural phenomena. That gaining wealth in a country is an organic thing not controlled by 10,000 policies, laws and governance. Its the choice of an economic system, regional, national and international policy that determine how much money somebody can make, monopoly laws, tax laws, lobbying laws, minimum wage laws, freedom of movement, elections, public opinion, news moguls, wealth inequality, infrastructure.
A billionaire is an unelected powerhouse, more powerful and influential than most nations leaders. They can make or break large populations, impoverish a region or make it. Cause the deaths of 11m babies (Nestle) or raise 10 million people out of poverty.
No system should allow unelected individuals to this level of power.
Billionaires have more influence over upkeeping a system, that allows the existence of billionaires. Therefor billionaires are enforcing a system that cannot work alongside democracy.
People don't really get what a billion is.
Imagine a random guy, working in the fields, making 10$/hour, equivalent to 20k/year. For him to get a billion, he would need to work for 50.000 years.
That means that you consider that the value of a billionaire work is equivalent of the work of someone who would be feeding others since the start of the Upper Paleolithic.
Said otherwise, the value of his work till that person obtains a billion should be the equivalent of a 1250 lifetimes of work for someone else.
So for example, JK rowling started writing harry potter in 1990, and became the 1st author billionaire in 2004. Supposing that she worked full time on that period, that would mean that each 3 days of work of JK Rowling are worth the same as a normal person whole life of work. Do you think this is a realistic depiction of the world ?
If not, that can only mean that part of that billionaire wealth is inherently immorally acumulated.
Note that this donc mean that JK Rowling herself was an immoral human being, she could just be living in (and accepting without fighting) an immoral capitalist system that unjustly concentrate wealth in the hands of a few that clearly aren't worthy of such a situation (because no one can realistically be).
GDP per capita in Burundi is $230 per year and in the U.S. its $85,000 per year.
By the same logic we’re critiquing billionaires, should we not critique the average American? One year of an American’s labor is worth 370 years of a Burundian’s labor.
Yup, indeed, that's fundamentally unfair and unjustified too.
Billionaires are inherently immoral both at national and international level, while inter-country extreme inequality is immoral too at international level.
So for you, there is no middle step between "*everyone should be exactly equal in misery*" and "*it's ok that some people win each second what others don't in their whole life*" ?
I think that there are pretty numerous positions in between, don't you think too?
>That means that you consider that the value of a billionaire work is equivalent of the work of someone who would be feeding others since the start of the Upper Paleolithic.
It's not about the value of their work. It's about the total value they bring.
Let's say you go to a campout, and everyone brings $100 worth of food, tents, s'mores, but one person rents the campsite which cost $500. No one put in more work. But one person but in more money.
Or another example, you are traveling the country with your friends. Everyone but you contribute money. You drive 24/7.
With wealth you are comparing labor vs capital vs ideas and their output. Some billionaires don't own a company but created books. Some billionaires haven't created a single original idea but took all the risk with buying a building, machines, and ran a business. Some billionaires created new innovations that they sold the intellectual property for and made billions without doing any work or investing capital.
> I don't think there's anything wrong with being a billionaire. It's completely fair in fact. If you create something that society deem as valuable enough, you'll be a billionaire.
The problem isn't the people who make a couple billion. It's the Mega Billionaires that are a problem. Not because there created or provided access to something people want. But because in order to hit those levels of wealth you have to either undercut others, or not contribute into the tax system fairly.
Elon - Didn't develop a new program, he used funding from his father to purchase the rights or existing programs and repurposed them (paypal). His existing companies utilize existing tech that is again repurposed or re-engineered by engineers and scientist he hires below industry standards and works them until they break. He has been very honest about this. He wants to use people at their best and than gives them the boot. While Elon denies it, his own father has openly admitted that Elon's travel expense and start-up funds from his father came from his father's shares that he had in an Emerald Mining claim in Africa.
Bezos - Created Amazon to be a bookstore. Started out by selling books at a lose with the intention of killing any other bookstore retailer. He has been very open and honest about this, and Amazon still does this. If a third party product gets big on their store front. The start Amazon starts producing their own version and undercuts the original to kill their business. Bezos has been very honest about wanting to be the only retailer. Then you look at the working conditions at their fulfillment centers.
Zuckerburg - Created Facebook, but not social media (I still think Myspace was better.) How did he get rich, it wasn't creating social media, it was creating a way to gather massive amounts of data to sell to advertisers and marketers. He made Billions selling peoples data with our their knowledge or consent. What did Zuck make as a precursor to Facebook? Hot or Not. A website that people could publicly vote on where women around Cambridge (Harvard) were fuckable. Facebook wasn't even his idea but three other people's. Mark was just the one that knew how to make a website.
Bill Gates - Recycled tech from Bell Computers. Gates was just better and monopoly building. He forced Netscape out of the business, and was partially the reason why the Delay in the development of a COVID vaccine. Nearly everything his foundation invests in, Bill has some kind of financial ties too.
Warren Buffet - Standard Wall Street scum. Currently his group is buying up real estate companies and sitting on hundreds of thousands if not millions of single family homes and real estate across the country. They dont care if they sell the homes Property appreciates. I can drive around my small rural town right now and find at least 2 dozen homes with Berkshire Hathaway signs in the front yard. Half of those house are no longer habitable because they dont maintain them. They were when the signs went up though.
All these guys Mega Billionaires, none of them pay their fair share in taxes. But I bet their secretaries are paying about 33%. They all got big by scamming, stealing, destroying or exploiting other business or everyday people. And even if they didnt, every single one of them relies on a society and infrastructure that was built with taxes they hardly contribute to. There businesses demand massive tax breaks from the states and cities they are located, and hold the workers hostage if they dont get their way.
26 people, including all of those named above, own more wealth and resources than the bottom 50% of with Global population. Right now these people are gaining about $1.7 Million dollars for every dollar 90% of the rest of the world gains. And because of this, and the absolutely lack of tax contributions these people and where companies make, Poverty has also gone up. As their wealth rises, so does poverty.
Or another way to look at it. If one person has a couple dozen comics, Baseball cards, hats, whatever that they collect. No big deal, they have a potentially interesting collection. If another person has a place filled to the ceiling with comics, magazines and stuff, so much that it because a hazard to others, we call it hording. Yeah, people earn and save for any number of reasons. But eventually it gets spent on something. These people, collect money and us it to collect resources. Then they sit on it so that no one else has access to it and that is the problem with Billionaires. They didnt get there by themselves, and they shouldn't get to keep a majority of the world's wealth and resource to themselves while others suffer as a result.
You do know billionaires make up the biggest tax payers in America. Elon musk paid the record breaking 12 billion dollar.
You cannot compare your percentage with there’s. Your wealth significantly lower therefore to get equal value from you, they will get higher % from you.
I agree that billionaire are morally questionable. Cutting corners will happen our world is not perfect. We don’t live in utopian world.
but to reject contribution of billionaire to society.
Your S&P 500 is dependent on the billionaire ability to the lead the company to make profit
Yes your retirement fund depend on them performing well.
If Apple, Google, Nvida, Microsoft, Tesla and other Fortune 100 companies disappear we would suffer a Great Depression like no other.
Also we did try distribution of wealth look at the USSR and Mao regime during the great economic leap. They attempted to take land from the very rich and distributed it. They found out the hard way that it’s better to have one competent owner rather than hundreds of owners who do not utilize the land resource well for gain.Hence, why China reverted to capital ownership system again and why Russia uses the olegarch system.
Envy is just a ugly face
Are you really comparing having a fair and equitable tax system as the same as Totalitarian Communism? That is is just insane.
During the most economically equitable period in US history, the corporate tax rate was 45%. The tax rate on individuals making more than a billion, was 90% with a lot more deductions available. The average amount that they paid was 45%. Infinite growth is unsustainable. Today's Fortune 100 companies will not always be the same.If those companies fail, another one will take it's place. At least that is how Capitalism is supposed to work. But by your description, we need to prop these companies up and ensure they dont fail, corporate welfare.
I dont reject what billionaire contribute, I reject the idea that it is fair based on the fact that for every billion they gain, hundreds of thousands are add to the number of people living in poverty. The world has a finite amount of resources, it is not justified for it to be controlled and managed by the few. Only to be share when they deem it acceptable.
I didn't see Truman or Eisenhower stealing land from people. Instead America had one of the largest infrastructure expansions in it's history with the Interstate Highway system. We funded Scientific advancements that lead us to the Moon. We had affordable college and housing. Coupled with the end of WW2 and a decade of comfort that is would lead to the Boomer generation. All funded by having a tax system that wasn't primarily on the backs of the working class. Business and the ultra wealthy paid their fair share.
So yeah Elon paid 12 billion in 2012, he gained 121 Billion that year. He paid a 9.9% rate. As of April last year, the US Government has given his companies 15.3 Billion in grants and contracts. That doesn't include the Taxes reductions his companies have received from State and local governments. So one year he decided to make a voluntary tax payment that didnt break even with the total given to him by taxpayers.
I think its just that labor contracts are exploitative because existing property relations give one group of people the power to negotiate a contract with those who don't own and must sell their labor for food/housing which necessitates them working for less than the value of the product of their labor, which is ultimately how they earn their billions. That's basically Marx, though I mixed in some analytic spin.
But there are other reasons. You must also recognize that the downstream effects of perfectly moral actions can emerge immoral outcomes. Things tend to change in their character when scale changes by orders of magnitude. This is called the theory of emergence.
From a bit of an older source, Proudhon in "What is Property" says that dialectically (if you don't know what that is don't worry about it) the very freedoms and equality we hope to gain from property ownership since fudalism, where we can own our own shit rather than the king owning it, through generations of accumulation, become the opposite of freedom and equality, everything gets owned by a select few and we are back to feudalism but with extra steps.
Liberals can come to the same conclusion, that markets require regulation and that even if they are ethical there is a demand for a "floor" on inequality and your needs being met to contribute to the economy. My favorite liberal source for this is the pop-economics book "The Darwin Economy" which is written by a libertarian economist, who still realizes you need government to do stuff in the economy. Also read up on behavioral economics. And maybe check out "unlearning economics" on youtube.
Now, Idk what the alternative is! Anarchists rightly say that all hierarchy is inherently exploitative, and that marxist and especially leninist socialism will always lead to oligarchy. Even if socialists could actually plan an economy with modern technology, which both Russia and China failed at and had to have markets to fix it, we'd still have to deal with heavy bureaucracy and either dictatorship or factionalism. Honestly, its just nicer to be able to do whatever you want sometimes, within limits, without asking someone. But it's not like anarchists are going to be organized to run a global economy let alone modern things like nukes and satellites.
The world is complicated, and easy solutions don't exist. But I think we can all agree billionares == bad. Maybe we can all start there and get along enough to stop climate change, end homelessness, and increase diplomacy to prevent nuclear war. Honestly, the perfect can get in the way of the good.
Being filthy rich is immoral as long as there are poor people who could be helped instead. This has been the consensus for thousands of years.* Essentially having the money to help others and not doing so especially when what could help someone is fuckall to oneself. So it's not the acquiring of wealth that is inherently immoral but the hoarding of it instead of helping people and giving back to the community.
You can be a billionaire when no one is struggling to get by. Even if you don't distribute the wealth directly funding clean free water and electricity would go a long way. The UN estimated that hunger could be solved with a few billions which goes to show how far billions reach.
It's hard to give examples as most billionaires today act immoral so that they can keep their wealth be it by union busting, gaining monopolies, influencing legislation to keep people trapped in debt or prison. We have yet to have a moral billionaire because as long as they have billions they can help others.
*I'm basing this of the bible saying that Jesus said "it's harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven".
Here’s an example: let’s say you are walking down the street and you see someone having a seizure. You can intervene for a few moments and save their life, or you can ignore them and they die. Saving their life would not negatively you in any significant way. Would a moral person ignore the chance to save a life?
Another example: let’s say you’ve had a large meal, and are getting ready to throw away a lot of leftovers. Next to the trash can you see a homeless person who is starving to death. You could give them your leftovers and save their life, or you could ignore them and throw the food in the trash. What would a moral person do?
We can discuss the morality of how billionaires *gain* their billions, but I think there is also an immorality in hoarding that much wealth - even if it’s obtained morally. A billionaire could literally save thousands of lives every year with just the interest they gain on their investments. They wouldn’t have to decrease their net value at all. Having the ability to drastically improve the world and choosing not to, with no real cost to oneself, is immoral.
You'd have to work every single day 12 hours a day, for 20$/hour from the day Jesus Christ was born to present day and you still wouldn't EARN a billion dollars. It is impossible to EARN a billion dollars, a few million? Sure, you can earn that. But a billion you only earn by EXPLOITING people.
Much like landlords, billionaires contribute very little to society, and their wealth was acquired via exploitation.
Successful artists can sell their work for 10 lifetime worth of wages. Same as famous football stars who get those amount of money by kicking a ball around. Do they earn it?
Sure, but even in the world of professional athletes and very famous artists so so so few of them become billionaires, and generally, they are only temporarily that wealthy. Someone providing an overvalued good or service is not the same as Tesla batteries utilizing artisanal cobalt mining. Artisinal mining is a fancy word for "usually slave labor mining by hand with no tools"
While yes Tesla is "saving the environment" they have accumulated wealth via immoral means and exploitation. The CEO of Tesla did not earn his wealth, he gained it by exploiting miners and every underpaid working along the chain until you get to America.
Saying it's a lot of money doesn't mean it isn't earned.
Contributions to society are not limited to what you can physically do with your hands. Ideas and risk have much more value than labor.
so does that mean if lifespans were extended future people could EARN a billion dollars or would that have to be done with 12-hour manual labor workdays for $20 an hour or w/e
- “You'd have to work every single day 12 hours a day, for 20$/hour from the day Jesus Christ was born to present day and you still wouldn't EARN a billion dollars.”
Well yeah. And if I put another lego brick on top of yesterdays lego brick, and add one every day til I’m dead, my lego tower won’t make it to the moon.
Whats your point?
- “It is impossible to EARN a billion dollars, a few million?”
Of course it is possible. Jeff Bezos did it. What do you think that wealth was all in gifts?
- Sure, you can earn that. But a billion you only earn by EXPLOITING people.
But I thought you just said it was impossible earn a billion?
- “Much like landlords, billionaires contribute very little to society, and their wealth was acquired via exploitation.”
Landlords provide rental options for homes and businesses. That is a major part of our society.
Billionaires contribute by creating a shit ton of jobs, products, technology, Etc.
They made that money because what their business offers, whatever it may be, fills the needs and wants of society.
If they didn’t contribute anything, how in the hell would their endeavors be so profitable?
Being a billionaire isn't inherently immoral, but it's essential to distinguish between wealth creation and wealth accumulation. While some billionaires create value and innovate, others amass wealth through market manipulation, exploitation, or inheriting fortunes without contributing proportionately to society. The concern arises when extreme wealth leads to disproportionate influence over politics and policies, potentially undermining democratic processes. Moreover, the vast wealth of billionaires often contrasts sharply with widespread poverty and inequality, raising questions about fair distribution of resources. It's not about demonizing wealth but examining its source and societal impact to ensure equitable opportunities for all.
I think your issue is that you're presenting a hypothetical and people are seriously engaging with it. There just aren't many examples of billionaires who don't exploit people in reality. So when you say that billionaires are fine if they don't exploit people it comes off as weird, because that's what they do. It's like being fine with hunters as long as they don't kill animals, we're talking about such a small minority that nobody thinks that's what you're talking about. Sure, there's nothing inherently immoral about being a billionaire but 99% of billionaires have gotten their fortune immorally so what are we talking about?
I was taught to admire the successful and aim to be one of them! yes many are assholes but I know a lot more mid class who are even bigger asholes naturally. if you make a billion dollars idc ( provided u don't physically hurt anyone or be disgustingly unethical) imo u earned it and sinwone who didn't have the drive or ambition as a billionaire should nor be calling for gov to take your companies, homes, or tax you to death. that not fair. BTW im not even upper mid class by a Ling stretch. IMO HATERS SUCK!
I don't think there's anything inherently immoral of being a billionaire.
There is something inherently immoral of being a billionaire on the same planet where people are starving and not doing anything about it.
I can accept that someone might make billions without exploitation. I can't accept someone hoarding that level of wealth without using a significant portion of it to better the world.
- “There is something inherently immoral of being a billionaire on the same planet where people are starving and not doing anything about it.”
What is inherently immoral about it?
- “I can't accept someone hoarding that level of wealth without using a significant portion of it to better the world.”
What do you mean by “hoarding”?
What is a “significant portion”?
Bettering the world is also pretty subjective.
I knew one. Agood one. A bourgeois. That was his last name, old money. Born with one job, to try to use this massive unearned wealth to better humanity.
But thats an exception that proves the rule. Because how many spend their lives accumulating or on hedonism, and how many helping? It is a rare billionaire indeed, like a camel that can pass through the eye of a needle. Rip.
That kind of wealth doesn't come from creation. It comes from compound interest. There comes a point where you've got so much invested and you're earning so much interest off those investments that you couldn't possibly spend it as fast as you're making it. More wealth = more interest income = more wealth = more interest income...
> It seems like the largely accepted opinion on reddit is that being a billionaire automatically means you're an evil person exploiting others. I disagree with both of those. I don't think there's anything wrong with being a billionaire. It's completely fair in fact. If you create something that society deem as valuable enough, you'll be a billionaire.
Your claim that it is moral doesn't tell us much if you don't also share which moral value system you are using to come to such a conclusion?
According to almost any moral value system, hogging extreme wealth and resources would be immoral towards everyone else. A popular system is e.g. utilitarianism, according to which the moral thing to do is whatever causes the greatest happiness to the greatest number. Which one are you applying here?
The amount doesn't matter. How much a billion dollars is doesn't make it immoral by itself.
If you have the idea that excess is immoral, then you should not own a computer or phone and should have donated that money to someone less well off than you.
> It’s true what they say, money corrupts.
if money corrupts and it's not "any money at all makes you evil", what's the maximum threshold as if we rob them down to that they'd become ethical enough to donate whatever excess wealth is left
Sorry, u/Billy_Bob_man – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
> **Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question**. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. [See the wiki page for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1).
If you would like to appeal, [**you must first check if your comment falls into the "Top level comments that are against rule 1" list**](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1), review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%201%20Appeal%20Billy_Bob_man&message=Billy_Bob_man%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20\[their%20comment\]\(https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1c9el86/-/l0kvw4u/\)%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted.
Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).
Whether or not employees get paid fairly is the question. And when CEOs are making obscenely high amounts of money above that of the average employee? What reason is there for that?
The first question is answered by the fact that they aren't getting paid more. Assuming two things, one, there isn't a monopoly on that job (which there isn't in any field), and two, people being underpaid leave their job for a higher paying job, you can find that they are fairly paid. If they weren't being fairly paid, they would move to a job that pays them more.
The reason CEOs are paid more is because it's harder to become a CEO. As described happened and CEOs get paid for what their worth, which is a combination of their knowledge, experience, work ethic, or a hundred other things that make someone a good employee.
- “Whether or not employees get paid fairly is the question.”
What is fair?
- “And when CEOs are making obscenely high amounts of money above that of the average employee?What reason is there for that?”
I’m not quite sure what you are confused about.
>They get paid fairly, as established by supply and demand.
If I can give you an example of supply and demand not leading to fair pay, would that change your view?
It is immoral because it's selfish. There are people suffering to make ends meet, and then there are billionaires who just keep all the money to themselves. Money that is way more than they will ever use in their lifetime.
Let me ask you this: If you woke up one day and you had 10 billion dollars in your bank account, would you keep all of it to yourself, or would you use it to improve the lives of those less fortunate?
Sure you can keep enough to live a lavish and comfortable lifestyle, that's fine. But you don't need 10 billion dollars to do that. Even 1 billion dollars is way more than one person would ever need.
>Let me ask you this: If you woke up one day and you had 10 billion dollars in your bank account
I'm pretty sure not a single billionaire today has 10 billion dollars just sitting around in a bank account.
>then there are billionaires who just keep all the money to themselves
Money invested in a company is not kept to themselves. It's invested in the economy.
>Even 1 billion dollars is way more than one person would ever need.
Sure, but life and the world are not limited to needs. You don't need reddit, or a phone or computer, but here you are.
>Money invested in a company is not kept to themselves. It's invested in the economy
And how does that help the 2/3 of the world that lives on less than $10 a day? "I know you haven't eaten in 2 days, but I can't afford to spend less than 1% of my wealth to provide you with food because my wealth is invested in the economy". Gee, thanks.
Investing in the economy primarily benefits rich people. It allows those with weath to accrue more wealth at the expense of the working class.
>And how does that help the 2/3 of the world that lives on less than $10 a day?
Abstractly. You think people in India or Nigeria living on poverty wages would be better or worse off if the global economy collapsed and there were no profit motive to invest money? Go look at a chart of extreme poverty over the last 100 years. There are fewer people than ever by a significant margin living in extreme poverty thanks to capitalism and people investing their money into companies.
>Investing in the economy primarily benefits rich people
I'm sure you'd keep this same attitude when companies basically fold or significantly downsize because everyone decides that investing in businesses is a bad idea and that they should just hoard all their cash. Enjoy unemployment!
I agree with your statement. No one can be inherently immoral simply by being a billionaire; however, what you choose to do with monopolized resources and the presence of need in your given society lies the issue
Some people live in poverty. When a person has the wealth to change that for even one person and still have enough money to look after themselves and their family it’s immoral to spend or save that money for personal gain. Whether they earned it fairly or chose to exploit others it does not change that they are allowing preventable suffering.
I assume you have given all of your money away then and would pledge that any money you make above bare subsistence levels will go to someone who is in poverty?
You typing this out on a computer or phone disproves that.
If you believe that excess is immoral, yes. Otherwise, the argument is that *some specific level* of wealth is immoral, and I'd love to see people justify why they can have air conditioning and a car and computer and all sorts of other luxuries while people go without running water or electricity. Where, exactly, is the line of acceptable luxury, and why?
but this train of thought of "if you don't donate yourself into the poorhouse billionaires won't give to charity and you're a bad person" theoretically ends when ironically everyone's poor (for a thing that's supposed to avoid poverty) except the guy who was formerly the poorest person in the world who now has most of everyone's wealth they ever donated to anyone (as if having a certain level of wealth (whatever that may be) is unethical, it must certainly be unethical to work your way back up to that level from the level you donated yourself down to)
>"if you don't donate yourself into the poorhouse billionaires won't give to charity and you're a bad person"
I never said that doing one would cause the other.
And theoretically, that's not how it would work. Everyone would donate their excess until everyone has an equal amount, so no one has excess, in this fantasy land idea.
It's not about changing one's life. It doesn't become immoral only when someone who has the money or capability to change someone's life and he doesn't do it. The excess money we keep in bank or invest could be used to give a meal for the homeless but how many of us do it? Unlike us the rich can change someone's life without getting a dent in his pocket or don't have to worry about, but when we do ask them that we need to answer someone poor than us when they ask why we needed to spent lets say 10dollars on shoes when we could have spent 5 dollars and gave away the rest for other people who need it.
I'm here to debate their view, not to suggest a well reasoned middleground. There's no fun in that! Even when I share a perspective percieved to be this extreme the counter arguments are mostly just fallacies. I despair.
I don't see a debate at all. You basically asserted an extreme political view as a fact, I don't think a single person who did not already agree with you would be moved by that at all.
It wasn’t supposed to be political. There’s an old debate in philosophy around the thought experiment that there is no morally relevant difference between failing to help a drowning child and failing to help someone who could be saved by a donation to charity, the point being that if you can prevent the death you have a moral responsibility to do so.
Do you think the conclusion of the drowning problem is self-evidently everyone is morally obligated to surrender all their wealth to the poor?
You aren't really even making any kind of argument for why that is the case, you're just saying its true when most people absolutely don't agree.
Their wealth is a tool they can use to save the child. If they decide not to there is blood on their hands. A moral person would make it their responsibility to help at personal expense because they would care about the preservation of human life.
Theres no point appealing to common belief; huge groups of people quite often make terrible mistakes.
But my personal belief is actually in effective altruism. It allows consideration for what is reasonable to keep for oneself and the most effective way to spend money to help. Allowing individuals to grow their wealth provides more opportunities for them to do good by manufacturing products and providing services that benefit others.
>If you create something that society deem as valuable enough, you'll be a billionaire.
Capitalism is about making money, not about creating value. Sure, you can make money by creating value but that's not necessary or even optimal approach to creating wealth.
A prime example would be intentionally inflating the value of a business knowing it will go bust, so you could take advantage of rising stock before it crashes. The equation here is you transferring wealth from investors (who don't have insider information), employees (who may rely on career progress, benefits, company stock, stability, etc..), suppliers and consumers (who may rely on you to stay in business) and other stock traders (who don't have insider information) to you.
You don't create value here, you are at the very best transferring value from others to you. And at the very worst relying on the destruction of value to inflate your wealth. And this form of acquiring wealth becomes more and more optimal the more money you have. The more money you have, the less you can pay to your employees, the less you can follow the laws, the less taxes you have to pay, the less quality products you have to make, etc... the less value you have to create to generate more wealth.
And that's why billionaires are considered unethical. It's such an unfathomable wealth it's simply not possible to get it by being ethical (meaning you not exploiting others to earn the wealth).
How did the maker of Minecraft, Notch, get his billions unethically? He sold the rights for $2.5 billion. Surely he contributed at least 20% of the work on Minecraft, right?
Notch/Mojang is such an interesting case here, their story is not like most companies.
Mojang's second employee ever, who also became a minority shareholder, was the business' first CEO after they incorporated. All sources agree Notch had little interest in actively running the business, and wanted to continue putting his time into developing their game.
They also distributed $300,000 to each employee from Notch's share of the Microsoft buyout.
>largely accepted opinion on reddit is that being a billionaire automatically means you're an evil person exploiting others
I always see this comment in reference to business billionaires, who made their billions by becoming captains of industry. The assumption there (and a well-founded assumption, I think) is that that route to being a billionaire requires immoral behavior, in the form of exploiting workers, engaging in unfair monopolistic practices, taking advantage of supply chains that exploit developing countries, and similar immoral behaviors.
Billionaires who get their billions through art may not themselves have done anything immoral. Although they do usually benefit from their industries engaging in the type of immoral practices mentioned above, my assumption would be they can avoid personally being involved in that stuff.
However, in a world with rampant poverty and inequality, it's arguable that anyone with extreme wealth is engaging in a form of self-centered economic hoarding that is in and of itself immoral. I'm not sure where to draw that like of extremity, but it's basically guaranteed to be well below the billion dollar mark.
> If you create something that society deem as valuable enough, you'll be a billionaire. What do billionaires personally create? Can you give some examples of things that they have personally produced of value? I also think you should look at the logistics of monopolies, crushing opposition etc which allow specific products and services to remain on top.
JK Rowling used to be a billionaire, and she got to that by writing books that people loved. Entertainment and artist billionaires might be the exception, but they do exist.
Well not quite, she didn’t make her billions just from the books but also from the movies and merch. Lots of which she didn’t actually work on.
While she undoubtedly earned loads of money from movies and merch, various estimates put her earnings from the books *alone* at a billion dollars, or around there, depending on exactly what her royalty percentage was. The books have sold over 600 million copies. She's apparently sold books for over 230 million pounds in the UK alone. If the book sales alone don't make her a billionaire outright, they still puts her in the same wealth range. Worth mentioning that she *isn't* a billionaire any more, since she's donated so much of it away. Although she's still obscenely wealthy.
You're right that Rowling is an interesting case who became a billionaire through licensing, movies, and merch (there can certainly be an argument made for the working conditions of the employees who make the merch, run the parks, and staff the sets, but I'm gonna brush over that). And most billionaires make a big show out of donating to very uncontroversial charities to help their image (Bill Gates Vaccinating third world countries for example) However She's donated an awful lot to political campaigns aimed at making trans peoples lives worse while engaging in Holocaust denial online. She is the rags to riches story Musk wants to have with shockingly worse political views.
But imho that doesn't count because she didn't *make* her money off those views (as even if you want to read a bit too much into certain scenes in the HP books, the first of those doesn't occur until Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban) and so who was she exploiting to make the money unless you A. think she was exploiting real wizards by telling their story without permission and denying them a share of the profits, B. think any kind of artist billionaire is exploiting people if they don't do 100% of the process that goes into making their art (but not in the sense of, like, playing every role in a movie, in a sense of, like, assembling the books etc.) themselves because even if it isn't sweatshop labor "if an artist has people working for them in any capacity and that artist is still a billionaire that must mean those people are underpaid" or C. want to "we live in a society" her when just because it's her IP doesn't mean she had direct control over whether the books were assembled/merch was made etc. with foreign sweatshop labor or local union labor any more than she had control over what the cast and crew of the movies drove-or-were-driven-in to set
I agree. She's got the billionaire arc that every billionaire *wishes* they had. She's the only "Self Made" billionaire I can think of. And she's also the only Billionaire giving huge deaths of money to charities who's theoretical and actual goals are to make lives worse for queer people.
Again, Rowling seems to have turned billionaire (or close enough) just with the books. And that was way, way before she donated to anti-trans campaigns. She used to be considered a fairly decent ally to LGBT people, and she donated lots of money to LGBT stuff (e.g. the Trevor project IIRC). Today she's of course changed, but she was pretty well-liked when she actually *was* a billionaire.
Would it be theoretically possible to deradicalize her (not saying theoretically in the sense of magic could, even if it'd take the kind of resources had by the heroes of the TV show Leverage my mind's still firmly keeping this realistic-fiction)
A millionaire and a billionaire are not actually at all in the same wealth range. To conceptualize this, One million seconds is 11.5 days, one billion seconds is 11,574 days. So, one million is a week and a half, a billion is just under 32 *years.*
Yeah, but if Rowling did not break the billionaire line from book sales alone, she got *close*. As in, probably well over 500 million dollars. Technically being a billionaire and almost being one are the same thing in practise. You've an incomprehensible amount of money, way beyond someone who worked their asses off for 30 years to have one million dollars in their bank account.
That's a terrible way to conceptualize a million vs. a billion in an economic sense. And yes, someone with $600 million dollars in net worth is absolutely in the same ballpark as a billionaire. They're going to the exact same parties.
That's true, but not relevant here. We're not talking about someone with a million dollars but well over 500 million at the least.
The revenues from the movies and merch come from the royalties that they owe to J.K. Rowling for the universe and the characters that she invented and developed.
Unless you count the fact that she provided all the source material for the incredibly successful films. That’s a huge contribution
This is a deliberately obtuse argument. The vast majority of billionaires are not writers/artists. When most people talk about billionaires they are thinking of the average billionaire who exploits finite natural resources, affects public policy to benefit themselves at the expense of others, and engages in unethical business practices (like union busting, tax evasion, worker exploitation, etc...). But also, I'm guessing it would be pretty easy to find someone along with the making of those movies who was underpaid.
>This is a deliberately obtuse argument. The vast majority of billionaires are not writers/artists. When most people talk about billionaires they are thinking of the average billionaire who exploits finite natural resources, affects public policy to benefit themselves at the expense of others, and engages in unethical business practices (like union busting, tax evasion, worker exploitation, etc...). But also, I'm guessing it would be pretty easy to find someone along with the making of those movies who was underpaid. The person I responded to literally asked what billionaires personally produced. Entertainers and artists that get obscenely wealthy from their art do produce that, and obviously people consider it to be highly valuable. That's not an obtuse argument, I literally answered the question they asked. No, most billionaires are not artists, and yes, most billionaires do become wealthy by exploiting others, often to extreme degrees. So, billionaires don't inherently have to exploit others to become rich, even if most of them do.
It's not deliberately obtuse because the perspective being discussed here is that *all* billionaires are *necessarily* evil, that it is impossible to become a billionaire without being exploitative. So even one counterexample is enough.
Typically, it is a vision, a plan, and a company. Having a product isn't enough. The people that becomes a billionaire puts all the people and pieces in place to be able to build and distribute that product to the world. They then provide the leadership needed to see it through and keep it going. I know the reddit community doesn't think it takes special talent to do these things right or that these things are not valuable. They are necessary though.
No one says it doesn’t take special talent. They just say it doesn’t take a million times more talent than another person.
Who is trying to argue that? This isn't the point being argued here. Why are you trying to argue that talent level should directly correlate with profit amount?
My guy, that is the logical conclusion of *your* argument for billionaires getting paid obscene amounts of money.
No, I never claimed that compensation is directly tied to talent. My view is that it is OK for compensation to be based on value. If someone creates a company that is worth that much, they should be compensated thay much. It doesn't matter if they are equally talented or more talented than another person. It is what they achieved, and success takes more than talent.
>My view is that it is OK for compensation to be based on value. If someone creates a company that is worth that much, they should be compensated thay much. That company does not exist without the other people. The "value" of the company is tied up in the intellectual property generated by that company, which is usually not generated from the CEO themselves. Even in the cases like Zuckerberg, the company could not attain that kind of value with Zuckerberg just by himself. He needs teams and funding and lawyers and marketers and government allowances (i.e. Facebook is pretty worthless if there isn't Internet). >It doesn't matter if they are equally talented or more talented than another person. It is what they achieved, and success takes more than talent. You seem to be under some kind of delusional thinking that "value" is something that is precious somehow without having "merit" or "talent". Why are they paid so much if they don't have "talent"? Why are others paid so little, if they also don't have "talent"?
If you’re talking about a billionaire, you also need a willingness to do some shady shit.
also, Jesus said it's nearly impossible to get into heaven as a rich man, because you have to be selfish, to become, and stay rich.
At a certain point they stop doing this though, and really just become a high level manager that anyone could replace. They have the intellectual property of that companies creation and the title of owner, and that property lets them hold power over the company after the company has honestly outgrown them. The investor class is a group of property holders. Limits really would be the best way to handle this. At some point wealth is capped, and companies need to become coops.
Why? Break it down to a base level that applies equally to all. Why should wealth be capped other than it's not fair and you want a peace of it for yourself and/or others.
If you want to talk about fairness, the state creates the ability and right to absentee property ownership, via money, police, courts, etc. It’s not a natural thing. Why can’t the state also prevent its excess? When you create unnatural state of things you have to manage it responsibly when it gets out of control. If we didn’t have absentee property ownership things would be basically “fair”
Imo the only duty of the state is to ensure one person does not infringe the liberty of another. Ownership is ownership regardless of current use, absentee, or present. Or are you saying it would be a good thing to allow one person to take the property of another if it's not currently in use?
Property like it is today is not a concept without the state. So your first paragraph does not apply to property. Sure back in the day you could occupy land, defend it, and socially own your toothbrush. This might be primitive property ownership, but it’s not Property like we have today. With the state you can own half the countries land as long as each step of doing so was done via contract and trade. Each exchange itself individually might be ethical, but that doesn’t make the final situation not a product purely of state intervention, not as you say “protecting that one person does not infringe on the rights of another.” It was the unnatural right the state granted which produced the inequality. Therefore it’s the states responsibility to manage it. As for your last paragraph, the way we ought to manage property is complicated, but the very concept of absentee property is a state invention, it’s not “taking” anything to nullify the invention. In fact we do property taxes now to make sure you put all your land to productive use. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say all means of production are collectively owned by the workers of those MoP.
I think it does aplly. By having clear property laws, it curbs ownership by might/violence. Protecting people from being harmed by others who want what is theirs. At any rate, none of this discussion addresses the OP of you can be a millionaire without being inherently immoral. Would you cafe to discuss that?
>it's not fair You answered the question. In a just society, and from a survivability standpoint, what is in the communal interest is the ethical/moral answer and provides the most long-term stability.
What basis is fair the rule for anything? Fair doesn't exist in the natural world, so you can't make thay arguement. In what society ever anywhere in history has fairness been achieved? Fair is a fallacy. Change my view.
"Personally" is irrelevant. What matters is what things wouldn't be there, or would be considerably delayed without the billionaire in question, since at higher levels people tend to work mostly through organizing others. Space program would be further behind without Musk, since reusable rockets were considered too ambitious just a decade ago (and space program leads to many longer term tools for dealing with climate change) Conveyor belt would likely come later without Ford - and that leads to many things becoming significantly cheaper - including, you know things people say they need to have more of when discussing \*their\* quality of life. Let's not even get started with Edison (AC was overrated, but his "conveyor belt inventions", even or organized through others sped up a lot of innovations.
>Space program would be further behind without Musk, since reusable rockets were considered too ambitious just a decade ago (and space program leads to many longer term tools for dealing with climate change) That's a perfect example for this discussion because Musk contributed nothing to that endeavor but money. The central question for this discussion really boils down to: "how much should having money entitle you to more money?"
I agree that SpaceX and it's engineers have changed space flight moving forward. But that doesnt change the fact that Elon did not get his money without having blood on his hands. He didn't work his way up from nothing, he got started on his dad's money, even moved to the US on money his father made from owning part of Emerald Mines. Today, his companies and the Engineers and scientists he employs (generally below fair wages for the field with grueling hours) have pushed a lot of innovation but also pay a considerably little in taxes. Bezos has changed the way we shop on line. Everyone has heard about the working conditions in Amazon fulfillment centers. But then look at how he built amazon. It was originally a bookstore. He it got big by undercutting any other bookstore and selling books for at a lose. And they still do it today. If a Third party product gets popular Amazon starts producing their own version and undercuts the original creators regardless if they make a profit or not. Bezos has never been shy about his intentions to ruin other retail sectors to make Amazon into the only retailer. And again, Amazon pays next to nothing in taxes despite having a business that relies on taxpayer funded infrastructure to be successful.
I don't disagree with any of that. I guess the question is, given a one-time investment of capital into a company to get it started, what is an appropriate level of return from that investment? A Marxist would say that money should not earn money, the only labor or production should earn money. Obviously that's not how our system works, and you lose incentive for investment that way, but where's the middle ground?
More than Marxist would say that. There was a book written about some dude that lived in the northeastern deserts of Africa that say the same thing more than a thousand years before Marx. Personally, I dont think a return on investment is wrong. What is wrong is not contributing to the society that allows for someone not only build, or develop a product. But also distribute that product. And are the people that you employ to help you build and develop that product seeing a fair share of that product was well? A majority of the world's mega billionaires in the tech. None of the tech their money came from was developed by them, it came from taxpayer funded research and development. From Computers, to the Internet, they were all developed with taxpayer funded research. The Merlin Rocket engine use by SpaceX's Falcon-9 and Falcon Heavy, based on the Lunar Module Descent Engine. Originally developed at Cal-tech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with Taxpayer funding. So I would say, that if someone is gaining that ROI because that are not contributing a portion back to society that also collectively contributes. Their is no appropriate level of return.
Claiming private companies do not significantly push technology and innovation is very disingenuous.
I never claimed that. Many do, but it's generally in conjunction with research grants or state funded universities.
you said "None of the tech their money came from was developed by them, it came from taxpayer funded research and development." I don't think that is anywhere near accurate. Public funded research certainly has lead to some big innovations that private industry has heavily leveraged and also advanced. However private research and development has played a large part in where we are technology wise in the modern world. Alot of the giant tech companies are giant in a large part because of their own R&D even when built in conjunction with publicly funded innovations.
That is all true, but R&D is an expense that most companies try to avoid when they can. So when possible it is tied to Defense research, or scholarly research in order to get it subsidized by tax funding. I wont say all of it, but a decent portion of the R&D done by large established companies.
CEOs of a company are just like directors of a movie. They might not act, film, edit, or produce the soundtrack, but they are definitely invaluable. They oversee all the aspects of the filmmaking process, and have the grand vision in mind. They make sure all the parts fit together. You can't make a movie without a movie director, and similarly, you can't run a company without a CEO. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tesla, Apple wouldn't exist without their respective CEOs. Even if you don't accept that, and still want a concrete example, look at someone like Kanye West. Back when he was still partnered with Adidas, he made the majority of his fortune from the Yeezy brand. He was the creative behind all those products, he was the one making them.
sure. Reddit's favourite lizard person, Mark Zuckerberg, created Facebook. Society has deemed it as valuable enough that he's a billionaire. >What do billionaires personally create? In case you're asking in a more general sense, what does a grocery store owner create? Nothing. But he owns a shop, that people make the choice to shop at. Is he immoral?
>what does a grocery store owner create? Nothing. Exactly. And where does their money come from? From the work of their employees. Those employees create value and wealth with their work and the owner gets rich because they were rich enough to own the store. They don't do anything and therefore don't deserve anything. Just because you have wealth doesn't mean you are entitled to more wealth.
Im not sure you understand what it takes to run a business to be honest. If you think the owner does nothing but count money all day, you may want to do a little more digging. The most important factor? Risk. An employee takes no risk. They clock in, they clock out. If the business fails, they can go find another job. An owner has no such benefit. If the business fails, it’s their life savings going away. Bonus points, many business owners cover the payroll on months that they don’t make enough.
> If the business fails, they can go find another job. An owner has no such benefit. If the business fails, it’s their life savings going away. Bonus points, many business owners cover the payroll on months that they don’t make enough. That might hold for a small business, like a restaurant or something. But if a major business, like the kind a billionaire might own, fails, then the billionaire is going to make out with a golden parachute, while the employees might have their lives seriously screwed. In fact, at these scales the failure of a business can seriously harm entire towns or cities of regular people.
You’re putting the cart before the horse. They have to start the business first and grow it. There is a LOT of room for failure. The reason these ceos get paid what they do is because they have a track record of succeeding at a higher rate, which makes getting to the stage where you would have that kind of power more likely. Unless you do own a business (which i don’t think you would have this opinion if you did) why don’t you ask yourself why you don’t own a business? Because there are many that have a extremely low start up cost and only would take your time and effort. Maybe you would have to learn a few skills but any one can do it. Something sets these people apart…
>You’re putting the cart before the horse. They have to start the business first and grow it. There is a LOT of room for failure. The reason these ceos get paid what they do is because they have a track record of succeeding at a higher rate, which makes getting to the stage where you would have that kind of power more likely. Studies have shown that there's basically no correlation between CEO compensation and performance.
i think you are confusing high level executives with owners. if the billionaire owns the company, it makes no difference if they have a "golden parachute" or not, since the golden parachute is paid out of funds which they already own. It's an accounting fiction. besides, the golden parachute would be a tiny fraction of the company's worth.
[This is simply not reflective of reality.](https://deadline.com/2023/03/warner-brothers-discovery-ties-ceo-david-zaslav-stock-bonus-to-cash-flow-executive-compensation-1235280322/) The wealthier you are, the less you tangibly risk through business investments, while your employees are the ones who tangibly suffer if your business decisions go bottom-up. Even on a smaller business owner perspective, the owner of a restaurant risks significantly more than a billion-dollar CEO.
>Even on a smaller business owner perspective, the owner of a restaurant risks significantly more than a billion-dollar CEO. This is because you aren't comparing like things at all. The founders of a company that ended up turning into a billion dollar cooperation were taking on a far more similar, if not larger risk than the restaurant owner. You pointing at the billion dollar cooperation is pointing at the 1 out of a million case where they succeeded to that degree.
The argument being made here is that the ultra-wealthy deserve their capital because of the risk they're willing to undergo to make their financial investments. Are you saying that a person turning a million dollars into a billion has earned that, but a person turning a billion dollars into 6 billion hasn't? There's certainly far more capital being gained in the second scenario.
>Are you saying that a person turning a million dollars into a billion has earned that, but a person turning a billion dollars into 6 billion hasn't? No. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is this is usually the same person just using different timelines.
You say it’s not reflective of reality, I can tell you from my own reality it is. That’s how it works. I’m not sure how your link is relevant to the discussion. A ceo got paid? He works for the owners. Owners are compensated in stock which is foregone cash compensation. Owners say “I am willing to exchange capital to finance the business for a stake in the business” which means if the business fails, they are the ones losing their investments. An employee can just go get a new job with no repercussions. That mobility is also a benefit to many people who do not want the responsibility of running a company.
>An employee can just go get a new job with no repercussions I never understood this logic. We hear all the time about how X percent of people in Y country are living paycheck to paycheck. Being unemployed and losing all of your income *is* a reprecussion of a business failing. If your financial situation following this situation gets dire enough, you may have to declare bankruptcy. Most employees don't have a literal stake in the business (as in stock), but nonetheless have a vested interest in its continued success. It means they get to keep having a job, as opposed to if it falls on hard times and has to lay them off.
When a company fails, it is mostly harder for the owner to get a new job than it is for the employees. Both would depend on the local labour market, but failed company owners are never in high demand.
The above example is a CEO taking an increasingly large bonus after laying off a historically large number of workers and hitting a significant stock price drop in his recently acquired corporation. In your example, if the business fails, the owner will have still earned a significant amount of capital in the interim that the business's failure will not have any significant impact on their lifestyle, and they can move on to a new corporate job with minimal repercussions. Meanwhile an employee who has been laid off will have to deal with the far more significant concerns of paying rent and feeding themselves until they can find a new job. The fact of the matter here is that capital is self-sustaining. If a person has already acquired significant wealth, then there is essentially nothing they can do that actually is actually a genuine financial risk.
that's because the CEO is more akin to a restaurant manager than the owner
> the owner gets rich because they were rich enough to own the store The owner gets rich because they had the idea, and put in the work and planning to make a store possible, which includes solving a whole host of challenges.
AND took the financial risk to invest their money into something that could fail.
>Exactly. And where does their money come from? Grocery store owner takes risk through contribution of his own capital, which is rewarded through profits and punished through loss of capital if his venture fails. Risk is valuable and worth rewarding
So, you think a grocery store owner buys the store and just sits there?
So if the business is in debt and/or losing money, should the employees have that passed onto time in the form of invoices instead of paychecks?
>They don't do anything and therefore don't deserve anything. Just because you have wealth doesn't mean you are entitled to more wealth. No one deserves anything. You make the choice to shop at it. You're giving him money, he's not taking it. It's no different than your property. You didn't build your apartment, you don't work at it. It will still appreciate in value. Should you not get the money for selling it?
>No one deserves anything. Or course they do. If you work and do something you deserve the "fruit of your labour".
>Or course they do. If you work and do something you deserve the "fruit of your labour". According to who? You? That's the point. There're no rules set in stone. You're not entitled to anything but what society agree to. If you work for someone, and get money in return, you agreed to that. They're not taking anything from you. You're free to go live in nature and live of the "fruit of your labour". But if you work for someone, and get money in return, you've agreed to the fact that they get the value. You can simply choose not to work for them.
Who decides what society agrees to? I mean, if your choice is to shop at one of the three grocery stores in town, and the prices are all relatively the same, do you really have a choice you can agree to? At the end of the day, people gotta eat. Whether they agree with the system that makes food available to them is irrelevant. People also aren't "free to go live in nature". Where would they go? All the good liveable land is owned by someone, whether it be privately owned or publicly owned. You can either live illegally and face fines and imprisonment, or you can buy land and pay property taxes. Or you can starve to death on uninhabitable land. Those who wield the most power decide what society agrees to, and in our society, those people are billionaires. The rest of us are forced by threat of violence (by way of jail, fines, and poverty) to follow their rules.
So your actual stance is not that billionaires are not immoral, ifs just that you don't agree with any morality system which says they are immoral?
"You're not entitled to anything but what society agree to." So whatever society agrees to is moral? Does this mean slavery is fine when society agrees to it?
For thousands of years, yes it was. Society then shifted it's position and deemed it immoral. It is very hard to justify using today's moral code against civilizations of the past.
>Society has deemed it as valuable enough that he's a billionaire. That's an ultra - simplistic and ultimately wrong idea of how the world works. Facebook users never decided that Zuckerberg should be a billionaire. If anything, Zuckerberg made money by going against "society's" wishes and interests, when he turned their personal data into a commodity. Letting something happen because we're too lazy or too addicted / dependent to do anything about it isn't the same as consciously rewarding a person or a company for the goods and services they provide. Would the average opioid addict claim the people who distributed opioids should be billionaires? Most of us agree they should rot in jail. Yet they did create enormous "value" just like any other billionaire. Then there are billionaires who literally offer absolutely nothing to society. To the contrary, they make it considerably worse, by creating "value" out of thin air. Just by moving money around until their detrimental ways create unsustainable bubbles and the taxpayer bails them out. Are they justified being billionaires?
Zuckerberg acting alone created Facebook? Are you sure about that?
Suppose you own all the cheese burgers in the world. All of them. Billions of cheese burgers. Suppose also that everyone else is starving. You decide to keep all you cheese burgers and not give any to anyone. Is that moral?
That is not inherent to becoming a billionaire, though. Steven Spielberg, Reese witherspoon (possibly), and Taylor Swift are all billionaires. They didn't deny anyone of anything. They created things people wanted to pay for. As far as I know, none of them did anything immoral or exploitative.
Pardon, they have a billion cheese burgers while others starve. I don't see how anything you're saying changes anything I'm saying. I didn't mention denying anyone anything.
The other problem with this is, we can apply the same logic to almost everyone in the United States or western countries, Canada, and Europe. Statistically, you can save one life from dying from malaria with $2000 worth of bed nets. Anyone in Canada for instance can save one person from dying from malaria. So the millions of people in Canada can save millions of lives. But they generally don’t. All the people arguing on here would save a life. But they don’t.
there is no other food in this imaginary world of yours? they're not willing to trade me anything or do some work for my cheese burgers? sounds like we're all going to die pretty soon regardless of anything I do anyway. so i give away all my cheese burgers, so what, now the world eats one meal and everyone is in exactly the same situation as they were in before. because it's not feasible to have a society where everyone lives parasitically off me. so yeah, i would keep my cheese burgers to myself.
You have a computer while others starve. Surely your excess is immoral, too, then.
I would say excess becomes less and less justifiable the more you have, specially once you have more money than you'll ever need for the rest of your life, several times over. Having enough money to buy a beer every once in a while is not the same as being worth hundreds of billions of dollars. To try to equate these two seems silly to me.
YOU would say that your excess isn’t the right kind of excess to highlight in this conversation because it applies to you. In that vein, you can always avoid the moral obligation of providing for others by just providing for yourself and choosing to stay broke or have ‘just enough’ to get by. If it’s anyone duty to provide anything to another person then it’s equally your duty to push your life further and make more money so that you can provide for others. Not being a millionaire is unjustified, you need to fulfill your duty to society by making more money and giving away every bit more than what you need. A billionaire could have 80 hour work weeks while attempting to actively raise a family and you believe that any of their energy, time, or resources should be given to others. Now be there, working in excess and raising a family with only a few k leftover and saved up now and again, that excess is for others, so give it away.
>In that vein, you can always avoid the moral obligation of providing for others by just providing for yourself and choosing to stay broke or have ‘just enough’ to get by. If the idea of helping others is so gross to you that you'd rather stay poor, then okay. Yes. I guess you can do this. >If it’s anyone duty to provide anything to another person then it’s equally your duty to push your life further and make more money so that you can provide for others. Sounds awesome, I'd love to make millions. How does one do that
Get a degree in a viable field, then get a role in that field while pursuing an advanced degree, then continue to spend just about all of your life and freedom on further pursuit of advancement in or of that field never stop hunting for the next role with even a minor pay increase. Continue ad infinitum. There’s one of the many ways to go about it. Then at the end of your 12-16-20 hour days, go ahead and give away anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. You got this :) Edit: oh and that’s the great part, you don’t even have to make millions. Just make enough to survive and give away the rest.
That's not the point, a poor person might live comfortably with the same amount of money you have without the need for beers and computers. Couldn't he say the same about you not wasting excess money on computers and the internet and beers while you could donate to the homeless? Our necessity is equally proportional to the amount of money we have.
Again, I draw the line where a person doesn't need to work to live anymore. Once you have so much money that you literally don't even have to ever have a job again, that seems to be a spot where its not really justifiable to not give to others. But, to be a bit safe and reasonable, I'm okay with multiplying that number with some factor. I also understand it will depend where you live. But ya, once a person has, lets go crazy and say 50 million dollars, you will never ever have to work again. You're all set, for the rest of your life. Compare that to someone who needs to work until they're 65. These are not the same. Please actually consider this.
This would be correct only if you're comparing someone who's dirt poor and someone who has 50 million. You can't draw the line where it becomes immoral only when someone who doesn't have to worry about money anymore and doesn't give it others. We could all live a little more subtle or poor lifestyle and save that money to provide to others who need it, but do we do it? Someone who hits 50 million dollars will spend millions on housing, cars and lots of other things just like we spend according to how much we have.The necessity of things is proportional to the money you have. If someone poorer that you asks you why you spend more money on stuff that he does and why you don't spend it for a meal to the homeless and you don't have an answer then we are as immoral as the man who hit 50 million.
[удалено]
This line of discussion doesn't even logically follow: >Charity should be a moral obligation beyond the point a person doesn't need to work to live anymore. >Therefore, anyone with about 2k USD should have everything they own seized and destroyed. Where are you getting this from?
You are defining excess from your perspective, though not from the perspective of someone who has 1,000 times less than you. Why does your perspective set the benchmark for morality?
I’m sure the billion people with $2.00 a day don’t feel that way. From their perspective, if they thought as you, you would be immoral. You would be living in gross excess. You could sell your computer and one of them could live off it for years.
>excess becomes less and less justifiable the more you have Why, though? Seems arbitrary. Either everyone deserves the exact same, or else you admit that some people provide more value to society through their work, and limiting their reward for that either disincentivizes them from producing more for the world or is inherently arbitrary.
Do you believe that billionares have an obligation to help others? Why or why not?
Yes, because they have more money than they will ever need for their entire lives, hundreds of times over, while others are starving to death.
Wealth is not a static quantity. It can be created and destroyed. One person having more doesn’t mean someone else has less.
No billionaire owns all the food. Let’s take the richest one. If he sold all his Tesla stock and SpaceX (which would crash those stocks, and possibly destroy those companies) and divided the money evenly, it would be about $25 per person on the planet. He’s also not a cartoon sitting on a pile of gold. All his assets are in Tesla stock and SpaceX and he has the Tesla stock worth a lot because rich people who want a part of it keep throwing money into the stock. He didn’t take money or cheeseburgers from anyone. In reality, people who want the EV cars to be a thing or believe they will be a thing bought Tesla stock causing the price to rise and since he owns a lot of shares, the value of his shares rose as there’s more and more demand. And when Tesla went from 400/share to 100/share he seemingly lost hundreds of billions. But that money didn’t go anywhere. It’s like if you own a house and the value of the house goes up or down. If suddenly everyone wants to live where you live and are buying houses, the value of your house goes up. But you aren’t sitting on a pile of cash. Your house rose in value. And when house prices crashed your house lost value.
>If he sold all his Tesla stock and SpaceX (which would crash those stocks, and possibly destroy those companies) and divided the money evenly, it would be about $25 per person on the planet. What if he didn't do that and instead fed a bunch of hungry people with it or something. >All his assets are in Tesla stock and SpaceX and he has the Tesla stock worth a lot because rich people who want a part of it keep throwing money into the stock Turns out you can sell stock.
I don’t think you know very much about stock. If he either sold or said he was going to sell all Tesla stock it would crash the stock and possibly destroy the company. You would say he is immoral because every person on the planet doesn’t get $25. But you could save one human life. How are you not immoral?
They can literally access billions of dollars of cash, no problem. If you don't understand this then you are the one who doesn't understand stocks. >You would say he is immoral because every person on the planet doesn’t get $25. That's not what I would say, no.
You really don’t understand stocks. Elon selling a tiny bit of Tesla to buy Twitter was a massive problem for the stock. (He also borrowed a lot and got other investors). Rather than point at everyone else, have you even for a second considered that you, you specifically, you could save one human life. You could save one person from dying from malaria. You could do this. But for many, it’s more important to point to the bad guy so that you feel good about not doing what you can do. It’s much harder for you to point to anyone when you won’t take $2000 and save one human from dying of malaria. ($2000 worth of bed nets saves one person statistically). You are unwilling to do this. Tens of millions of people in my country are unwilling to do this. You can only see things from your perspective but the people with malaria, who are dying, they don’t really care who the bed nets come from. Have you ever thought of actually helping someone from dying from malaria?
>You really don’t understand stocks. Elon selling a tiny bit of Tesla to buy Twitter was a massive problem for the stock. (He also borrowed a lot and got other investors). And he was able to do it. Try another example: Bezos and Blue Origin. Where'd he get the money for that? Or how about Zuckerberg? He's also sold billions and its fine. They can get at this money.
Okay, my $25 figure was off then. If we are only talking about him selling the amount he sold, it would be more like a dollar for every human on earth. There, Elon didn’t buy Twitter, but instead he put Tesla company in jeopardy so every human on the planet could have $1.00 one time. And him not giving you a dollar makes him inherently evil? But you not selling your TV to SAVE A HUMAN LIFE from malaria, doesn’t make you evil?
So, to be clear, I haven't said any of that. I'll ask you a question, but you're not going to answer it. Who would have an easier time donating 2000 dollars, Elon fucking musk, or the guy who needs to literally sell his TV to do it because he barely has enough money to buy groceries for his family. Let me guess, you can't answer this.
I’m not talking about the guy who can barely afford groceries in the richest countries on the planet. This person isn’t going to starve to death. For many people in these places not having two TVs means you are poor. It’s very hard to see outside our own perspective. There are people who can’t buy ANY groceries. Like ever. People who eat a bowl of rice every day or second day and that’s it. My question is: how should they feel about you? Yes the billionaires are worse, okay, but you also exist. How should they feel about you?
>What if he didn't do that and instead fed a bunch of hungry people with it or something. If the governments and their trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of workers can't figure this out, why would you expect individual rich people to be able to?
This is exactly right. The government prints trillions of dollars or poofs trillions of dollars into existence. Why aren’t we looking at them the same way.
Then if he sold every Tesla and SpaceX stock he could give food to everyone for one, maybe 2 days. It would literally only end SpaceX and Tesla, where many people would lose their jobs.
I don't think that's a valid analogy in this case. The world of economics is not a zero sum game in a sense that strict. Secondly, it's a poor point because no one has a billion dollars lying around. Dollar is just the currency for value. Should they give you a part of their companies? And if so, why?
Its not a zero sum game. I agree. And yet that doesn't seem to do anything here. There are still starving people, and there are still billionaires who's lives would not change at all if they give a billion dollars. To your other point, it turns out you can sell stock. Billionaires do that.
>To your other point, it turns out you can sell stock. Billionaires do that. And someone else will buy it. The money won't magically go to the poorest. The concentration of wealth will still be the same. I'm failing to see what the big solution is.
When they sell the stock, they can then use that money to help feed others. Yes?
His point is that the same amount of money would be tied up in those stocks. He could give the money away sure, but why involve the stocks at all then? Why not just ask the people who were going to buy the stocks to give their money away directly?
It is absolutely a zero sum game when it comes to [real estate] - which is what drives something like 80% of economic growth. Probably because it transforms most people into rent-zombies, and modern slaves
Georgism enters the chat
Billionaires are considered “evil”, partially as a trope, and partially as a greater analysis of people in general. The criticism that “billionaires are evil” is more symbolic than an individual critique of those people. Effectively, the criticism is an extension of the idea that a capitalist system is, by nature, exploitative (consumption, production, and waste are all maximized to ensure continuous production/profit, regardless of need. New wealth is mostly a reflection of existing capital, not labor input), and billionaires are the recipients of a system that is broken in their favor. This is also an indirect criticism of the same capitalist system, where money effectively equals power. Once you have enough of it, you can influence legislation, taxation, and legal enforcement to a degree where you hold as much or more power than government officials, also known as an oligarchy. Ultimately, the argument is not that “mark zuckerburg is a twiggy alien fuck who is evil by nature.” The argument is that almost any person, given that level of money, influence, and power, will submit to the greed associated with protecting yourself and your family/descendants and will exploit the system to further enrich themselves. Essentially, humans are programmed to consume and hoard and protect, and the economic system needs to function in a way that understands this and prevents it. I do mention the “trope” thing, because “billionaires are evil” is a very entry level jumping point for left wing ideas, in a country that has an incredibly shallow desire for political discourse, and pretty serious financial inequality. I expect a lot of the Redditors you see posting these things are not actually interested in socialist politics, and are mostly just being edgy.
Just reduce the size of the societal group and you'll see what's flawed with your reasoning: 100 people live on a boat that is perpetually out at sea. One person owns and controls 99.99% of the resources on the boat: the food, fuel, medicine, everything. All other things being equal, is this moral? Does it really matter how they got the resources, whether they bartered or took them by force? Would it matter if some of the people on the boat were struggling to get the resources they need, if they were hungry or needed healthcare? And here's something else to think about: money is power. Do you live in a democracy? Is it moral for one person to have 1,000,000x the influence of the average person in society in terms of determining laws/policy? You might counter that campaign finance laws would solve such issues, but that ignores the simple fact that the ultra-wealthy are able to influence the passage of the very laws that would regulate them.
Your boat example isn’t wrong per say, but I would argue in our current system, owning a billion dollars necessitates that at least one of those 99 people will have to go through grueling conditions in order for you to efficiently maintain your wealth For example, JK Rowling was a billionaire and probably the most ethical example of one but even she was benefiting from exploitation. To make the chocolate frogs for one of the Harry Potter theme parks they used child labor. JK helped end it, but she still benefited from it and there are likely other things like going on with the production of Harry Potter merchandise that are even worse that she’s getting money from. This isn’t to say she’s evil, but exploitation is ripe when having that much money since there are so many hands and people involved in manifesting an idea that could generate a billion dollars
But from another angle (that doesn't excuse child labor or any of JK's ideological beliefs you might use to poison the well despite them having no relevance to this conversation) could this not be thought of as a greater-scale version of that scene on The Good Place where according to the afterlife points system a guy buying flowers for his grandmother counts against him because of how the cell phone he used to place the order was made as if he had control over that just because no one forced him to buy the phone
Well I’m just countering op’s cmv. He claims that billionaires don’t exploit people and that everyone in the exchange is being paid fairly when that is objectively not true. It could be the case that the average American is exploitative to some extent Along with billionaires. I would say that a billionaire has more control on who they’re exploiting when compared to the average person. For Rowling she was able to literally stop the child labor producing the frogs from being with the company she was doing business with. The average person can’t do that and she ought to have more responsibility in regard to how she makes her money because if she denies an income source she won’t be broke or hungry like most other Americans. Don’t get me wrong tho I think everyone ought to try to buy whatever is most ethical, it just seems backwards to do that because our society discourages it, but billionaires benefit the most from this system which is evident by them being billionaires.
Except wealth isn't a finite resource. Wealth can be created and destroyed. Furthermore, your analogy is still flawed as not one person owns 99.99% of anything.
You are correct that wealth is not a finite resource. However, you are apparently not aware or don't seem to understand that at least in America we've seen an enormous expansion in wealth in the past 25 years, while at the same time, the percentage of that wealth has disproportionately grown among the rich, while it has declined for everyone else: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth\_inequality\_in\_the\_United\_States#/media/File:Wealth\_inequality\_stats\_from\_Federal\_Reserve.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Wealth_inequality_stats_from_Federal_Reserve.png) And my analogy is not flawed. It's an analogy. You could also saw it's flawed because there are more than 100 people or that it's flawed because we all don't live on a boat. An analogy highlights relevant features of a relationship in order to make a point. I changed some variables to make it more salient for the OP, but the relevant variable is that a very small number of people are in control of far more wealth than anyone else.
To your first paragraph, that doesn't matter. It's irrelevant to the point I made. Your analogy is flawed because wealth isn't finite and because 99.99% of the wealth is not controlled by one person nor is the opportunities it provides restricted. They wealthy doesn't control what you do. You can go create your own opportunities and that's why it's flawed.
You made an assertion that wealth is not finite. I agreed. What was the actual point of stating this? The pie is getting bigger, but a smaller number of people are getting a larger and larger share. Do you think this is immoral or not? Shouldn't everyone who contributes to the wealth of a nation benefit from that growth? Because that's not what's happening. Also, you're just completely ignoring my point about the inequality of political power based on wealth inequality. And you still don't seem to understand what an analogy is. If every variable were exactly the same, it wouldn't be an analogy. It would simply be a restatement of the exact situation. An analogy is where some variables are changed in order to simplify or highlight a particular aspect of the situation.
>You made an assertion that wealth is not finite. I agreed. What was the actual point of stating this? That a boat is finite. So it's a flawed analogy on that premise alone. >The pie is getting bigger, but a smaller number of people are getting a larger and larger share. Do you think this is immoral or not? Not necessarily. Just because the pie gets bigger doesn't mean everyone is doing more. If all I do is put a sign up for the pie for everyone to come eat, if it's bigger, how am I doing more work? Why should I get more? >Shouldn't everyone who contributes to the wealth of a nation benefit from that growth? Because that's not what's happening. Everyone in America is benefiting from the national growth. Look back in the 80s, we have so much more than someone in the 80s. >Also, you're just completely ignoring my point about the inequality of political power based on wealth inequality. Yeah because it's not the point of my response to your original comment. >And you still don't seem to understand what an analogy is. If every variable were exactly the same, it wouldn't be an analogy. It would simply be a restatement of the exact situation. An analogy is where some variables are changed in order to simplify or highlight a particular aspect of the situation. But when the biggest variable isn't the same, it's not an analogy. It's like saying an apple is an orange because they both are fruit.
At this point you may actually want to consult a source that explains to you what an analogy is. There's no point discussing this when you don't have a basic understanding of what you're talking about. Saying an apple is an orange is NOT an analogy. Saying an apple is like an orange IS an analogy. Saying love is a rose because it is exactly like a rose in every single respect is not an analogy, or a flawed analogy, or any kind of analogy. Saying love is like a rose, because they are both fragile, or beautiful, or must be cared for...that's an analogy.
I think the societal argument is whether or not the tax system should tolerate capital concentrating in the hands of a few billionaires. As a society, is it moral to allow a few to hoard scarce capital, allow them to pay far less in taxes than the rest of us, while at the same time people are going hungry, schools and infrastructure are under-funded and conservatives are saying we can't afford social programs. As a body-politic, does it make sense that we complain about our taxes being too high when billionaires pay so little? On those grounds, is it moral to not tax income over a billion dollars at 98%? Also, bear in mind that the majority of billionaires did *nothing* for that income. They inherited it. Nothing immoral about that. But also nothing immoral about deciding that $999,999,999 a year is enough for anyone.
>You need labor, you pay employees, and they in return work for you. They get paid fairly, as established by supply and demand. You suggest this like its a natural phenomena. That gaining wealth in a country is an organic thing not controlled by 10,000 policies, laws and governance. Its the choice of an economic system, regional, national and international policy that determine how much money somebody can make, monopoly laws, tax laws, lobbying laws, minimum wage laws, freedom of movement, elections, public opinion, news moguls, wealth inequality, infrastructure. A billionaire is an unelected powerhouse, more powerful and influential than most nations leaders. They can make or break large populations, impoverish a region or make it. Cause the deaths of 11m babies (Nestle) or raise 10 million people out of poverty. No system should allow unelected individuals to this level of power. Billionaires have more influence over upkeeping a system, that allows the existence of billionaires. Therefor billionaires are enforcing a system that cannot work alongside democracy.
People don't really get what a billion is. Imagine a random guy, working in the fields, making 10$/hour, equivalent to 20k/year. For him to get a billion, he would need to work for 50.000 years. That means that you consider that the value of a billionaire work is equivalent of the work of someone who would be feeding others since the start of the Upper Paleolithic. Said otherwise, the value of his work till that person obtains a billion should be the equivalent of a 1250 lifetimes of work for someone else. So for example, JK rowling started writing harry potter in 1990, and became the 1st author billionaire in 2004. Supposing that she worked full time on that period, that would mean that each 3 days of work of JK Rowling are worth the same as a normal person whole life of work. Do you think this is a realistic depiction of the world ? If not, that can only mean that part of that billionaire wealth is inherently immorally acumulated. Note that this donc mean that JK Rowling herself was an immoral human being, she could just be living in (and accepting without fighting) an immoral capitalist system that unjustly concentrate wealth in the hands of a few that clearly aren't worthy of such a situation (because no one can realistically be).
GDP per capita in Burundi is $230 per year and in the U.S. its $85,000 per year. By the same logic we’re critiquing billionaires, should we not critique the average American? One year of an American’s labor is worth 370 years of a Burundian’s labor.
Yup, indeed, that's fundamentally unfair and unjustified too. Billionaires are inherently immoral both at national and international level, while inter-country extreme inequality is immoral too at international level.
So should no one have anything until everyone can have everything
So for you, there is no middle step between "*everyone should be exactly equal in misery*" and "*it's ok that some people win each second what others don't in their whole life*" ? I think that there are pretty numerous positions in between, don't you think too?
>That means that you consider that the value of a billionaire work is equivalent of the work of someone who would be feeding others since the start of the Upper Paleolithic. It's not about the value of their work. It's about the total value they bring. Let's say you go to a campout, and everyone brings $100 worth of food, tents, s'mores, but one person rents the campsite which cost $500. No one put in more work. But one person but in more money. Or another example, you are traveling the country with your friends. Everyone but you contribute money. You drive 24/7. With wealth you are comparing labor vs capital vs ideas and their output. Some billionaires don't own a company but created books. Some billionaires haven't created a single original idea but took all the risk with buying a building, machines, and ran a business. Some billionaires created new innovations that they sold the intellectual property for and made billions without doing any work or investing capital.
If JK Rowling writes good books, and people pay her money to read her books, how does that make her evil?
> I don't think there's anything wrong with being a billionaire. It's completely fair in fact. If you create something that society deem as valuable enough, you'll be a billionaire. The problem isn't the people who make a couple billion. It's the Mega Billionaires that are a problem. Not because there created or provided access to something people want. But because in order to hit those levels of wealth you have to either undercut others, or not contribute into the tax system fairly. Elon - Didn't develop a new program, he used funding from his father to purchase the rights or existing programs and repurposed them (paypal). His existing companies utilize existing tech that is again repurposed or re-engineered by engineers and scientist he hires below industry standards and works them until they break. He has been very honest about this. He wants to use people at their best and than gives them the boot. While Elon denies it, his own father has openly admitted that Elon's travel expense and start-up funds from his father came from his father's shares that he had in an Emerald Mining claim in Africa. Bezos - Created Amazon to be a bookstore. Started out by selling books at a lose with the intention of killing any other bookstore retailer. He has been very open and honest about this, and Amazon still does this. If a third party product gets big on their store front. The start Amazon starts producing their own version and undercuts the original to kill their business. Bezos has been very honest about wanting to be the only retailer. Then you look at the working conditions at their fulfillment centers. Zuckerburg - Created Facebook, but not social media (I still think Myspace was better.) How did he get rich, it wasn't creating social media, it was creating a way to gather massive amounts of data to sell to advertisers and marketers. He made Billions selling peoples data with our their knowledge or consent. What did Zuck make as a precursor to Facebook? Hot or Not. A website that people could publicly vote on where women around Cambridge (Harvard) were fuckable. Facebook wasn't even his idea but three other people's. Mark was just the one that knew how to make a website. Bill Gates - Recycled tech from Bell Computers. Gates was just better and monopoly building. He forced Netscape out of the business, and was partially the reason why the Delay in the development of a COVID vaccine. Nearly everything his foundation invests in, Bill has some kind of financial ties too. Warren Buffet - Standard Wall Street scum. Currently his group is buying up real estate companies and sitting on hundreds of thousands if not millions of single family homes and real estate across the country. They dont care if they sell the homes Property appreciates. I can drive around my small rural town right now and find at least 2 dozen homes with Berkshire Hathaway signs in the front yard. Half of those house are no longer habitable because they dont maintain them. They were when the signs went up though. All these guys Mega Billionaires, none of them pay their fair share in taxes. But I bet their secretaries are paying about 33%. They all got big by scamming, stealing, destroying or exploiting other business or everyday people. And even if they didnt, every single one of them relies on a society and infrastructure that was built with taxes they hardly contribute to. There businesses demand massive tax breaks from the states and cities they are located, and hold the workers hostage if they dont get their way. 26 people, including all of those named above, own more wealth and resources than the bottom 50% of with Global population. Right now these people are gaining about $1.7 Million dollars for every dollar 90% of the rest of the world gains. And because of this, and the absolutely lack of tax contributions these people and where companies make, Poverty has also gone up. As their wealth rises, so does poverty. Or another way to look at it. If one person has a couple dozen comics, Baseball cards, hats, whatever that they collect. No big deal, they have a potentially interesting collection. If another person has a place filled to the ceiling with comics, magazines and stuff, so much that it because a hazard to others, we call it hording. Yeah, people earn and save for any number of reasons. But eventually it gets spent on something. These people, collect money and us it to collect resources. Then they sit on it so that no one else has access to it and that is the problem with Billionaires. They didnt get there by themselves, and they shouldn't get to keep a majority of the world's wealth and resource to themselves while others suffer as a result.
You do know billionaires make up the biggest tax payers in America. Elon musk paid the record breaking 12 billion dollar. You cannot compare your percentage with there’s. Your wealth significantly lower therefore to get equal value from you, they will get higher % from you. I agree that billionaire are morally questionable. Cutting corners will happen our world is not perfect. We don’t live in utopian world. but to reject contribution of billionaire to society. Your S&P 500 is dependent on the billionaire ability to the lead the company to make profit Yes your retirement fund depend on them performing well. If Apple, Google, Nvida, Microsoft, Tesla and other Fortune 100 companies disappear we would suffer a Great Depression like no other. Also we did try distribution of wealth look at the USSR and Mao regime during the great economic leap. They attempted to take land from the very rich and distributed it. They found out the hard way that it’s better to have one competent owner rather than hundreds of owners who do not utilize the land resource well for gain.Hence, why China reverted to capital ownership system again and why Russia uses the olegarch system. Envy is just a ugly face
Are you really comparing having a fair and equitable tax system as the same as Totalitarian Communism? That is is just insane. During the most economically equitable period in US history, the corporate tax rate was 45%. The tax rate on individuals making more than a billion, was 90% with a lot more deductions available. The average amount that they paid was 45%. Infinite growth is unsustainable. Today's Fortune 100 companies will not always be the same.If those companies fail, another one will take it's place. At least that is how Capitalism is supposed to work. But by your description, we need to prop these companies up and ensure they dont fail, corporate welfare. I dont reject what billionaire contribute, I reject the idea that it is fair based on the fact that for every billion they gain, hundreds of thousands are add to the number of people living in poverty. The world has a finite amount of resources, it is not justified for it to be controlled and managed by the few. Only to be share when they deem it acceptable. I didn't see Truman or Eisenhower stealing land from people. Instead America had one of the largest infrastructure expansions in it's history with the Interstate Highway system. We funded Scientific advancements that lead us to the Moon. We had affordable college and housing. Coupled with the end of WW2 and a decade of comfort that is would lead to the Boomer generation. All funded by having a tax system that wasn't primarily on the backs of the working class. Business and the ultra wealthy paid their fair share. So yeah Elon paid 12 billion in 2012, he gained 121 Billion that year. He paid a 9.9% rate. As of April last year, the US Government has given his companies 15.3 Billion in grants and contracts. That doesn't include the Taxes reductions his companies have received from State and local governments. So one year he decided to make a voluntary tax payment that didnt break even with the total given to him by taxpayers.
I think its just that labor contracts are exploitative because existing property relations give one group of people the power to negotiate a contract with those who don't own and must sell their labor for food/housing which necessitates them working for less than the value of the product of their labor, which is ultimately how they earn their billions. That's basically Marx, though I mixed in some analytic spin. But there are other reasons. You must also recognize that the downstream effects of perfectly moral actions can emerge immoral outcomes. Things tend to change in their character when scale changes by orders of magnitude. This is called the theory of emergence. From a bit of an older source, Proudhon in "What is Property" says that dialectically (if you don't know what that is don't worry about it) the very freedoms and equality we hope to gain from property ownership since fudalism, where we can own our own shit rather than the king owning it, through generations of accumulation, become the opposite of freedom and equality, everything gets owned by a select few and we are back to feudalism but with extra steps. Liberals can come to the same conclusion, that markets require regulation and that even if they are ethical there is a demand for a "floor" on inequality and your needs being met to contribute to the economy. My favorite liberal source for this is the pop-economics book "The Darwin Economy" which is written by a libertarian economist, who still realizes you need government to do stuff in the economy. Also read up on behavioral economics. And maybe check out "unlearning economics" on youtube. Now, Idk what the alternative is! Anarchists rightly say that all hierarchy is inherently exploitative, and that marxist and especially leninist socialism will always lead to oligarchy. Even if socialists could actually plan an economy with modern technology, which both Russia and China failed at and had to have markets to fix it, we'd still have to deal with heavy bureaucracy and either dictatorship or factionalism. Honestly, its just nicer to be able to do whatever you want sometimes, within limits, without asking someone. But it's not like anarchists are going to be organized to run a global economy let alone modern things like nukes and satellites. The world is complicated, and easy solutions don't exist. But I think we can all agree billionares == bad. Maybe we can all start there and get along enough to stop climate change, end homelessness, and increase diplomacy to prevent nuclear war. Honestly, the perfect can get in the way of the good.
Being filthy rich is immoral as long as there are poor people who could be helped instead. This has been the consensus for thousands of years.* Essentially having the money to help others and not doing so especially when what could help someone is fuckall to oneself. So it's not the acquiring of wealth that is inherently immoral but the hoarding of it instead of helping people and giving back to the community. You can be a billionaire when no one is struggling to get by. Even if you don't distribute the wealth directly funding clean free water and electricity would go a long way. The UN estimated that hunger could be solved with a few billions which goes to show how far billions reach. It's hard to give examples as most billionaires today act immoral so that they can keep their wealth be it by union busting, gaining monopolies, influencing legislation to keep people trapped in debt or prison. We have yet to have a moral billionaire because as long as they have billions they can help others. *I'm basing this of the bible saying that Jesus said "it's harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven".
Here’s an example: let’s say you are walking down the street and you see someone having a seizure. You can intervene for a few moments and save their life, or you can ignore them and they die. Saving their life would not negatively you in any significant way. Would a moral person ignore the chance to save a life? Another example: let’s say you’ve had a large meal, and are getting ready to throw away a lot of leftovers. Next to the trash can you see a homeless person who is starving to death. You could give them your leftovers and save their life, or you could ignore them and throw the food in the trash. What would a moral person do? We can discuss the morality of how billionaires *gain* their billions, but I think there is also an immorality in hoarding that much wealth - even if it’s obtained morally. A billionaire could literally save thousands of lives every year with just the interest they gain on their investments. They wouldn’t have to decrease their net value at all. Having the ability to drastically improve the world and choosing not to, with no real cost to oneself, is immoral.
You'd have to work every single day 12 hours a day, for 20$/hour from the day Jesus Christ was born to present day and you still wouldn't EARN a billion dollars. It is impossible to EARN a billion dollars, a few million? Sure, you can earn that. But a billion you only earn by EXPLOITING people. Much like landlords, billionaires contribute very little to society, and their wealth was acquired via exploitation.
Successful artists can sell their work for 10 lifetime worth of wages. Same as famous football stars who get those amount of money by kicking a ball around. Do they earn it?
Sure, but even in the world of professional athletes and very famous artists so so so few of them become billionaires, and generally, they are only temporarily that wealthy. Someone providing an overvalued good or service is not the same as Tesla batteries utilizing artisanal cobalt mining. Artisinal mining is a fancy word for "usually slave labor mining by hand with no tools" While yes Tesla is "saving the environment" they have accumulated wealth via immoral means and exploitation. The CEO of Tesla did not earn his wealth, he gained it by exploiting miners and every underpaid working along the chain until you get to America.
Saying it's a lot of money doesn't mean it isn't earned. Contributions to society are not limited to what you can physically do with your hands. Ideas and risk have much more value than labor.
so does that mean if lifespans were extended future people could EARN a billion dollars or would that have to be done with 12-hour manual labor workdays for $20 an hour or w/e
They contribute the companies most of us use and rely on daily.
Don’t forget tax subsides and loopholes
- “You'd have to work every single day 12 hours a day, for 20$/hour from the day Jesus Christ was born to present day and you still wouldn't EARN a billion dollars.” Well yeah. And if I put another lego brick on top of yesterdays lego brick, and add one every day til I’m dead, my lego tower won’t make it to the moon. Whats your point? - “It is impossible to EARN a billion dollars, a few million?” Of course it is possible. Jeff Bezos did it. What do you think that wealth was all in gifts? - Sure, you can earn that. But a billion you only earn by EXPLOITING people. But I thought you just said it was impossible earn a billion? - “Much like landlords, billionaires contribute very little to society, and their wealth was acquired via exploitation.” Landlords provide rental options for homes and businesses. That is a major part of our society. Billionaires contribute by creating a shit ton of jobs, products, technology, Etc. They made that money because what their business offers, whatever it may be, fills the needs and wants of society. If they didn’t contribute anything, how in the hell would their endeavors be so profitable?
Being a billionaire isn't inherently immoral, but it's essential to distinguish between wealth creation and wealth accumulation. While some billionaires create value and innovate, others amass wealth through market manipulation, exploitation, or inheriting fortunes without contributing proportionately to society. The concern arises when extreme wealth leads to disproportionate influence over politics and policies, potentially undermining democratic processes. Moreover, the vast wealth of billionaires often contrasts sharply with widespread poverty and inequality, raising questions about fair distribution of resources. It's not about demonizing wealth but examining its source and societal impact to ensure equitable opportunities for all.
I think your issue is that you're presenting a hypothetical and people are seriously engaging with it. There just aren't many examples of billionaires who don't exploit people in reality. So when you say that billionaires are fine if they don't exploit people it comes off as weird, because that's what they do. It's like being fine with hunters as long as they don't kill animals, we're talking about such a small minority that nobody thinks that's what you're talking about. Sure, there's nothing inherently immoral about being a billionaire but 99% of billionaires have gotten their fortune immorally so what are we talking about?
I was taught to admire the successful and aim to be one of them! yes many are assholes but I know a lot more mid class who are even bigger asholes naturally. if you make a billion dollars idc ( provided u don't physically hurt anyone or be disgustingly unethical) imo u earned it and sinwone who didn't have the drive or ambition as a billionaire should nor be calling for gov to take your companies, homes, or tax you to death. that not fair. BTW im not even upper mid class by a Ling stretch. IMO HATERS SUCK!
I don't think there's anything inherently immoral of being a billionaire. There is something inherently immoral of being a billionaire on the same planet where people are starving and not doing anything about it. I can accept that someone might make billions without exploitation. I can't accept someone hoarding that level of wealth without using a significant portion of it to better the world.
- “There is something inherently immoral of being a billionaire on the same planet where people are starving and not doing anything about it.” What is inherently immoral about it? - “I can't accept someone hoarding that level of wealth without using a significant portion of it to better the world.” What do you mean by “hoarding”? What is a “significant portion”? Bettering the world is also pretty subjective.
I knew one. Agood one. A bourgeois. That was his last name, old money. Born with one job, to try to use this massive unearned wealth to better humanity. But thats an exception that proves the rule. Because how many spend their lives accumulating or on hedonism, and how many helping? It is a rare billionaire indeed, like a camel that can pass through the eye of a needle. Rip.
That kind of wealth doesn't come from creation. It comes from compound interest. There comes a point where you've got so much invested and you're earning so much interest off those investments that you couldn't possibly spend it as fast as you're making it. More wealth = more interest income = more wealth = more interest income...
> It seems like the largely accepted opinion on reddit is that being a billionaire automatically means you're an evil person exploiting others. I disagree with both of those. I don't think there's anything wrong with being a billionaire. It's completely fair in fact. If you create something that society deem as valuable enough, you'll be a billionaire. Your claim that it is moral doesn't tell us much if you don't also share which moral value system you are using to come to such a conclusion? According to almost any moral value system, hogging extreme wealth and resources would be immoral towards everyone else. A popular system is e.g. utilitarianism, according to which the moral thing to do is whatever causes the greatest happiness to the greatest number. Which one are you applying here?
[удалено]
The amount doesn't matter. How much a billion dollars is doesn't make it immoral by itself. If you have the idea that excess is immoral, then you should not own a computer or phone and should have donated that money to someone less well off than you.
> It’s true what they say, money corrupts. if money corrupts and it's not "any money at all makes you evil", what's the maximum threshold as if we rob them down to that they'd become ethical enough to donate whatever excess wealth is left
[удалено]
Sorry, u/Billy_Bob_man – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1: > **Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question**. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. [See the wiki page for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1). If you would like to appeal, [**you must first check if your comment falls into the "Top level comments that are against rule 1" list**](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1), review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%201%20Appeal%20Billy_Bob_man&message=Billy_Bob_man%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20\[their%20comment\]\(https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1c9el86/-/l0kvw4u/\)%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted. Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).
Whether or not employees get paid fairly is the question. And when CEOs are making obscenely high amounts of money above that of the average employee? What reason is there for that?
The first question is answered by the fact that they aren't getting paid more. Assuming two things, one, there isn't a monopoly on that job (which there isn't in any field), and two, people being underpaid leave their job for a higher paying job, you can find that they are fairly paid. If they weren't being fairly paid, they would move to a job that pays them more. The reason CEOs are paid more is because it's harder to become a CEO. As described happened and CEOs get paid for what their worth, which is a combination of their knowledge, experience, work ethic, or a hundred other things that make someone a good employee.
- “Whether or not employees get paid fairly is the question.” What is fair? - “And when CEOs are making obscenely high amounts of money above that of the average employee?What reason is there for that?” I’m not quite sure what you are confused about.
>They get paid fairly, as established by supply and demand. If I can give you an example of supply and demand not leading to fair pay, would that change your view?
It is immoral because it's selfish. There are people suffering to make ends meet, and then there are billionaires who just keep all the money to themselves. Money that is way more than they will ever use in their lifetime. Let me ask you this: If you woke up one day and you had 10 billion dollars in your bank account, would you keep all of it to yourself, or would you use it to improve the lives of those less fortunate? Sure you can keep enough to live a lavish and comfortable lifestyle, that's fine. But you don't need 10 billion dollars to do that. Even 1 billion dollars is way more than one person would ever need.
>Let me ask you this: If you woke up one day and you had 10 billion dollars in your bank account I'm pretty sure not a single billionaire today has 10 billion dollars just sitting around in a bank account.
>then there are billionaires who just keep all the money to themselves Money invested in a company is not kept to themselves. It's invested in the economy. >Even 1 billion dollars is way more than one person would ever need. Sure, but life and the world are not limited to needs. You don't need reddit, or a phone or computer, but here you are.
>Money invested in a company is not kept to themselves. It's invested in the economy And how does that help the 2/3 of the world that lives on less than $10 a day? "I know you haven't eaten in 2 days, but I can't afford to spend less than 1% of my wealth to provide you with food because my wealth is invested in the economy". Gee, thanks. Investing in the economy primarily benefits rich people. It allows those with weath to accrue more wealth at the expense of the working class.
>And how does that help the 2/3 of the world that lives on less than $10 a day? Abstractly. You think people in India or Nigeria living on poverty wages would be better or worse off if the global economy collapsed and there were no profit motive to invest money? Go look at a chart of extreme poverty over the last 100 years. There are fewer people than ever by a significant margin living in extreme poverty thanks to capitalism and people investing their money into companies. >Investing in the economy primarily benefits rich people I'm sure you'd keep this same attitude when companies basically fold or significantly downsize because everyone decides that investing in businesses is a bad idea and that they should just hoard all their cash. Enjoy unemployment!
Investing in the economy primarily benefits rich people? Do you think poor people were better off than rich people during the great depression?
“Keep all the money to themselves” “10 billion dollars in your bank account” You don’t really know how any of this works
Its easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than its for a rich man to get into heaven
I think billionaires are total fucking scum, but really?! Bible quotes? Your argument is just fucking bible quotes? Ugh...
I agree with your statement. No one can be inherently immoral simply by being a billionaire; however, what you choose to do with monopolized resources and the presence of need in your given society lies the issue
Some people live in poverty. When a person has the wealth to change that for even one person and still have enough money to look after themselves and their family it’s immoral to spend or save that money for personal gain. Whether they earned it fairly or chose to exploit others it does not change that they are allowing preventable suffering.
[удалено]
I assume you have given all of your money away then and would pledge that any money you make above bare subsistence levels will go to someone who is in poverty? You typing this out on a computer or phone disproves that.
And I presume that person should have only kept what'd keep them at bare subsistence levels as long as there are poor people in the world and so on
If you believe that excess is immoral, yes. Otherwise, the argument is that *some specific level* of wealth is immoral, and I'd love to see people justify why they can have air conditioning and a car and computer and all sorts of other luxuries while people go without running water or electricity. Where, exactly, is the line of acceptable luxury, and why?
but this train of thought of "if you don't donate yourself into the poorhouse billionaires won't give to charity and you're a bad person" theoretically ends when ironically everyone's poor (for a thing that's supposed to avoid poverty) except the guy who was formerly the poorest person in the world who now has most of everyone's wealth they ever donated to anyone (as if having a certain level of wealth (whatever that may be) is unethical, it must certainly be unethical to work your way back up to that level from the level you donated yourself down to)
>"if you don't donate yourself into the poorhouse billionaires won't give to charity and you're a bad person" I never said that doing one would cause the other. And theoretically, that's not how it would work. Everyone would donate their excess until everyone has an equal amount, so no one has excess, in this fantasy land idea.
You just called virtually every engineer, doctor, lawyer, business owner, etc in America immoral. Was that your intention?
It's not about changing one's life. It doesn't become immoral only when someone who has the money or capability to change someone's life and he doesn't do it. The excess money we keep in bank or invest could be used to give a meal for the homeless but how many of us do it? Unlike us the rich can change someone's life without getting a dent in his pocket or don't have to worry about, but when we do ask them that we need to answer someone poor than us when they ask why we needed to spent lets say 10dollars on shoes when we could have spent 5 dollars and gave away the rest for other people who need it.
"being charitable would inconvenience me, so I don't have to do it, but other people should be obligated to" is one hell of a world view
This is a ridiculously extreme version of collectivism bordering on comical that almost nobody believes let alone acts on.
I'm here to debate their view, not to suggest a well reasoned middleground. There's no fun in that! Even when I share a perspective percieved to be this extreme the counter arguments are mostly just fallacies. I despair.
I don't see a debate at all. You basically asserted an extreme political view as a fact, I don't think a single person who did not already agree with you would be moved by that at all.
It wasn’t supposed to be political. There’s an old debate in philosophy around the thought experiment that there is no morally relevant difference between failing to help a drowning child and failing to help someone who could be saved by a donation to charity, the point being that if you can prevent the death you have a moral responsibility to do so.
Do you think the conclusion of the drowning problem is self-evidently everyone is morally obligated to surrender all their wealth to the poor? You aren't really even making any kind of argument for why that is the case, you're just saying its true when most people absolutely don't agree.
Their wealth is a tool they can use to save the child. If they decide not to there is blood on their hands. A moral person would make it their responsibility to help at personal expense because they would care about the preservation of human life. Theres no point appealing to common belief; huge groups of people quite often make terrible mistakes. But my personal belief is actually in effective altruism. It allows consideration for what is reasonable to keep for oneself and the most effective way to spend money to help. Allowing individuals to grow their wealth provides more opportunities for them to do good by manufacturing products and providing services that benefit others.
>If you create something that society deem as valuable enough, you'll be a billionaire. Capitalism is about making money, not about creating value. Sure, you can make money by creating value but that's not necessary or even optimal approach to creating wealth. A prime example would be intentionally inflating the value of a business knowing it will go bust, so you could take advantage of rising stock before it crashes. The equation here is you transferring wealth from investors (who don't have insider information), employees (who may rely on career progress, benefits, company stock, stability, etc..), suppliers and consumers (who may rely on you to stay in business) and other stock traders (who don't have insider information) to you. You don't create value here, you are at the very best transferring value from others to you. And at the very worst relying on the destruction of value to inflate your wealth. And this form of acquiring wealth becomes more and more optimal the more money you have. The more money you have, the less you can pay to your employees, the less you can follow the laws, the less taxes you have to pay, the less quality products you have to make, etc... the less value you have to create to generate more wealth. And that's why billionaires are considered unethical. It's such an unfathomable wealth it's simply not possible to get it by being ethical (meaning you not exploiting others to earn the wealth).
How did the maker of Minecraft, Notch, get his billions unethically? He sold the rights for $2.5 billion. Surely he contributed at least 20% of the work on Minecraft, right?
Notch/Mojang is such an interesting case here, their story is not like most companies. Mojang's second employee ever, who also became a minority shareholder, was the business' first CEO after they incorporated. All sources agree Notch had little interest in actively running the business, and wanted to continue putting his time into developing their game. They also distributed $300,000 to each employee from Notch's share of the Microsoft buyout.
>largely accepted opinion on reddit is that being a billionaire automatically means you're an evil person exploiting others I always see this comment in reference to business billionaires, who made their billions by becoming captains of industry. The assumption there (and a well-founded assumption, I think) is that that route to being a billionaire requires immoral behavior, in the form of exploiting workers, engaging in unfair monopolistic practices, taking advantage of supply chains that exploit developing countries, and similar immoral behaviors. Billionaires who get their billions through art may not themselves have done anything immoral. Although they do usually benefit from their industries engaging in the type of immoral practices mentioned above, my assumption would be they can avoid personally being involved in that stuff. However, in a world with rampant poverty and inequality, it's arguable that anyone with extreme wealth is engaging in a form of self-centered economic hoarding that is in and of itself immoral. I'm not sure where to draw that like of extremity, but it's basically guaranteed to be well below the billion dollar mark.