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In what sense does the citizen of the Central African Republic share any economic interest with the American? Legal system and political system are entirely sep

In what sense does the citizen of the Central African Republic share any economic interest with the American? Legal system and political system are entirely separate. You seem to think that if some Americans are richer than sone Africans, then it’s fine for some Americans to be richer than other Americans. Conversely, if some Americans want to tax some other Americans, why aren’t they willing to surrender 90% of their wealth to the globally impoverished? It’s not about guilt, and it’s only partly about fairness per se. It’s about what kind of society we want to live in. Unequal wealth is unequal power. Extremely unequal wealth is extremely unequal power. If you don’t believe me, you don’t have to stop with Citizens United. Consider the French Revolution. Your examples consistently attribute (exaggerated) returns to virtue, never allowing for chance. Did Bill Gates foresee the PC revolution? Maybe, but so did a lot of other people. Was he smarter? To a degree, perhaps. But he was late to the Internet party, much less did he predict it. He couldn’t know how the courts would decide the rights to the WIMP model developed by xerox. He couldn’t know how the AT&T divestiture would work out. He couldn’t know how copyright would be extended in Microsoft’s favor. He couldn’t foresee the toothlessness of antitrust enforcement. Could the worker taking a job in a Ford factory in 1980 be expected to predict the US trade policy that would foreclose his career? Did the college graduate joining a bank that year have any idea how important finance would become? One was whipsawed, the other saw a windfall. Where does that fit into your ant-and-grasshopper parable?

kbutler 8y ago
> In what sense does the citizen of the Central African Republic share any economic interest with the American? "in my preferred world, no-one would be so rich" I'm not sure if you're complaining that the "preferred world" includes ultra-poor non-americans or that it includes ultra-rich non-americans, or that the disparity of wealth and power is so huge between americans and africans, or you think that it would somehow be A-OK if only all americans had some particular limited inequality. Legal and political systems may be largely separate, but economies are increasingly tied together. Globalization, foreign aid, military intervention, interfering in elections, and even separate political systems may become intertwined. By no means do I think Bill Gates is an angel, or Henry Ford is without fault. I do think that they are two good examples of people who got incredibly wealthy by capturing a very tiny fraction of the wealth they and their companies created for society.

kbutler 8y ago

> In what sense does the citizen of the Central African Republic share any economic interest with the American? "in my preferred world, no-one would be so rich" I'm not sure if you're complaining that the "preferred world" includes ultra-poor non-americans or that it includes ultra-rich non-americans, or that the disparity of wealth and power is so huge between americans and africans, or you think that it would somehow be A-OK if only all americans had some particular limited inequality. Legal and political systems may be largely separate, but economies are increasingly tied together. Globalization, foreign aid, military intervention, interfering in elections, and even separate political systems may become intertwined. By no means do I think Bill Gates is an angel, or Henry Ford is without fault. I do think that they are two good examples of people who got incredibly wealthy by capturing a very tiny fraction of the wealth they and their companies created for society.