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“Is anyone willing to defend the idea that any human being is really able to provide society with labor that is 300 times more useful than another's?” Not too

“Is anyone willing to defend the idea that any human being is really able to provide society with labor that is 300 times more useful than another's?” Not too hard to come up with examples. A Western Medicin doctor (vs. some homœopathy ditto). An inventor of something useful, etc. It’s also weird to compare a few CEOs with all farmers and ask who we’d miss more. A fair comparison would be a to compare the same amount of people in the two groups and ask who you’d miss more. There are some intriguing issues around inequality. I think there are some obvious problems with how the US and other countries are wired, but this article isn’t intellectually honest enough to provide an interesting argument.

VvR-Ox 7y ago
While I think you are right about this comparison, I still believe the initial hypothesis is a good one: "Does anyone deserve to have a billion dollars?" No matter what the rest of the article tells us or asks (because there is just no definitive answer) we have to see if there is moral/logical arguments why people should have so much more than others in a world where people still starve and children can't afford to go to school. Some of those super rich people didn't even earn that money themselves, others don't deserve it just because of the way they got it.
- hgjhghkjgk 7y ago
  Well, the question could be asked - "does anyone deserve a million dollars?" Even if we agree that no one should have a billion dollars, where would we draw a line here? half a billion? 100 million? 1 million? 100 thousand? I feel such arguments are so superficial. Billionaires are economical human anomalies. While they are easier to point and say that they are the cause of human greed and they need to do more for the society - IMO, the better question to ask is 1. how can we uplift the bottom echelon of the society and fix the systemic issues that put them in the poverty cycle. 2. Would we shit on billionaires and millionaires less if overall poverty in the world declines? 3. How can government programs become more efficient? I just feel asking questions like 'should billionaires exist' do not push forward the discussion about bringing in systemic changes. Targetting them only gives a superfical understanding of what's wrong and gives an easy way out of the discussion.
  - VvR-Ox 7y ago
    I agree. The main reason for over-population is the lack of enough wealth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility) and I think this is important for the ongoing inheritance of poverty. 1. The systemic issue is that there is no one on earth who stops powerful companies and individuals from the reckless exploitation of the poor (and those who really think they aren't poor). No police, no government etc. seems to take care of this issue. Instead the majority of them is just a step-stone on the way for rich entities to gain much more power and wealth. 2. Of course it wouldn't be that obvious as an imbalance. It's a problem of distribution of wealth and the most important thing here is the ratio: - How many poor vs. how many (super) rich? - How much is the difference of their wealth and what consequences occur in their lives because of that? As long as children starve because they don't have food in my opinion it's perverted and ugly that people have money they don't even know what to spend on. From the view of "overall fairness" it's so unfair that it's unbearable to keep that thought in your mind for a longer period if you have moral integrity (most humans have that in some way). 3. Government Programs huh? They aren't designed to be efficiently and they aren't backed by science. That's the case on most places on earth. Govt's seem to be controlled or at least influenced in many dimensions by "big money". When you look around the world, especially at democracies who demand to be democratic (wow!) you'll see the more wealth entities have, the more they can influence any political decision. I don't know how to break this devil's circle but if it doesn't happen I see a lot of (innocent) blood in the near future. There has been discussions about the change of systems, governments and society for so long but the development is not happening in the way some big minds and honest people have hoped for. E.g. everything that can be tagged with "social reforms" will be drowned in pseudo-arguments: * social = socialist = communist (even today you evoke fear with that in most US citizens and also parts of EU) * social = non-productive (no goods to sell); Too many have this micro-economic view and disregard the macro-economic effects * social = expensive when done in a proper way; I could go on with this but it tires and saddens me to even think about it. I had to watch this the most of my life and while the elders had enough to live when I grew up today I see them scavenging in the city. It just get's worse and while this political way doesn't seem to work I think some day we'll reach a critical mass of hungry and angry people who will just take what they deserve.
sliken 7y ago
Well sure, some people have outlandishly large benefits to the world. But those people depend on a huge pyramid of farmers, factory workers, public service workers, teachers, mailman, etc to enable them to spend their lives in whatever specialty. A billion $ is a pretty mind boggling amount of money, pretty foreign to the experience of most of us. Imagine buying a $75k luxury car every month... for 50 years.... on less than 5% of your money. Or even a $650k house, in every state, every year, for 25 years. Or both.

VvR-Ox 7y ago

While I think you are right about this comparison, I still believe the initial hypothesis is a good one: "Does anyone deserve to have a billion dollars?" No matter what the rest of the article tells us or asks (because there is just no definitive answer) we have to see if there is moral/logical arguments why people should have so much more than others in a world where people still starve and children can't afford to go to school. Some of those super rich people didn't even earn that money themselves, others don't deserve it just because of the way they got it.

hgjhghkjgk 7y ago
Well, the question could be asked - "does anyone deserve a million dollars?" Even if we agree that no one should have a billion dollars, where would we draw a line here? half a billion? 100 million? 1 million? 100 thousand? I feel such arguments are so superficial. Billionaires are economical human anomalies. While they are easier to point and say that they are the cause of human greed and they need to do more for the society - IMO, the better question to ask is 1. how can we uplift the bottom echelon of the society and fix the systemic issues that put them in the poverty cycle. 2. Would we shit on billionaires and millionaires less if overall poverty in the world declines? 3. How can government programs become more efficient? I just feel asking questions like 'should billionaires exist' do not push forward the discussion about bringing in systemic changes. Targetting them only gives a superfical understanding of what's wrong and gives an easy way out of the discussion.
- VvR-Ox 7y ago
  I agree. The main reason for over-population is the lack of enough wealth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility) and I think this is important for the ongoing inheritance of poverty. 1. The systemic issue is that there is no one on earth who stops powerful companies and individuals from the reckless exploitation of the poor (and those who really think they aren't poor). No police, no government etc. seems to take care of this issue. Instead the majority of them is just a step-stone on the way for rich entities to gain much more power and wealth. 2. Of course it wouldn't be that obvious as an imbalance. It's a problem of distribution of wealth and the most important thing here is the ratio: - How many poor vs. how many (super) rich? - How much is the difference of their wealth and what consequences occur in their lives because of that? As long as children starve because they don't have food in my opinion it's perverted and ugly that people have money they don't even know what to spend on. From the view of "overall fairness" it's so unfair that it's unbearable to keep that thought in your mind for a longer period if you have moral integrity (most humans have that in some way). 3. Government Programs huh? They aren't designed to be efficiently and they aren't backed by science. That's the case on most places on earth. Govt's seem to be controlled or at least influenced in many dimensions by "big money". When you look around the world, especially at democracies who demand to be democratic (wow!) you'll see the more wealth entities have, the more they can influence any political decision. I don't know how to break this devil's circle but if it doesn't happen I see a lot of (innocent) blood in the near future. There has been discussions about the change of systems, governments and society for so long but the development is not happening in the way some big minds and honest people have hoped for. E.g. everything that can be tagged with "social reforms" will be drowned in pseudo-arguments: * social = socialist = communist (even today you evoke fear with that in most US citizens and also parts of EU) * social = non-productive (no goods to sell); Too many have this micro-economic view and disregard the macro-economic effects * social = expensive when done in a proper way; I could go on with this but it tires and saddens me to even think about it. I had to watch this the most of my life and while the elders had enough to live when I grew up today I see them scavenging in the city. It just get's worse and while this political way doesn't seem to work I think some day we'll reach a critical mass of hungry and angry people who will just take what they deserve.

sliken 7y ago

Well sure, some people have outlandishly large benefits to the world. But those people depend on a huge pyramid of farmers, factory workers, public service workers, teachers, mailman, etc to enable them to spend their lives in whatever specialty. A billion $ is a pretty mind boggling amount of money, pretty foreign to the experience of most of us. Imagine buying a $75k luxury car every month... for 50 years.... on less than 5% of your money. Or even a $650k house, in every state, every year, for 25 years. Or both.