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In my opinion, the problem isn't that people hate on Billionaires for philanthropic acts, but increasing wealth gap. In other words - very fact that billionaire

In my opinion, the problem isn't that people hate on Billionaires for philanthropic acts, but increasing wealth gap. In other words - very fact that billionaires exist.

logicchains 7y ago
Unless you believe everybody is equally skilled at managing money, investment and entrepreneurship, it's natural that some people will be more successful than others. China 70 years ago had no wealth gap, because everyone was dirt poor (except maybe the Party members).
- bonoboTP 7y ago
  Calling it skill is one option, but is a very ideologically colored one. Ideally, yes skill and hard work would lead to money as a reward and as a way to promote the most skilled to powerful positions so they can use those skills to improve the common good. 1) In my opinion, on an everyday scale of richness, the most important causal factor is family background, including inheritance. Would you support abolishing all forms of inheritance? Then skill could develop on an even, level playing field. For some reason the same people who say the rich are rich because they are skilled and work hard, are the same people who really want to keep the system of inheritance intact. 2) On the billionaire level of richness it is mostly luck, out of a strictly limited pool of potential candidates.
- geraltofrivia 7y ago
  Look I'm not saying that managing money, technical skills, investment etc should not matter. Of course it should. Of course it's true that some people work harder than others (even if we discount the upbringing, and the family's economic situation). That said, the difference in standard of living, and the difference in the number of zeros in bank balances surely do not reflect the aforementioned differences. Surely you don't believe that someone works a thousand time better than me (current income ~ 2.5k EUR)? I'm saying that the wealth gap is far too wide for any reasonable justification. I'm not rooting for a completely egalitarian/communist society, but the current situation needs to change.
  - logicchains 7y ago
    >That said, the difference in standard of living, and the difference in the number of zeros in bank balances surely do not reflect the aforementioned differences. Look at it this way. A company is something someone can create that grows in value many orders of magnitude. Wouldn't we hence expect an ownership stake in this to also grow many orders of magnitude? Whereas the average worker assists in creating some product that has a fixed value, so when they receive a share of what people are willing to pay for that product/service, it's obviously much less compared to if they had created something with the potential for exponential growth. If the worker assists in creating a company, and manages to negotiate for stock in it, then they too can experience an exponential growth in their income's zeros if it grows in value.
foogazi 7y ago
I think the problem is social mobility, that there is a chance as long as people have the opportunity to better their condition in life everyone starts off with 0 wealth

In my opinion, the problem isn't that people hate on Billionaires for philanthropic acts, but increasing wealth gap. In other words - very fact that billionaires exist.

logicchains 7y ago

Unless you believe everybody is equally skilled at managing money, investment and entrepreneurship, it's natural that some people will be more successful than others. China 70 years ago had no wealth gap, because everyone was dirt poor (except maybe the Party members).

bonoboTP 7y ago
Calling it skill is one option, but is a very ideologically colored one. Ideally, yes skill and hard work would lead to money as a reward and as a way to promote the most skilled to powerful positions so they can use those skills to improve the common good. 1) In my opinion, on an everyday scale of richness, the most important causal factor is family background, including inheritance. Would you support abolishing all forms of inheritance? Then skill could develop on an even, level playing field. For some reason the same people who say the rich are rich because they are skilled and work hard, are the same people who really want to keep the system of inheritance intact. 2) On the billionaire level of richness it is mostly luck, out of a strictly limited pool of potential candidates.
geraltofrivia 7y ago
Look I'm not saying that managing money, technical skills, investment etc should not matter. Of course it should. Of course it's true that some people work harder than others (even if we discount the upbringing, and the family's economic situation). That said, the difference in standard of living, and the difference in the number of zeros in bank balances surely do not reflect the aforementioned differences. Surely you don't believe that someone works a thousand time better than me (current income ~ 2.5k EUR)? I'm saying that the wealth gap is far too wide for any reasonable justification. I'm not rooting for a completely egalitarian/communist society, but the current situation needs to change.
- logicchains 7y ago
  >That said, the difference in standard of living, and the difference in the number of zeros in bank balances surely do not reflect the aforementioned differences. Look at it this way. A company is something someone can create that grows in value many orders of magnitude. Wouldn't we hence expect an ownership stake in this to also grow many orders of magnitude? Whereas the average worker assists in creating some product that has a fixed value, so when they receive a share of what people are willing to pay for that product/service, it's obviously much less compared to if they had created something with the potential for exponential growth. If the worker assists in creating a company, and manages to negotiate for stock in it, then they too can experience an exponential growth in their income's zeros if it grows in value.

foogazi 7y ago

I think the problem is social mobility, that there is a chance as long as people have the opportunity to better their condition in life everyone starts off with 0 wealth