Billionaires actually present the opposite problem. People's happiness tends to revert to a mean as they adapt to whatever situation they are in [1]. If someb

Billionaires actually present the opposite problem. People's happiness tends to revert to a mean as they adapt to whatever situation they are in [1]. If somebody wins the lottery, or their startup makes a big win, then they will quickly adjust to their new normal. It takes more and more resources to add a single unit of happiness. If you pick a random person on the street and gave them a million dollars, it would be life changing. Paying off all debt, move to a new location, buy a house, set up investments to ensure that food and the mortgage are paid in perpetuity. If you give a million dollars to a billionaire, it is a rounding error on their total assets, and does not substantively change their lifestyle. Conversely, taking a million dollars, or even nine hundred million dollars, from a billionaire, will not significantly affect their lifestyle, and that amount could improve the lives of many others. This is one reason why taxation is ethical from a utilitarian perspective. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill