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Who did JK Rowling exploit? She made something appealing to hundreds of millions of people, and they willing gave her money for it. The horror.
by stocknoob 5y ago
Who did JK Rowling exploit?
She made something appealing to hundreds of millions of people, and they willing gave her money for it. The horror.
- andrepd 5y agoThe problem isn't that she got money, it's she got on the order of ~1,000,000,000£ of it. There's no "merit" that warrants that kind of reward. There is definitely a case to be made that such massive amounts of wealth need to be more progressively taxed. Not as in "evil gobernmint comes to steal your hard work", but as in that's the pay-back to society for enabling that success in the first place, that's the social contract.
- stocknoob 5y agoSo a billion people shouldn’t be able to voluntary give $1 to a person, for whatever reason? Maybe we should put a limit on charity giving? Or do you have an official list of Authorized Ways to spend money?
- andrepd 5y agoThat's not what I said so.... I'm not entirely sure what you want from me? xD
- stocknoob 5y agoFor you to realize that creating wealth, on its own, isn't a problem? If I write a poem 1B people want to pay for, nobody was harmed? The actual problem is people can use wealth to corrupt others, e.g., buy political influence. But instead of railing on that, you can't see that you're fighting against value generation itself.
- krona 5y agothe pay-back to society for enabling that success in the first place Punishment, for writing such addictive tales of wizardry!
- TheCoelacanth 5y agoIt's not a punishment. It's value-based pricing for the ability to live in the society that made accumulating that wealth possible. Billionaires get the most value out of society, so they should pay the most for it.
- andrepd 5y agoEarning 500000000£ instead of 1000000000£ is punishment? Sign me the fuck up!
- krona 5y agoWhy stop there?
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y agoAnd she lost her billionaire status by … giving her money away to various charitable organisations. You and that other guy clearly have a bone to pick.
- andrepd 5y agoWe shouldn't have to depend on the good will and wisdom of a very small number of people in order to be able to improve our lives. I thought we were past kinds and lords and all that ;)
- claudiulodro 5y agoWhat do you think are the conditions like at the factories where they make Harry Potter merch? As they say, "Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made."
- MerelyMortal 5y agoI think the conditions are better than the conditions those workers would otherwise face if they didn't freely choose to work there.
- stocknoob 5y agoNice, let’s jump to every externality. I bet she exploited the coal miners who fed the power stations that kept her lights on while writing. And her books sold well enough before the movies and merch.
- claudiulodro 5y agoI'm not saying she's personally responsible for the factory conditions (if anything I'd blame Disney). I'm saying that it's virtually impossible to create a billion dollars of personal wealth without negative externalities somewhere along the line. There are ~500mm Harry Potter books in print (all years, all languages). Author royalties are between 6 and 15 percent of the cover price. She would definitely have been wealthy, but not billionaire.
- stocknoob 5y agoWhy is 10^9 a magic threshold? What's your actual "you've provided too much value to willing participants" amount? If she negotiated royalties of 20% she would have been a bad person? If she put her money in an index fund and it doubled every 10 years, she'd become immoral later?
- claudiulodro 5y agoYeah, fair 'nuff, you've made a convincing argument. Some people can be billionaires without causing too much suffering on the rest of the world.