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You are not wrong. The only thing I would add to that is the wealthy invariably means simply "much richer than me". In particular it is obscene to see that the

You are not wrong. The only thing I would add to that is the wealthy invariably means simply "much richer than me". In particular it is obscene to see that the people who most hate billionaires and agitate for their punishment are, for the most part, millionaires. The whole movement is rooted in envy, transparently disguised as virtue.

SirSourdough 5y ago
I highly doubt the majority of people agitating against billionaires are millionaires. There aren’t enough millionaires for that to be likely. And I think there are lots of good arguments being made about the detriments of income inequality if you don’t dismiss the people making them as envious out of hand...
- jurassic 5y ago
  There are millions of millionaires in the US. A lot of fairly normal doctors, lawyers, and engineers will reach this bar by late middle age if they're saving and investing part of their income.
  - SirSourdough 5y ago
    Very cursory search suggests 8% of US adults are millionaires according to CNBC. That means there's something like 300 million non-millionaires compared to 30 million millionaires. The rate of "billionaire hate" would need to be astronomically higher among millionaires than non-millionaires for millionaires to make up any sort of the majority of people complaining about income inequality. On top of that, NPR polling suggest about 45% of top 1% income earners on up to about 65% of low income earners (>$35k household) are concerned about income inequality, which flies in the face of the idea that it's mostly jealous millionaires complaining up. A majority of every income segment in America other than the top 1% believes this is a problem.
    - jurassic 5y ago
      I didn't mean to suggest that millionares are a majority in the US. But they may well be a majority of those with the time, energy, money, and influence to meaningfully invest into political activities. A majority of those elected to Congress, including major wealth tax pushers Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, are millionares. Broke people everywhere may harbor resentment toward the ultrarich, but it wouldn't be the national dialog we're having if millionaires in Congress and their millionaire friends in media didn't find it politically advantageous to turn billionaires into boogeymen.
      - zarkov99 5y ago
        Broke people everywhere have no use for the distinction between millionaire and billionaire. They are one and the same for those of us that cannot pay their credit card debt. As you say, its patently obvious that the people actually doing the most strident complaining are the members of the virtue signaling, chattering, millionaire class. Since they are complaining on behalf of the poor masses they get to act out their resentment while displaying their virtue. Win, win.
deleted 5y ago
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dragonwriter 5y ago
> The whole movement is rooted in envy, transparently disguised as virtue. Our whole economic system is itself grounded in the vicious promotion of the parochial interest of the capitalist, née mercantile, class, rooted in their envy of the privileges previously enjoyed by the feudal aristocracy, dressed up as virtue. The capitalist class is now in the position the feudal aristocracy was in when the movement toward capitalism was young, for much the same reason.

SirSourdough 5y ago

I highly doubt the majority of people agitating against billionaires are millionaires. There aren’t enough millionaires for that to be likely. And I think there are lots of good arguments being made about the detriments of income inequality if you don’t dismiss the people making them as envious out of hand...

jurassic 5y ago
There are millions of millionaires in the US. A lot of fairly normal doctors, lawyers, and engineers will reach this bar by late middle age if they're saving and investing part of their income.
- SirSourdough 5y ago
  Very cursory search suggests 8% of US adults are millionaires according to CNBC. That means there's something like 300 million non-millionaires compared to 30 million millionaires. The rate of "billionaire hate" would need to be astronomically higher among millionaires than non-millionaires for millionaires to make up any sort of the majority of people complaining about income inequality. On top of that, NPR polling suggest about 45% of top 1% income earners on up to about 65% of low income earners (>$35k household) are concerned about income inequality, which flies in the face of the idea that it's mostly jealous millionaires complaining up. A majority of every income segment in America other than the top 1% believes this is a problem.
  - jurassic 5y ago
    I didn't mean to suggest that millionares are a majority in the US. But they may well be a majority of those with the time, energy, money, and influence to meaningfully invest into political activities. A majority of those elected to Congress, including major wealth tax pushers Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, are millionares. Broke people everywhere may harbor resentment toward the ultrarich, but it wouldn't be the national dialog we're having if millionaires in Congress and their millionaire friends in media didn't find it politically advantageous to turn billionaires into boogeymen.
    - zarkov99 5y ago
      Broke people everywhere have no use for the distinction between millionaire and billionaire. They are one and the same for those of us that cannot pay their credit card debt. As you say, its patently obvious that the people actually doing the most strident complaining are the members of the virtue signaling, chattering, millionaire class. Since they are complaining on behalf of the poor masses they get to act out their resentment while displaying their virtue. Win, win.

deleted 5y ago

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dragonwriter 5y ago

> The whole movement is rooted in envy, transparently disguised as virtue. Our whole economic system is itself grounded in the vicious promotion of the parochial interest of the capitalist, née mercantile, class, rooted in their envy of the privileges previously enjoyed by the feudal aristocracy, dressed up as virtue. The capitalist class is now in the position the feudal aristocracy was in when the movement toward capitalism was young, for much the same reason.