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> As Elon, by virtue of his massive wealth now, is depriving an ungodly amount of people of financial resources and opportunities. That doesn’t make any sense

> As Elon, by virtue of his massive wealth now, is depriving an ungodly amount of people of financial resources and opportunities. That doesn’t make any sense at all. His wealth isn’t made up of financial resources and opportunities that other people could have used - his wealth is the price that other people would be willing to pay him to own shares in the companies he created. I think it’s a common misconception out there that paper billionaires like Elon and Jeff Bezos have like a giant pile of cans of food in a warehouse somewhere that they could give out to people but don’t because they like having the biggest pile. That’s not really the case.

gugagore 4y ago
No one believes they are hoarding cans of food. People say they are hoarding wealth, and assuming it's liquid. https://ncarteron.medium.com/the-billionaires-arent-liquid-argument-is-bs-c3de85d26d8f https://ncarteron.medium.com/the-billionaires-arent-liquid-a... Which it is. They absolutely could, and the only reason they don't is because they like being in the club of biggest-pile-havers.
- leaflets2 4y ago
  What would you suggest they do with it? I'm wondering if "getting rid" of that much money, using it for good things, but without most of it disappearing in corruption, is more than a full time job
kqr 4y ago
> His wealth isn’t made up of financial resources and opportunities that other people could have used This is literally how profit works. You make sure your costs (salaries you pay your workers) are less than the value they produce. In other words, you keep some of the financial resources and opportunities that others could have had.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  That’s a hyper-localized view. The teams of people who tamed farming, semiconductors and medicine have added many multiples more value than they kept to society. Imagine that a novel creation is worth 100 units of value to society. It’s entirely possible for society to take 50 units, the workers to share 25 units, and the CEO to keep 25 units and for literally everyone to be better off than if that creation was never made. The view above compares against an alternative split of 60/35/5 while ignoring the case where the split is 0/0/0. Even in a 90/9/1 split, why are the workers depriving society of such a large share by hoarding 9% for themselves?
- ibeckermayer 4y ago
  > In other words, you keep some of the financial resources and opportunities that others could have had. Those workers needed to be organized in such a manner that the value they produce is actually worthwhile and their productive output sustainable over a long period of time. Think about the example of a production line worker in a Tesla factory -- is that individual worker being paid less than the overall value they produce for the company? Hopefully, or else Tesla will soon be going out of business (simplified obviously, but I think you'll see my point). Now consider if Tesla failed to profit off of their workers, and the factory did go out of business. Does that line worker now have more financial resources and opportunities than they would have had, which you claim were being in a sense taken from them by Musk? Of course not! Instead, they're just out of a job entirely, because their productive output on that production line is worthless if the rest of the line isn't working (and the rest of the company isn't functioning). And chances are, that line worker doesn't have the vision, drive, knowledge, skills, etc. of Musk to get the Tesla factory up to being something economically sustainable and productive all on his own. That's not a knock on the production line worker, it's just a simple fact that such a feat is insanely difficult, and very few people have the characteristics, judgement, and luck to build anything of the sort. So in the case of Tesla profiting off the worker, the worker gets some financial resources and opportunities, whereas in the case that Tesla fails to profit off the worker, the worker gets zero financial resources and opportunities (plus the world gets zero Teslas, battery tech improvements, etc). In the ideal, free enterprise truly is a positive sum endeavor.
goodpoint 4y ago
On the contrary, wealth is mutually exclusive by definition. Regardless if it's cash, stocks, land or a pile of cans of food - if I have a piece of it you don't have the same piece. So yes "by virtue of his massive wealth now, is depriving an ungodly amount of people of financial resources and opportunities" is exactly how wealth works.
- kochikame 4y ago
  No, most of Bezos’ or Musk’s wealth is tied to the value of their companies. To this extent, they don’t “own” a thing that someone else is deprived of.
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    Stocks are mutually exclusive by definition.
- testcase_delta 4y ago
  I don’t disagree with your point, but I think it doesn’t take the following in to account: Wealth is not a fixed sum. The global GDP increases over time, which I interpret has new wealth being created. If Elon hadn’t created his businesses, his wealth wouldn’t be in the hands of other people, it just wouldn’t exist. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-gdp-over-the-last-two-millennia https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-gdp-over-the-last-t... I also assume that over 1 or 2 generations that his wealth will mostly circulate around. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    It's very well understood that making a product can create surplus value. This is basic economics. Contrarily to simply robbing someone else, which would be 0-sum (if not negative). However if the product is being sold you are still taking someone's money. If you wanted to purely increase wealth for everybody you would be giving away the product for free. Many no-profits do that. (duh) Yet, the tradeoffs are complex and some economic activities are purely exploitative. In fact, inequality is rising across various societies and quality of life is actually decreasing for hundreds of millions. Wealth redistribution through taxes has been a cornerstone of modern society and one of the biggest push to move societies out of feudalism. And now we are witnessing something described as technofeudalism. > If Elon hadn’t created his businesses, his wealth wouldn’t be in the hands of other people, it just wouldn’t exist. Either Musk made cars entirely by himself (which is not the case) or his employees did it. You are assuming that such workers would have all been unemployed if Musk did not exist, which is very unlikely. Also, it's false that ALL of Musk's wealth would not exist. Only the fraction due to value created by the company (if any). [And I repeat, the products are obviously created by the workers] An interesting question would be: if company X never existed, could the workers be doing something more beneficial instead? Plenty of organization has been described as a net negative for humanity. And this is without accounting for negative externalities, e.g. causing pollution, or making another company go bankrupt, regulatory capture, creation of monopolies and the list is pretty long. > The global GDP increases over time, which I interpret has new wealth being created That's incorrect. Part of GDP is due to production of products and services, but a significant part is due to speculation that is not backed by any increase in productivity. Additionally, GDP is in no way able to measure overall real wealth, quality of life, access to opportunities and so on: not destroying the environment does not increase GDP. As much as going for a walk with your SO does not increase GDP. > I also assume that over 1 or 2 generations that his wealth will mostly circulate around. This is provably false.
beepbooptheory 4y ago
Investors choose to put there money in profitable businesses. Where do you think profit comes from? Elon isn't responsible for the profit, he is just in the position to claim it, sell it off. You don't have to be a communist to think this, its just how things work.
mrow84 4y ago
Even if you believe that: 1. the wealth of such people corresponds solely to an increase in the pool of available wealth (as opposed to just redistribution from other people), and 2. that increase is solely attributable to them, it remains true that the distribution of the wealth pool is an arbitrary social choice. Billionaires being billionaires deprives other people of resources, by definition.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  If a billionaire increased the size of society’s pie by more than their total amount of pie, they’ve made both themself and the rest of society overall better. You can argue that none of them have done this, but I don’t agree that it’s obvious or definitionally true that none of them have.
  - kochikame 4y ago
    Example: what value to assign to the productivity benefits that Amazon and AWS have created for individuals, companies etc and society in general? I think we can all agree that it is an enormous amount in dollar terms.
- imtringued 4y ago
  1. saved money does not necessarily represent an increase in wealth. A rich individual can save against the will of the rest of the population. When you remember that total debt = total credit (savings on your bank account) then you are basically keeping people waiting and making them unable to pay their debts back.

gugagore 4y ago

No one believes they are hoarding cans of food. People say they are hoarding wealth, and assuming it's liquid. https://ncarteron.medium.com/the-billionaires-arent-liquid-argument-is-bs-c3de85d26d8f https://ncarteron.medium.com/the-billionaires-arent-liquid-a... Which it is. They absolutely could, and the only reason they don't is because they like being in the club of biggest-pile-havers.

leaflets2 4y ago
What would you suggest they do with it? I'm wondering if "getting rid" of that much money, using it for good things, but without most of it disappearing in corruption, is more than a full time job

kqr 4y ago

> His wealth isn’t made up of financial resources and opportunities that other people could have used This is literally how profit works. You make sure your costs (salaries you pay your workers) are less than the value they produce. In other words, you keep some of the financial resources and opportunities that others could have had.

sokoloff 4y ago
That’s a hyper-localized view. The teams of people who tamed farming, semiconductors and medicine have added many multiples more value than they kept to society. Imagine that a novel creation is worth 100 units of value to society. It’s entirely possible for society to take 50 units, the workers to share 25 units, and the CEO to keep 25 units and for literally everyone to be better off than if that creation was never made. The view above compares against an alternative split of 60/35/5 while ignoring the case where the split is 0/0/0. Even in a 90/9/1 split, why are the workers depriving society of such a large share by hoarding 9% for themselves?
ibeckermayer 4y ago
> In other words, you keep some of the financial resources and opportunities that others could have had. Those workers needed to be organized in such a manner that the value they produce is actually worthwhile and their productive output sustainable over a long period of time. Think about the example of a production line worker in a Tesla factory -- is that individual worker being paid less than the overall value they produce for the company? Hopefully, or else Tesla will soon be going out of business (simplified obviously, but I think you'll see my point). Now consider if Tesla failed to profit off of their workers, and the factory did go out of business. Does that line worker now have more financial resources and opportunities than they would have had, which you claim were being in a sense taken from them by Musk? Of course not! Instead, they're just out of a job entirely, because their productive output on that production line is worthless if the rest of the line isn't working (and the rest of the company isn't functioning). And chances are, that line worker doesn't have the vision, drive, knowledge, skills, etc. of Musk to get the Tesla factory up to being something economically sustainable and productive all on his own. That's not a knock on the production line worker, it's just a simple fact that such a feat is insanely difficult, and very few people have the characteristics, judgement, and luck to build anything of the sort. So in the case of Tesla profiting off the worker, the worker gets some financial resources and opportunities, whereas in the case that Tesla fails to profit off the worker, the worker gets zero financial resources and opportunities (plus the world gets zero Teslas, battery tech improvements, etc). In the ideal, free enterprise truly is a positive sum endeavor.

goodpoint 4y ago

On the contrary, wealth is mutually exclusive by definition. Regardless if it's cash, stocks, land or a pile of cans of food - if I have a piece of it you don't have the same piece. So yes "by virtue of his massive wealth now, is depriving an ungodly amount of people of financial resources and opportunities" is exactly how wealth works.

kochikame 4y ago
No, most of Bezos’ or Musk’s wealth is tied to the value of their companies. To this extent, they don’t “own” a thing that someone else is deprived of.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  Stocks are mutually exclusive by definition.
testcase_delta 4y ago
I don’t disagree with your point, but I think it doesn’t take the following in to account: Wealth is not a fixed sum. The global GDP increases over time, which I interpret has new wealth being created. If Elon hadn’t created his businesses, his wealth wouldn’t be in the hands of other people, it just wouldn’t exist. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-gdp-over-the-last-two-millennia https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-gdp-over-the-last-t... I also assume that over 1 or 2 generations that his wealth will mostly circulate around. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  It's very well understood that making a product can create surplus value. This is basic economics. Contrarily to simply robbing someone else, which would be 0-sum (if not negative). However if the product is being sold you are still taking someone's money. If you wanted to purely increase wealth for everybody you would be giving away the product for free. Many no-profits do that. (duh) Yet, the tradeoffs are complex and some economic activities are purely exploitative. In fact, inequality is rising across various societies and quality of life is actually decreasing for hundreds of millions. Wealth redistribution through taxes has been a cornerstone of modern society and one of the biggest push to move societies out of feudalism. And now we are witnessing something described as technofeudalism. > If Elon hadn’t created his businesses, his wealth wouldn’t be in the hands of other people, it just wouldn’t exist. Either Musk made cars entirely by himself (which is not the case) or his employees did it. You are assuming that such workers would have all been unemployed if Musk did not exist, which is very unlikely. Also, it's false that ALL of Musk's wealth would not exist. Only the fraction due to value created by the company (if any). [And I repeat, the products are obviously created by the workers] An interesting question would be: if company X never existed, could the workers be doing something more beneficial instead? Plenty of organization has been described as a net negative for humanity. And this is without accounting for negative externalities, e.g. causing pollution, or making another company go bankrupt, regulatory capture, creation of monopolies and the list is pretty long. > The global GDP increases over time, which I interpret has new wealth being created That's incorrect. Part of GDP is due to production of products and services, but a significant part is due to speculation that is not backed by any increase in productivity. Additionally, GDP is in no way able to measure overall real wealth, quality of life, access to opportunities and so on: not destroying the environment does not increase GDP. As much as going for a walk with your SO does not increase GDP. > I also assume that over 1 or 2 generations that his wealth will mostly circulate around. This is provably false.

beepbooptheory 4y ago

Investors choose to put there money in profitable businesses. Where do you think profit comes from? Elon isn't responsible for the profit, he is just in the position to claim it, sell it off. You don't have to be a communist to think this, its just how things work.

mrow84 4y ago

Even if you believe that: 1. the wealth of such people corresponds solely to an increase in the pool of available wealth (as opposed to just redistribution from other people), and 2. that increase is solely attributable to them, it remains true that the distribution of the wealth pool is an arbitrary social choice. Billionaires being billionaires deprives other people of resources, by definition.

sokoloff 4y ago
If a billionaire increased the size of society’s pie by more than their total amount of pie, they’ve made both themself and the rest of society overall better. You can argue that none of them have done this, but I don’t agree that it’s obvious or definitionally true that none of them have.
- kochikame 4y ago
  Example: what value to assign to the productivity benefits that Amazon and AWS have created for individuals, companies etc and society in general? I think we can all agree that it is an enormous amount in dollar terms.
imtringued 4y ago
1. saved money does not necessarily represent an increase in wealth. A rich individual can save against the will of the rest of the population. When you remember that total debt = total credit (savings on your bank account) then you are basically keeping people waiting and making them unable to pay their debts back.