4 ms·

To be fair, it's a little bit harder to see the difference between pump & dump vs getting born rich.

robertlagrant 4y ago
That's neither fair nor obvious. Inheritance makes providing value worth doing past the point of one's own comfort. Many people's work becomes most valuable in their latter years, and so we would want them to keep working and pass on wealth, as opposed to either stopping working or just splashing their money out on nonsense. The principle of being able to own things and work to one's own good, and the good of those whom one choosing to transfer it to, is the fundamental basis on which we now exist in the most advanced societies the world has ever seen, and the most rapidly advancing societies. It's not perfect, but every authoritarian attempt to make things better by centralising power in the name of fairness has gone terribly. Pump and dump schemes are just nothing like that.
- danielheath 4y ago
  From the perspective of those born poor with little prospect of improving their station, I don’t see how it’s obvious that the people who inherited wealth are more deserving of the money than the people who got it by scamming. The legitimacy of the social contract that respects private ownership depends on the prospect of a good life for those who work for it. When people lose belief in that prospect, they have no reason to respect the rules of that social contract.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    I don't think you can lump people unable to improve their lot into a homogenous group all unable to see what money is. Some will; some won't. And that doesn't make money something else than what it is. I agree that as individual liberty is eroded, and it's easier to just become yet another BS cog in a giant BS machine, with no incentives to make anything better, then you can descend into something authoritarian that promises a better way, such as our previous attempts at socialism, but the way out isn't to reinforce (or repeat) incorrect assumptions about money. It's to campaign for more liberty and fairness.

That's neither fair nor obvious. Inheritance makes providing value worth doing past the point of one's own comfort. Many people's work becomes most valuable in their latter years, and so we would want them to keep working and pass on wealth, as opposed to either stopping working or just splashing their money out on nonsense. The principle of being able to own things and work to one's own good, and the good of those whom one choosing to transfer it to, is the fundamental basis on which we now exist in the most advanced societies the world has ever seen, and the most rapidly advancing societies. It's not perfect, but every authoritarian attempt to make things better by centralising power in the name of fairness has gone terribly. Pump and dump schemes are just nothing like that.

danielheath 4y ago
From the perspective of those born poor with little prospect of improving their station, I don’t see how it’s obvious that the people who inherited wealth are more deserving of the money than the people who got it by scamming. The legitimacy of the social contract that respects private ownership depends on the prospect of a good life for those who work for it. When people lose belief in that prospect, they have no reason to respect the rules of that social contract.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  I don't think you can lump people unable to improve their lot into a homogenous group all unable to see what money is. Some will; some won't. And that doesn't make money something else than what it is. I agree that as individual liberty is eroded, and it's easier to just become yet another BS cog in a giant BS machine, with no incentives to make anything better, then you can descend into something authoritarian that promises a better way, such as our previous attempts at socialism, but the way out isn't to reinforce (or repeat) incorrect assumptions about money. It's to campaign for more liberty and fairness.