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Who are you to decide this for someone else? If I make something valuable and sell it to others at a profit, what is the moral basis for your claim on the wealt

Who are you to decide this for someone else? If I make something valuable and sell it to others at a profit, what is the moral basis for your claim on the wealth that I accumulate? Shouldn't you simply be grateful for the value I've already added?

megabless123 3y ago
> Who are you to decide this for someone else? a member of the same democratic society
- thegrimmest 3y ago
  So your argument is that anything willed by the (narrow) majority is morally justified? Seems pretty obviously flawed doesn't it?
  - __loam 3y ago
    Would you prefer the situation where 200 billionaires get to will it instead?
    - thegrimmest 3y ago
      I would prefer a government that maintained a liberal ecosystem - one where violence is delegitimized and disputes are resolved via due process. I would however prefer that the government then did not try to meddle in the outcomes that ecosystem produces. I don't see a moral justification in the use of force to shackle the capable and the fortunate, forcing them to toil in maintenance of the incapable and the unfortunate. The ideal I'm describing was more or less the case in the US before United States v. Butler (1936), which changed the interpretation of the general welfare clause of the constitution.
      - __loam 3y ago
        Man, I hate libertarians. What you get with this kind of system is powerful people meddling with the government to reinforce their power using anti-democratic means. A plutocracy. You also have to contend with the toxic economics of monopoly. I bet you want unregulated utilities too because you a) don't understand macroeconomics and b) subscribe to anti-social and psychopathic economic theories.
        thegrimmest 3y ago
        We already have a mechanism to prevent such meddling - a constitution. The authority of the government should be confined to the small box required to maintain liberal order. Limiting power is the best way to minimize corruption. The power of the government being allowed to grow without limit is what led to that power becoming susceptible to capture. This was successful for centuries, but the constitutional protections of this order eventually eroded. Were they stronger and more explicit (say there was no general welfare clause), we could well be living in such a liberal order today.
        __loam 3y ago
        I guess we're just ignoring the Robber Barons and the monumental effort to reign in their power through trust busting. It would be nice to live in your fantasy world but we don't. Plutocratic power must be checked by government. The alternative is monopoly and collapse. We have reams of evidence discrediting your view.
        gottorf 3y ago
        > powerful people meddling with the government to reinforce their power using anti-democratic means As the other commenter alluded to, the solution to this is to limit the power of the government so that even if they meddle and gain influence, the harm they can do is limited because the government itself isn't allowed to do whatever it is the plutocrats want to do.
- sib 3y ago
  [flagged]
smokel 3y ago
The moral basis would be that most extremely rich people are not rich by merit, but by having good connections, luck, narcissistic personality disorders, or a head start in life. Consider a random thing that you are grateful for, trace down who actually made it possible for you to enjoy, and then consider whether those persons all get equal gratitude.
- thegrimmest 3y ago
  > not rich by merit There are lots of stats that disagree. The overwhelming majority of fortunes are made and squandered within three generations. Raising capable people in an environment of extreme wealth is very hard. Most famous fortunes are self-made, in the sense that turning a few 100k into billions is something that clearly takes a lot of merit to accomplish. I would also argue that morally, your good fortune in domestic environment (which is the main predictor of economic outcomes) is entirely your own. I don't see a moral claim by a third party over my upbringing as any more valid than a claim over my organs.
  - achenet 3y ago
    > The overwhelming majority of fortunes are made and squandered within three generations people keep saying this but I can't find a rigrous source when I google it, it's always just LinkedIn puff pieces or Quora... would you have a link to the original by any chance?
  - smokel 3y ago
    Note that I was implying that there is no merit to "making money" by itself.
traverseda 3y ago
There is a big difference between creating value, and capturing value. A business that operates on hair-thin margins arguably creates more value than one that operates at a profit, which is why we want competition to do things like lower prices. Most of the companies at this size use a bunch of anti-competitive practices. See the wikipedia list of anti-competitive practices here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices So something like microsoft trying to get people to use microsoft-teams and nagging people to set up onedrive for malware protection, is a clear example of market-distortion through anti-competitive practices. Given that no one gets to be a company this size by playing "fair" then it seems perfectly "fair" to lay claim to that that excess wealth. We assume almost all profit was gathered anti-competitively since in a "fair" market competition forces you to lower your price to the bare minimum. --- I mean that's mostly bullshit for a lot of reasons, but it seems to me like just as valid a take as the atlas-shrugged "it's my money, keep your government hands off".
- thegrimmest 3y ago
  Say you've invented a device that everyone wants, that vastly improves the quality and convenience of everyone's lives. People are willing to line up in the cold for the chance to buy one from you. Even if you capture the entire market for these types of devices, make billions, and ruthlessly squash any competition, you've already added tremendous value. People's lives have already been improved by your contribution to the world. They are better off than they were before. Plenty of companies have accomplished the above while playing fair, simply because of the value their products add to their consumers. And once they have added this value, how much they nag you doesn't matter. If you didn't like it, you'd go back to DOS and IRC. The fact that you don't demonstrates my point.
  - traverseda 3y ago
    I mean I do use linux and IRC, so that's probably not a great example. I'm more worried about my grandmother who is confused by microsoft telling her she's not secure unless she signs up for more microsoft products. >you've already added tremendous value. Or you've just filled a niche that already exists in the world, and that could have been filled by someone better, but you're more connected or more ruthless. See also "Multiple discovery" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery as compared to the "heroic theory" of invention and discovery. You're not special, sure you might have invented whatever 20 years before someone else, but most great discoveries of big shifts would have been done by someone. I guess my question is, what if the thing you invented was a better more addictive casino? Sure, you're preying on psychological weaknesses and misleading people, but you're still making money. Most business lie somewhere in between "more addictive casino" and "genuinely add value to the world". I'd argue the difference between them is where almost all of the profit comes from for most companies.
wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
The centralized digital world has created monopolies like never before. Good for those who were smart & lucky enough to have taken advantage of this revolution. But there was definitely some unhealthy excess & wealth gathering that's gotten very extreme & we can consider if we find this healthy and benificial for society as a whole.
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
The general idea is that in a functional society, rich people's wealth is in some non-zero part enabled by that same well-functioning society. Roads, electricity, telecoms, educated workforces, rule of law, etc etc. Amazon doesn't work if there are no roads, the open internet was never invented, no one is educated enough to read a website or drive a truck, or write software to run on AWS, and every time a truck goes out it gets hijacked and the driver murdered and the datacentre has the copper wires ripped out by an armed gang. Thus the rich person doesn't get to claim all the proceeds as theirs alone, some of it gets paid back to the society that enabled it. Now, exactly where you draw the line between "rich people earned every penny on their own" and "rich people did nothing and deserve nothing", well, that's politics, along with "who is rich and who is not" and "why do we trust these government chaps to use that money to improve society?".
- thegrimmest 3y ago
  Seems pretty simple: tax the users of the infrastructure (roads, electricity, etc.) to pay for it, tax the recipients of education (parents, students) to pay for that. Tax everyone to pay for the rule of law (courts, police) because as you say, we all benefit. This would leave the vast majority of the budget to give back to taxpayers. Mostly various mandatory insurance schemes - healthcare, unemployment, labour law, old age security - which are the ones I'm objecting to. Before widespread public education, large companies would sponsor the education of the engineers they needed (think locomotives), with contractual obligations to work for the organization for a certain time or repay the cost of education. This is how military college works today, and seems pretty high-functioning. > exactly where you draw the line Pretty easy, once you've paid for all the stuff you directly use, the rest is yours free and clear.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
achenet 3y ago
In the case where "you" is the government, the moral basis for the claim on wealth created is that 1) government was instrumental in the creation of this wealth: you needed the legal system to enforce contracts, the common language taught in schools to communicate with employees, suppliers and consumers, regulators to make sure your suppliers were giving you legit stuff, roads for transport, postal service, etc 2) governement is instrumental in helping you keep this wealth: police forces, general property law enforcement. edit: if you're very cynical, you can argue that high income tax + welfare is still cheaper than suppressing a violent revolution by poor people.
asadotzler 3y ago
I am the government that put in place the conditions for you to make that wealth and that preserves those conditions today at great expense. I take from you what ever I need to ensure those conditions persist. You are nothing. You are a cog. I am the government, representative of the majority here, not the few lucky ones who won the lottery (that I created.)

megabless123 3y ago

> Who are you to decide this for someone else? a member of the same democratic society

thegrimmest 3y ago
So your argument is that anything willed by the (narrow) majority is morally justified? Seems pretty obviously flawed doesn't it?
- __loam 3y ago
  Would you prefer the situation where 200 billionaires get to will it instead?
  - thegrimmest 3y ago
    I would prefer a government that maintained a liberal ecosystem - one where violence is delegitimized and disputes are resolved via due process. I would however prefer that the government then did not try to meddle in the outcomes that ecosystem produces. I don't see a moral justification in the use of force to shackle the capable and the fortunate, forcing them to toil in maintenance of the incapable and the unfortunate. The ideal I'm describing was more or less the case in the US before United States v. Butler (1936), which changed the interpretation of the general welfare clause of the constitution.
    - __loam 3y ago
      Man, I hate libertarians. What you get with this kind of system is powerful people meddling with the government to reinforce their power using anti-democratic means. A plutocracy. You also have to contend with the toxic economics of monopoly. I bet you want unregulated utilities too because you a) don't understand macroeconomics and b) subscribe to anti-social and psychopathic economic theories.
      - thegrimmest 3y ago
        We already have a mechanism to prevent such meddling - a constitution. The authority of the government should be confined to the small box required to maintain liberal order. Limiting power is the best way to minimize corruption. The power of the government being allowed to grow without limit is what led to that power becoming susceptible to capture. This was successful for centuries, but the constitutional protections of this order eventually eroded. Were they stronger and more explicit (say there was no general welfare clause), we could well be living in such a liberal order today.
        __loam 3y ago
        I guess we're just ignoring the Robber Barons and the monumental effort to reign in their power through trust busting. It would be nice to live in your fantasy world but we don't. Plutocratic power must be checked by government. The alternative is monopoly and collapse. We have reams of evidence discrediting your view.
      - gottorf 3y ago
        > powerful people meddling with the government to reinforce their power using anti-democratic means As the other commenter alluded to, the solution to this is to limit the power of the government so that even if they meddle and gain influence, the harm they can do is limited because the government itself isn't allowed to do whatever it is the plutocrats want to do.
sib 3y ago
[flagged]

smokel 3y ago

The moral basis would be that most extremely rich people are not rich by merit, but by having good connections, luck, narcissistic personality disorders, or a head start in life. Consider a random thing that you are grateful for, trace down who actually made it possible for you to enjoy, and then consider whether those persons all get equal gratitude.

thegrimmest 3y ago
> not rich by merit There are lots of stats that disagree. The overwhelming majority of fortunes are made and squandered within three generations. Raising capable people in an environment of extreme wealth is very hard. Most famous fortunes are self-made, in the sense that turning a few 100k into billions is something that clearly takes a lot of merit to accomplish. I would also argue that morally, your good fortune in domestic environment (which is the main predictor of economic outcomes) is entirely your own. I don't see a moral claim by a third party over my upbringing as any more valid than a claim over my organs.
- achenet 3y ago
  > The overwhelming majority of fortunes are made and squandered within three generations people keep saying this but I can't find a rigrous source when I google it, it's always just LinkedIn puff pieces or Quora... would you have a link to the original by any chance?
- smokel 3y ago
  Note that I was implying that there is no merit to "making money" by itself.

traverseda 3y ago

There is a big difference between creating value, and capturing value. A business that operates on hair-thin margins arguably creates more value than one that operates at a profit, which is why we want competition to do things like lower prices. Most of the companies at this size use a bunch of anti-competitive practices. See the wikipedia list of anti-competitive practices here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices So something like microsoft trying to get people to use microsoft-teams and nagging people to set up onedrive for malware protection, is a clear example of market-distortion through anti-competitive practices. Given that no one gets to be a company this size by playing "fair" then it seems perfectly "fair" to lay claim to that that excess wealth. We assume almost all profit was gathered anti-competitively since in a "fair" market competition forces you to lower your price to the bare minimum. --- I mean that's mostly bullshit for a lot of reasons, but it seems to me like just as valid a take as the atlas-shrugged "it's my money, keep your government hands off".

thegrimmest 3y ago
Say you've invented a device that everyone wants, that vastly improves the quality and convenience of everyone's lives. People are willing to line up in the cold for the chance to buy one from you. Even if you capture the entire market for these types of devices, make billions, and ruthlessly squash any competition, you've already added tremendous value. People's lives have already been improved by your contribution to the world. They are better off than they were before. Plenty of companies have accomplished the above while playing fair, simply because of the value their products add to their consumers. And once they have added this value, how much they nag you doesn't matter. If you didn't like it, you'd go back to DOS and IRC. The fact that you don't demonstrates my point.
- traverseda 3y ago
  I mean I do use linux and IRC, so that's probably not a great example. I'm more worried about my grandmother who is confused by microsoft telling her she's not secure unless she signs up for more microsoft products. >you've already added tremendous value. Or you've just filled a niche that already exists in the world, and that could have been filled by someone better, but you're more connected or more ruthless. See also "Multiple discovery" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery as compared to the "heroic theory" of invention and discovery. You're not special, sure you might have invented whatever 20 years before someone else, but most great discoveries of big shifts would have been done by someone. I guess my question is, what if the thing you invented was a better more addictive casino? Sure, you're preying on psychological weaknesses and misleading people, but you're still making money. Most business lie somewhere in between "more addictive casino" and "genuinely add value to the world". I'd argue the difference between them is where almost all of the profit comes from for most companies.

wouldbecouldbe 3y ago

The centralized digital world has created monopolies like never before. Good for those who were smart & lucky enough to have taken advantage of this revolution. But there was definitely some unhealthy excess & wealth gathering that's gotten very extreme & we can consider if we find this healthy and benificial for society as a whole.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

The general idea is that in a functional society, rich people's wealth is in some non-zero part enabled by that same well-functioning society. Roads, electricity, telecoms, educated workforces, rule of law, etc etc. Amazon doesn't work if there are no roads, the open internet was never invented, no one is educated enough to read a website or drive a truck, or write software to run on AWS, and every time a truck goes out it gets hijacked and the driver murdered and the datacentre has the copper wires ripped out by an armed gang. Thus the rich person doesn't get to claim all the proceeds as theirs alone, some of it gets paid back to the society that enabled it. Now, exactly where you draw the line between "rich people earned every penny on their own" and "rich people did nothing and deserve nothing", well, that's politics, along with "who is rich and who is not" and "why do we trust these government chaps to use that money to improve society?".

thegrimmest 3y ago
Seems pretty simple: tax the users of the infrastructure (roads, electricity, etc.) to pay for it, tax the recipients of education (parents, students) to pay for that. Tax everyone to pay for the rule of law (courts, police) because as you say, we all benefit. This would leave the vast majority of the budget to give back to taxpayers. Mostly various mandatory insurance schemes - healthcare, unemployment, labour law, old age security - which are the ones I'm objecting to. Before widespread public education, large companies would sponsor the education of the engineers they needed (think locomotives), with contractual obligations to work for the organization for a certain time or repay the cost of education. This is how military college works today, and seems pretty high-functioning. > exactly where you draw the line Pretty easy, once you've paid for all the stuff you directly use, the rest is yours free and clear.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

achenet 3y ago

In the case where "you" is the government, the moral basis for the claim on wealth created is that 1) government was instrumental in the creation of this wealth: you needed the legal system to enforce contracts, the common language taught in schools to communicate with employees, suppliers and consumers, regulators to make sure your suppliers were giving you legit stuff, roads for transport, postal service, etc 2) governement is instrumental in helping you keep this wealth: police forces, general property law enforcement. edit: if you're very cynical, you can argue that high income tax + welfare is still cheaper than suppressing a violent revolution by poor people.

asadotzler 3y ago

I am the government that put in place the conditions for you to make that wealth and that preserves those conditions today at great expense. I take from you what ever I need to ensure those conditions persist. You are nothing. You are a cog. I am the government, representative of the majority here, not the few lucky ones who won the lottery (that I created.)