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The only problem with this is that there are so few billionaires. Wealth is good. We should celebrate it, and focus on making more of it, not on resenting the p
by seneca 1y ago
The only problem with this is that there are so few billionaires. Wealth is good. We should celebrate it, and focus on making more of it, not on resenting the people who have already done so.
- PlunderBunny 1y agoI don't think people resent the people for their wealth so much as the political influence those people wield in order to preserve their wealth and power.
- m0llusk 1y agoThat is invalid framing of the issues. We know from Picketty's study of Capitalism that capital accumulates because returns on capital are higher than not and from Turchin's work on Cliodynamics that inequality drives social breakdown and chaos. One does not celebrate the creation of wealth by enabling society to crack and crumble.
- happytoexplain 1y ago>we should focus on making more wealth Of course! Why didn't we think of that? Congrats on getting the first sarcastic comment out of me I believe in all my time on HN. What you've said is absolutely breathtaking.
- int_19h 1y agoA billion in cash does not represent wealth in and of itself. If you lived in Germany in 1923, you could easily be a trillionaire, but that wouldn't do you any good. What matters is how much cash you have relative to others, because that determines the actual purchasing power. So in a sense you're right in that the real problem isn't having billionaires, but that not everyone is one. But if everyone were one, there would be no reason to devalue the currency and drop the useless zeroes. And, of course, the people who own those billions didn't make most of it. Some other people, who get paid salary or wages, did, with their labor. The guys who have the billions are those who collect economic rent from those who do the work.