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I have no issue with the rich, however I'm guessing 'most' of the super-rich have achieved this through acute business acumen. However 'acute business acumen'

• ThomPete 13y ago
  No one becomes super wealthy because of acute business acumen. They become super wealthy because they are lucky that their products/services/investments pan out properly. Bill Gates, who I have a lot of respect for, didn't become super wealthy because of his business skills (although they obviously had a lot to do with it) but because the industry he happened to be in exploded. Thats all fine and good. I have no issue with that. But it does point to what I would consider a flaw in the way wealth is distributed. But what that flaw is I am still not sure of.
  • arethuza 13y ago
    What about Warren Buffet - I'd have thought pretty much the definition of someone with "business acumen": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett
    • falcolas 13y ago
      Warren Buffet strikes me as the exception that proves the rule that most wealth is inherited or gained through illicit means. He's brought up so often as a model for the American dream, but he's typically the only one.
      • arethuza 13y ago
        What about Amancio Ortega Gaona - starts a business selling quilted bathrobes in Spain and ends up 3rd richest person in the world? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amancio_Ortega_Gaona http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amancio_Ortega_Gaona What did he do that was "illicit" (he certainly didn't inherit wealth as he started working in his early teens)?
        • __alexs 13y ago
          Amancio Ortega Gaona allegedly profits from child and "slave" labour across the world. High street fashion is commonly manufactured in factories that have particularly awful welfare standards. e.g. http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9970846/Zara-probed-over-slave-labour-claims-in-Argentina.html http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9970846/Zara...
          • a-priori 13y ago
            I can't believe I'm about to do this, but here's me sticking up for sweatshops... I'm not sure what to make of the allegations of them keeping workers captive. But assuming the work is voluntary, sweatshops are not all bad. In fact, they're the fastest way we have to bootstrap an industrial economy in a developing nation. Yes, these factories have terrible work conditions by modern, western standards. But compared to other local job opportunities, the factories are an abundant source of relatively well paying employment. I say 'relatively well paying' because, despite how poor the pay is, the alternatives in the local economy are worse. Often, a so-called 'sweatshop' pays at least 2-3x the average local pay. It's almost axiomatic that a person would not work in a sweatshop if they didn't think the pay was worth it. So if they have workers in their factories, then it must be worthwhile to them. (That's assuming, of course, the work is voluntary.) Once enough factories have appeared so that they have absorbed the excess labour capacity of the local population, the wages start to rise as the factories need to compete for the available labour. They also compete on non-monetary terms, through better working conditions. Wages will stop rising when it becomes economical for foreign companies to move production to a cheaper place (after expenses related to building an entirely new supply chain there). If that starts to happen, then excess production capacity appears, which gets absorbed by local companies. At that point, the bootstrapping is complete and you have a self-sustaining industrial economy. Over the past 60-70 years we've seen goods (clothes being a good example because it's labour intensive and not particularly capital intensive) being produced in a succession of countries. In no particular order, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam have all had their day as the primary producer of garments. Currently, they're made in places like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. So I don't consider sweatshops to be a bad thing in and of themselves. But they are breeding grounds for all sorts of abuse (including but by no means not limited to confining workers to the factories), which is a problem. So we should be pressuring corporations to ensure safe and non-abusive work conditions in their factories. We should not be discouraging them from operating factories in low-cost-of-living locations, or trying to artificially increase wages.
      • ItendToDisagree 13y ago
        Well he did inherit a great deal of influential connections, education, benefits, and (not as much) money. Given that his Father was a successful politician. Not to say he didn't also work his ass off and have a great deal of luck. Buffett doesn't seem like a bad guy at all. Seems like a very 'grandfatherly' type.
      • alanctgardner2 13y ago
        Buffet isn't a bad guy per se, but it's worth noting that a lot of the businesses Berkshire Hathaway owns are benefiting from inequality. Wikipedia mentions jewelery and uniform manufacture as two industries they're involved in, neither of which has a squeaky clean record. Does anyone know if his companies are involved in any activism?
    • cygwin98 13y ago
      Warren Buffet's dad was a member of U.S. House of Representatives, which was a huge advantage to have as an investor.
      • derivagral 13y ago
        How was this a huge advantage? Do you mean just class/money or something more political?
        • cygwin98 13y ago
          I was talking about money. I read a few years ago that Buffet was able to raise a huge amount of fund (equivalent to about 1million in today's money) when he was very young from a few of his dad's friends. Cann't recall the source at this moment.
          • sumedh 13y ago
            The truth is that nobody took young Buffett seriously and he had a tough time raising money but once word got around in a couple of years that the "kid" knows what he is doing that is when he started getting big money.
    • ThomPete 13y ago
      Sure but the fundamental question is. Is it fair that some people make proportionally that much more money just because they happen to be born in the right country? Again I have no problem with it happening. I am simply questioning the underlying "system".
      • Filligree 13y ago
        Fair? No, of course not, but good luck finding a way to change that. Seriously, good luck.
        • ThomPete 13y ago
          I am not trying to finding a way. I am simply putting my doubts on the table. Nothing else.
    • ItendToDisagree 13y ago
      Even Buffet claims (and knows) that he was VERY lucky to be in the places he was, with the connections he had, at the times he was. The formula for success requires a great deal of luck. There is a really interesting section of Thinking, Fast and Slow — By Daniel Kahneman which addresses this in great detail.
      • strickjb9 13y ago
        We can go on and on about how they were lucky and it would all be true. The fact that they were born where and when they were, the connections that fell in to place, etc. are all opportunities they were afforded. But you still can't have the success that Warren Buffet and Bill Gates had without also being incredibly talented and hard working. You could then go on to say that they were born with higher than normal ability (another form of luck). However, it all just sounds so cyclical. So I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes which I think boils it down very simply: “Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity" -Lucius Seneca (Roman Stoic Philosopher)
        • ThomPete 13y ago
          No one is arguing that. What is being argued is that they where lucky to be born in a society where their skills could make them millions. I.e. they didn't create all those money in isolation, they made them in a system that made it possible. Thats the point. Not that they aren't brilliant at what they do. Just that no one in that end of the wealth scale is that brilliant that they created purely based on their own skills.
          • ItendToDisagree 13y ago
            Even more to the point, you can be incredibly hard working and intelligent, but without a good deal of luck (outside of being born into our society) you may not make it. Luck is a HUGE factor on many different levels when talking about wealth/success. Again, not taking anything away from Buffett, just pointing out that luck is a really big deal that doesn't get much air time.
          • 13y ago
    • rmc 13y ago
      Warren Buffet himself admits that he won the "ovarian lottery" and acknowledges a lot his success is up to luck in that way.
  • fuckpig 13y ago
    I think it's both, by the way. I'm not too impressed by the pg's and billg's of this world as thinkers but I think they know how to aggressively pursue opportunity. However, if we want a system based on something other than free enterprise, you're heading either toward Communism or royalism. The former scares most of us half to death, if we've been attentive to history.
    • PavlovsCat 13y ago
      Why does it always have to be one extreme or the other? Why can't inequality be curbed, instead of getting worse, without nightmares of "everybody being made the same", or Stalinist Russia? I've been in situations where everybody shared, it wasn't scary at all.
      • ItendToDisagree 13y ago
        Because Communism is bad mmmkay? Remember what happened to Russia? Remember what they forced McCarthy to do to our own people? /s The gray scale between political extremes is really so often ignored that it is almost scary. The real issue comes down to concentration of power in one subsection of the population. Be it a communist/facist/what have you dictator, plutocracy, or even entrenched political elite backed by corporate lobbying.
        • fuckpig 13y ago
          "The real issue comes down to concentration of power in one subsection of the population." Yeah... that sounds really good in conversation. But let's pick it apart. Any political system is going to concentrate power because otherwise any act will require buy-in by vast numbers of people. Imagine a committee of 300 million and you'll see why democracy delegates power. The problem then is more that these groups are the wrong people (selected badly) or that there's not a clear communication to them as to what they should be doing. I'd say both of these are huge problems in our society.
      • ctdonath 13y ago
        "Everybody sharing" is one thing. I already give the bulk of my paycheck (which already has nearly half my income confiscated before I see it) to 3 other no-income people. "Curb income inequality" doesn't recognize the sharing already occurring, but instead promises to put a gun to my head if I don't "share" more, which I do indeed find very scary. Before taking from "the rich" while on this income-redistribution crusade, find out how many others they're already supporting, by contract or charity or responsibility.
  • paulhauggis 13y ago
    "become super wealthy because of his business skills" Bill Gates saw the potential in the industry before it exploded, which is why he is considered skilled in business. This is pretty much the same with most super-successful business people. I really don't like this attitude that success is mainly due to the luck of the draw. Sure there is luck, but it's the same luck involved in pretty much everything you do in life (you're lucky you didn't get hit by a car when you crossed the street), which makes it a moot point.
    • cygwin98 13y ago
      His mother was then a board member of IBM, which was one of big factors of IBM's decision making over the choice of PC operating system.
    • ThomPete 13y ago
      Its not a moot point at all, you are just simplifying it and thus end up creating a strawman no one ever argued. It's luck in the way that BG happened to be at the right time at the right place as an entire industry exploded. That does not mean he wasn't skilled, it doesn't mean that anyone could do it. It just means that the success it ended up becoming was not because of Bill Gates but because he happened to sell a product at the right time. Hadn't he done it, someone else had. So no its not a moot point unless you make a moot strawman.
• marvin 13y ago
  The problem starts when "acute business acumen" involves active participation in political processes in order to gain special advantages or avoid duties which are placed on other members of society. In spite of being a Norwegian, I agree with the capitalistic premise that economic inequality isn't in itself a symptom of a problem. But when the richest minority avoids taxes thanks to legal loopholes, lobbies with politicians to get useful laws enacted or gains special contracts with the government to the detriment of others, there is a very big problem. In fact, this is corruption, which is in many of these cases endemic. We like to believe that the educated world has a level playing field, but this is far from the case. The tech world isn't representative for the world at large when it comes to being fair in this respect. (And even the tech world is far from innocent in this regard - e.g. Google et.al.'s smart dodging of taxation by keeping assets overseas. This practice is legal, but it is exactly the kind of problem where the richest are given an unfair advantage due to their wealth).
• joosters 13y ago
  Yes, most Russian oligarch billionaires got their wealth purely through acute business acumen...
  • mtrimpe 13y ago
    Well; they are known for their impeccable execution(s) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...)
    • mtrimpe 13y ago
      By the way; this isn't snark towards Russia but snark against the notion that the threat of violence doesn't play a significant part in the distribution of wealth anymore.
  • Sharlin 13y ago
    I think the problem with the concept of having "acute business acumen" is that it is basically orthogonal to moral concerns, but there seem to be plenty of people who consider making money using one's business smarts morally good an sich, no matter how ruthless and unethical the means. King Leopold II can certainly be said to have had "acute business acumen"...
  • jgalt212 13y ago
    true that. Spending few minutes Googling "aluminum wars." The results are downright scary.
  • epsylon 13y ago
    And so did Paris Hilton.
    • breischl 13y ago
      Much as I personally dislike Paris Hilton and the related series of celebrities (the Kardashians come to mind), I have to respect the business acumen. A lot of people have made sex tapes, some of them professionally, but very few have made that much money from it. Partially that's because they were rich already, and maybe they just had a good manager/marketer/whatever, but they still managed to make a lot of money from something that is not typically well compensated.
• fuckpig 13y ago
  The problem is that "social responsibility" has come to mean "subsidized egalitarianism." Thus most people with any life-experience want nothing to do with it.
  • wavefunction 13y ago
    I find the opposite, that the most adult and mature folks I know are interested in fulfilling their social responsibility. They may not be interested in the straw-man version you've proposed, but your definition is not the end-all, be-all of what "social responsibility" is.
    • nickff 13y ago
      We need a clear definition of "social responsibility", as many use the term to mean "collective responsibility", which really means 'foisting the costs on the politically powerless". I see "social responsibility" as personal, which means that you are personally responsible for the society you live in; this is difficult when the government crowds out charities, and gives many people reason to free-ride.
    • fuckpig 13y ago
      Great. I define social responsibility in Platonic terms: Good to the good, bad to the bad.
• melling 13y ago
  I guess you've probably missed Bill Gates and Warren Buffet talking about the sperm lottery? If they were born in the slums of Brazil, for example, they probably would not be successful. There are 7 billion people on the planet and the article cherry picks the poorest 3.5 billion. I imagine that there is little opportunity at that level. I doubt if anyone in the United States is on that list.
  • jules 13y ago
    That's a lot of cherries to pick.
  • cossatot 13y ago
    Of course many Americans number in the 3.5 billion most poor people on earth. A lot of the homeless people I see everyday have about zero wealth. Hopefully many of them have something but I don't know what it would be. Also, many middle class people, such as myself, have negative total assets due to debt. Because 'wealth' can refer to not only money but general capital (including human capital, which is what I have invested in) I would not say that my total wealth is less than zero, and I definitely have a lot of opportunity, privilege, and comfort. But if I was writing an article for the Guardian in order to rile people up about inequality, I think I could not incorrectly state that I have negative wealth, and by net $$ standards far less money than many of the world's destitute.
    • melling 13y ago
      I wouldn't be so sure about that. Have you seen poor people in other countries? Many are much skinnier than your average homeless American. I've seen homeless people charging their cell phones in public areas in the US. And I'm not sure what to say about your negative wealth debate. First world problems?
    • regal 13y ago
      Of course many Americans number in the 3.5 billion most poor people on earth. Source? The actual data on this appears likely to refute your claim: Yes, that’s right: America’s poorest are, as a group, about as rich as India’s richest. [1] That's at least the better part of a billion right there America's poor are wealthier than in India. According to the graph in the article, America's poorest are also wealthier than nearly all of China (1.3 billion officially, 1.5 billion unofficially), and 2/3 of Brazil. Not including the rest of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. [1] http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-the-have-nots/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-t...
• aet 13y ago
  No, most people are rich because they inherited land or businesses.
• jgalt212 13y ago
  I guess you're all missing the MSFT grew so big b/c for a good portion of its existence it was an illegal monopoly. So, yes, business acumen, but also being very effective at keeping the long arm of the long at bay.
• yetanotherphd 13y ago
  There is nothing wrong with squeezing maximum profits out of business, assuming it doesn't create negative externalities. Justification of this practice is found in the fundamental welfare theorems of economics, which state that an algorithm for maximizing total wellbeing is to let the free market work, and only intervene by redistributing income (under a more realistic set of assumptions, the government should also provided many services). I consider the responsibility of maximizing shareholder value to be a moral one primarily. If people invested their money in a company, it's not for the management to decide that actually they investors don't need that much return on their investment.