One of the very, very few proven formulas for rapidly generating concentrated wealth is: centralize (privatize) the profits, distribute (socialize) the risks an

One of the very, very few proven formulas for rapidly generating concentrated wealth is: centralize (privatize) the profits, distribute (socialize) the risks and costs. Once you start looking for this meta-pattern, you'll see it a lot. A chemical company concentrates the profits from synthesizing a useful compound, but diffuses the risks and costs of pollution and disease into the commons. A social network distributes the effort and cost of building up a massive, informative graph, and then centralizes the profits from exploiting that information. A contract-work marketplace pushes the risks onto individual drivers, and centralizes the profits from matchmaking. My personal view is that this will always happen to some extent, and is intrinsically linked with the system of inequality that drives the turbine of ambition in our society. Therefore, it will never be done away with, and arguably shouldn't be. But, especially when there is no consent to the socialized externalities (e.g. pollution) or very lopsided or coerced consent (e.g. "Grapes of Wrath"-level treatment of workers), decency requires, and eventually the pitchforks-and-torches will demand, some balancing of things by the Leviathan.