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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
"I'm going to be resentful as hell when a guy who got evicted from next door for losing his job gets a better home than mine for free."
A lot of the points you bring up have been addressed and resolved by existing homeless housing programs, and. I'm sure that, for instance, you know that welfare fraud is a marginal phenomenon, and that when charities get scammed, it's usually not by their recipients, and that, if a salaried person can't afford a better house than the tiny minimalistic ones given for free, the problem does not lie with the HHP.
More importantly, I see I've been unclear; I meant to say that Bezos' money could solve the problem, by getting taxed, along with that of others like him, and wielded through the government's mighty coordination and accountability power.
Edited by Oruka on Feb 8th 2019 at 1:59:05 AM
@Le Garcon: That's an argument that's a lot more fair IMO than simply saying "nobody should have more than x dollars".
Leviticus 19:34Yes, that's accurate. I'm not saying that the problems I listed are insurmountable or not worth addressing, just that governments are much better equipped to take them on than a single person, no matter how rich.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yeah, claiming the actual amount of money is inherently unethical or something strikes me as focusing on the wrong thing. Focusing on the things that someone has to do to get that much is better.
Maybe billionaires would still be around with fair wages and working conditions, but that doesn't mostly seem to be the case, if I'm reading the room right.
Edited by LSBK on Feb 8th 2019 at 3:56:30 AM
It shouldn't be about "deserving" the money. That's the Randian trap, turning the debate into one of the moral worth of individuals. The focal point should be social utility. Money isn't a thing that is "owned"; it is a means to achieve goals. If the money is not in the ideal place for those goals to be achieved, then it needs to be moved around. Governments do that by taxing (and other means), and the very rich can afford that taxation more than the poor and middle class.
Edited by Fighteer on Feb 8th 2019 at 4:58:57 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"@ Protagonist: Because that wealth comes from hoarding the plus value of other people's hard work. Because it gives them an unconscionable ability to steer the fates of countless people, without them having a say in it, not just through spending, but through sheer potential. Because it loses all proportion to the utility they provide with their own work. In fact, it promotes rent seeking. Because happiness grows logarithmically with wealth and it's immoral for them to buy a little more happiness for themselves with wealth that could otherwise make a huge increase in the happiness of a huge number of people. I could go on.
Hypothetically there could be, if the product they provide is massively cost-effective at problem-solving.
Edited by Oruka on Feb 8th 2019 at 2:03:12 AM
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Again, you're falling into the trap of ceding the moral context of the argument to the Objectivists. Don't do that.
It is likely, but by no means absolutely certain, that the accumulation of wealth beyond certain levels represents a form of monopoly rent, where people in privileged positions (such as owning an IP or a brand) extract far more than the marginal value of their labor from those positions. To call this immoral is somewhat puerile. It is sub-optimal if your objective is to make as many people as well off as possible.
Edited by Fighteer on Feb 8th 2019 at 5:03:30 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I find that to be an extremely questionable assertion.
If you own the world's largest company that makes artificial organs and solar power and cheap foodstuffs that are nutritious then saying, "you must be evil" is the product of a superficial reading of economics.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.There's no ethical way that high up ladder.
This is a better way of stating what I was getting at.
If you have a genius business model, yeah, you may do well. But those profits should result in raises for your employees; careful, responsible expansion of your goods and services; increased focus on ethical business practices and uplifting the communities your business operates in.
Because your consumers and your employees made those profits possible, not just you and your genius idea alone.
Edited by wisewillow on Feb 8th 2019 at 5:04:25 AM
The problem with the dialogue surrounding the ethicality of being billionaires is that they're one of the symptoms rather than the etiology of the disease. A society with a lot of billionaires may, depending on the circumstances, actually be the fairer and more egalitarian one, if the wealth is being spread around or if it's just a case of inflation making billions be an "average" income, compared to one where only a handful make it that big.
Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 8th 2019 at 5:31:11 AM
Basically, it takes hundreds if not thousands of people to make any company or product massively successful, but only a small few of those who work truly get to enjoy the benefits of that labor.
And, as someone pointed out up there, big companies will shut down any attempt to make use of their money for positive social change if it so much as make a dent in their earnings.

Why should nobody be as rich as Bezos?
Leviticus 19:34