Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'
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Original post by Plagioclase
Yes, except we're not robots with mindless faith in the cosmic omnipotence of the free market.
Nobody is saying that the top 8 are more human than the bottom 48%. But money is economics, and the top earners contribute much more economically than anyone else so they have a corresponding amount of wealth. It's fair and just.
Original post by jape
Nobody is saying that the top 8 are more human than the bottom 48%. But money is economics, and the top earners contribute much more economically than anyone else so they have a corresponding amount of wealth. It's fair and just.
It is fair and just that they have more than others. It is not fair and just that they have 9 orders of magnitude more than others.
Original post by Plagioclase
It is fair and just that they have more than others. It is not fair and just that they have 9 orders of magnitude more than others.
Where do you draw the line?
Original post by jape
Where do you draw the line?
£5,320,090.99
Original post by Plagioclase
Wonderful. They are still not worth the same as several hundred million people.
Oxfam seem to disagree with you on that one, and well they kinda are.
The poorer person also gets paid by the richer meaning the flow runs both ways. The real wealth may grow faster at the top than bottom, but it generally grows from top to bottom.
Posted from TSR Mobile
Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Jammy Duel
Invented the OS used by the entire world, or one of the world's best advertising platforms, or a whole host of other industries such as arms, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics.
Better yet, just look at the rich lists and see why people are up there, almost all are going to be there for inventing new stuff (or being part of the inheritance chain started by such a person)
Posted from TSR Mobile
Better yet, just look at the rich lists and see why people are up there, almost all are going to be there for inventing new stuff (or being part of the inheritance chain started by such a person)
Posted from TSR Mobile
Time for some radical IP law reform then.
I would say that LUCK is the defining factor to getting rich. It's not necessarily the case that most people don't think like rich people and that's why they don't get rich. A lot of people could work extremely hard and follow your method above without producing outstanding results. You need a lot of luck on your side to truly succeed in life.
I know you say that there's other factors involved, but it's always worth mentioning the fact that there are lots of extremely rich people who were born into wealth and have inherited vast fortunes and business empires as a result (hello Donald Trump!) This is an important point that shouldn't be glossed over.
I know you say that there's other factors involved, but it's always worth mentioning the fact that there are lots of extremely rich people who were born into wealth and have inherited vast fortunes and business empires as a result (hello Donald Trump!) This is an important point that shouldn't be glossed over.
(edited 7 years ago)
Why shouldn't entrepreneurs make lots of money if people pay lots of money for their products?
Original post by Diego Costa
Why shouldn't entrepreneurs make lots of money if people pay lots of money for their products?
No reason.
Do you not also think that they should pay taxes like everyone else? Currently the richest ones do not.
The binmen have something that they don't always realise they have - the power to withdraw their labour and then allow society to discover how much it really values their services. When you are surrounded by mountains of rubbish and scurrying rats, please come back to tell us how lacking in value their work really is.
This hidden social value of much useful work is systematically hidden, exploited and abused in a capitalist system.
This hidden social value of much useful work is systematically hidden, exploited and abused in a capitalist system.
Tax tf out of the rich redistribute the wealth
@Bowerychip1995
@Bowerychip1995
While hard work, perseverance and a detailed work plan should get you far in life, I am a bit sceptical about this idea that if you work to get rich then you WILL become rich. I think that's too simplistic a life view. 100 hour weeks and living and breathing the 'get rich' mentality will not necessarily get you what you crave. You may end up feeling even more of a failure if you don't succeed because you've put absolutely every fibre of your existence into the idea of BEING a success.
I was too quick to make the claim that luck is THE defining factor in success. It's a significant factor, but there are numerous other important factors to becoming wealthy. Hard work, intelligence, drive, determination, consistency, but also passion, inspiration and imagination. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg didn't necessarily follow their career paths to get rich, their innovative ideas and creations got them where they are today. Same with J. K. Rowling, who came up with one idea that captured the attention of billions of readers all over the world. Luck was on her side, however, because while she may have believed in her idea there was nothing to suggest that the rest of the world would feel the same way.
One can create and adhere to a detailed 'get rich' work plan as carefully and obsessively as possible, but if one is lacking in innovation and creativity they could end up getting nowhere...
I was too quick to make the claim that luck is THE defining factor in success. It's a significant factor, but there are numerous other important factors to becoming wealthy. Hard work, intelligence, drive, determination, consistency, but also passion, inspiration and imagination. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg didn't necessarily follow their career paths to get rich, their innovative ideas and creations got them where they are today. Same with J. K. Rowling, who came up with one idea that captured the attention of billions of readers all over the world. Luck was on her side, however, because while she may have believed in her idea there was nothing to suggest that the rest of the world would feel the same way.
One can create and adhere to a detailed 'get rich' work plan as carefully and obsessively as possible, but if one is lacking in innovation and creativity they could end up getting nowhere...
(edited 7 years ago)
You are not comparing like with like. Most entrepreneurs do not create earth-shattering change or invent entirely new and revolutionary products. In fact, what many of them do is channel existing social advantage (privileged education, access to specialist knowledge, insider information, etc) into the routes that capitalism provides for its more privileged members. Yes, most binmen do not radically alter the refuse picture but then again, most entrepreneurs don't invent anything new or change anything, they simply farm profits in what for them is a fairly easy manner.
In a class society, like the ones we all have right now, prior advantage is everything.
Even that would be acceptable but at the upper level, the adamant refusal to accept obligation to the society they have hugely benefited from marks out most of the super rich as nothing but parasites and abusers rather than net creators of public benefit.
In a class society, like the ones we all have right now, prior advantage is everything.
Even that would be acceptable but at the upper level, the adamant refusal to accept obligation to the society they have hugely benefited from marks out most of the super rich as nothing but parasites and abusers rather than net creators of public benefit.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
You are not comparing like with like. Most entrepreneurs do not create earth-shattering change or invent entirely new and revolutionary products. In fact, what many of them do is channel existing social advantage (privileged education, access to specialist knowledge, insider information, etc) into the routes that capitalism provides for its more privileged members. Yes, most binmen do not radically alter the refuse picture but then again, most entrepreneurs don't invent anything new or change anything, they simply farm profits in what for them is a fairly easy manner.
In a class society, like the ones we all have right now, prior advantage is everything.
Even that would be acceptable but at the upper level, the adamant refusal to accept obligation to the society they have hugely benefited from marks out most of the super rich as nothing but parasites and abusers rather than net creators of public benefit.
In a class society, like the ones we all have right now, prior advantage is everything.
Even that would be acceptable but at the upper level, the adamant refusal to accept obligation to the society they have hugely benefited from marks out most of the super rich as nothing but parasites and abusers rather than net creators of public benefit.
You haven't addressed the point made earlier in the thread.
Capitalism has been the single greatest means of improving mankind's lot. It has developed technologies that allow us to live longer, healthier, better lives. It isn't perfect, it isn't fair, but it has been a tremendous force for good.
Wherever you are now, whatever you are doing, is as a result of capitalism. Unless you opt out, join a commune and scratch together a living under some kind of barter system it is inescapable.
And what drives this system? What has created all this? The profit motive. If you remove it, society stagnates. Look at Communism, look at Cuba. I went there on holiday to a supposed five star hotel when Castro was still alive. You had to wait an hour and a half to eat every evening. Ninety minutes! And the food was disgusting. This on a tropical island with the most wonderful natural ingredients gifted by God. Havana was falling apart. People didn't own property so no-one took care of it. The beautiful old town was crumbling to dust.
People fought over beach towels, or kept them for days because the laundry couldn't wash them. And that was one of the top hotels, trying to gain valuable foreign currency. What must day to day life have been like for the locals?
If everyone gets paid the same, if you have a centralised, non entrepreneurial economy, there are food shortages, huge queues in the shops, no technological innovation.
People create things, work hard, better themselves to make money. No billionaire Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs, no computer to read this post on.
The rich must become poor because it is unfair that they have more than others.
That is all it comes to.
And of course everyone suffers as a consequence.
It was said earlier, it is just the politics of envy.
That is all it comes to.
And of course everyone suffers as a consequence.
It was said earlier, it is just the politics of envy.
Original post by Plagioclase
I really cannot understand how anybody can even begin to justify this wealth, even if they believe in the delusional fantasy of trickle-down economics. What on earth could a person have possibly done to justify a wealth that is on the same order of magnitude as the combined wealth of half of the human race?
You appear to consider the beginning, middle, and end of this issue to be who 'deserves' what. I'm afraid that sort of simplistic position could only be taken by someone who really hasn't thought about the matter at all.
Original post by Plagioclase
Wonderful. They are still not worth the same as several hundred million people.
How can you even type that and not realise how ridiculous it is?
Never mind how people acquired their property; never mind whether the law allows them to acquire that property; never mind whether it is just to intervene in that state of affairs; never mind who should do so; never mind how they should do so; never mind whether it is to the advantage, and how it is to the advantage, of the population as a whole to do so; never mind the point at which it becomes appropriate to do so.
You are the arbiter of who is 'worth' what, and that is the end of the matter, right?
And anyone who doesn't immediately buy into your assessment is a 'robot with mindless faith in the cosmic omnipotence of the free market'.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by astutehirstute
It was said earlier, it is just the politics of envy.
It was said earlier, it is just the politics of envy.
Oh here we go. "Politics of envy" - the standard war cry of right wing Tories down the ages. Yawn.
It has **** all to do with envy. I don't even fancy a small yacht, let alone one the size of Belgium. It's to do with FAIRNESS.
Sorry for the shouting, but really, this old swansong of envy as if you can use the threat of people accepting that they might be envious to distract attention from the massive injustice of our biggest wealth owners and earners paying effectively zero tax rates.
The real issue is not envy, but why on earth we allow them to get away with it. Part of the answer lies in the deep confusions that posts like yours illustrate - driven no doubt by too much reading of the Daily Mail.
I know.
It is very much the British way, the Americans have a different culture.
There if someone sees a flash car on the street people think "What a lucky guy! Maybe if I work hard and do well, one day I could have a car like that too!"
In Britain someone runs their keys all down the paintwork.
It is very much the British way, the Americans have a different culture.
There if someone sees a flash car on the street people think "What a lucky guy! Maybe if I work hard and do well, one day I could have a car like that too!"
In Britain someone runs their keys all down the paintwork.
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