The problem is not the billionaire-as-an-individual, but the billionaire-as-a-signifier-of-concentration-of-wealth:
> If we suppose that the goal of society is to produce the greatest utility, and that the utility wealth provides an individual is sub-linear (i.e. twice as much money makes you less than twice as happy), then inequality is inefficient resource allocation.
Now, perfect equality is probably equality as bad, as there's no (extrinsic) incentive to make things better and be (externally) rewarded for it, but the US is back at the point of being back in the Gilded Age:
Billionaires are "bad" because they signify concentration of wealth/power that can skew the working of the democratic process where each citizen has an equal say in the direction a country should go.
I think this take hits on a good point worth exploring. I've also noticed that people generally fall into these two groups and end up talking past each other when ever this topic comes up - myself included.
I often find myself frustrated by the "billionaires are bad" argument because I interpret it as an argument against rewarding performance and productivity. It is objectively true that different individuals have differing ability and desire to contribute to society. Incentivizing and rewarding productivity over idleness will maximise productivity.
On the other side, I suspect there are those who are frustrated by the argument that "billionaires are not bad" because they observe the huge levels of inequality that currently exist and conclude that this can't possibly be an efficient use of resources.
I think there is a middle ground. Clearly, some level of differential reward structure in society is necessary to maximise innovation and productivity. But perhaps the current levels of inequality are also sub-optimal.
However, I don't think that wealth re-distribution (taxes, etc) is the right answer. That seems to be penalising the player, not the game. Perhaps part of the solution might involve reducing barriers to entry so that more people can participate in the market.
It's also worth highlighting that most wealth is created, not transferred. Most billionaires (in a free market) become so by creating valuable businesses and producing value. If Jeff Bezos never created Amazon and never became a billionaire, we'd all be poorer, not richer.
> I often find myself frustrated by the "billionaires are bad" argument because I interpret it as an argument against rewarding performance and productivity. It is objectively true that different individuals have differing ability and desire to contribute to society. Incentivizing and rewarding productivity over idleness will maximise productivity.
When individuals hold massive amounts of wealth, they are de-facto no longer bound by the laws that bind the ordinary people, since they can influence the very politicians that are supposed to incentivize and reward productivity over idleness. When a human has some kind of power, they will do anything not to lose it - that's a fundamental property of humans.
"Person has money, therefore person brought value" makes sense in theory, but in practice it seems that the most effective ways to obtain massive amounts of wealth contain fair amounts of corruption, fraud and swindle. There isn't a single billionaire in history that hasn't been eventually revealed to have done terrible things to gain, keep or increase their wealth, most of which could be argued to bring more harm to the society than the value that was brought in the first place. John D. Rockefeller and the destruction of the public transportation system comes to mind as an example.
> However, I don't think that wealth re-distribution (taxes, etc) is the right answer. That seems to be penalising the player, not the game.
The point of the video is not that we should re-distribute the wealth of the billionaires more - it's that we should stop them from not paying taxes that are already in place, by closing off the various loopholes that allow them to have their cake and eat it too.
> in practice it seems that the most effective ways to obtain massive amounts of wealth contain fair amounts of corruption, fraud and swindle.
I don't think this is true. It may make for a comfortable story to tell ourselves, but I think if we examine the data, it would show that the most effective way to obtain - and maintain - massive amounts of wealth involves a lot of hard work, producing value, and yes, even a fair helping of luck.
> There isn't a single billionaire in history that hasn't been eventually revealed to have done terrible things to gain, keep or increase their wealth, most of which could be argued to bring more harm to the society than the value that was brought in the first place.
This seems more like observation bias to me. Could you not also say that a mugger or drug dealer has done terrible things to gain, keep or increase their wealth? I can understand there is a common desire to hold wealthy people to higher moral standards than "normal" people - but that seems both unrealistic and ethically misguided. I'm not saying they should have no accountability, only that we should recognise that if given the opportunity, most people would behave the same or worse.
Further, I wouldn't necessarily concede that the assertion that all or most billionaires have done terrible things to gain, keep or increase their wealth is true. Certainly some have, but most have not. I think it's also worth recognising that wealthy people have an entire set of problems that is not often discussed - they are constant targets of fraudsters and con artists. Think how that might affect one's outlook and interactions.
> I think if we examine the data, it would show that the most effective way to obtain - and maintain - massive amounts of wealth involves a lot of hard work, producing value, and yes, even a fair helping of luck.
I'm fairly skeptical of this claim, to me it seems that all signs point otherwise. Would you care to share more information on what kind of data convinced you of that stance?
> I'm not saying they should have no accountability, only that we should recognise that if given the opportunity, most people would behave the same or worse.
I completely agree - it's in the human nature to want to keep wealth and power at all costs, even when it harms others. But to me, that seems like even more of a reason we should keep wealthier individuals in check more rigorously than an average Joe - because they're more powerful, it is much easier for them to abuse the law, and their misdeeds have a potential to cause an order of magnitude more damage to the society.
> Further, I wouldn't necessarily concede that the assertion that all or most billionaires have done terrible things to gain, keep or increase their wealth is true. Certainly some have, but most have not.
Some have been proven to have done terrible things, some have not. Those who have not been proven may or may not have done terrible things. Of course, in the eyes of the law, people are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. It is just my hypothesis (albeit unverifiable) that they have, at least most of them, done terrible things. No human can accumulate that kind of wealth without screwing over someone else - not because it's impossible to do in itself, but rather because those who play by the rules would be cut down by the competition who don't. It is somewhat similar to steroid use in professional bodybuilding - natural bodybuilders can't even dream of competing for Mr. Olympia, it's just physically impossible, so anyone who even wants to try must do steroids.
For HN, likely better to cite a text-based source or post a accurate/unbiased TLDR, since in my experience videos rarely get traction. Here’s related opinion piece that number of papers published and is cited in video:
OPINION: Finally, a billionaire willing to smack back at capitalism
The video raises some very good points, most important of those is that the only thing we can be sure about is that billionaires care about what other people think of them. Everything else has an extremely high probability of being PR bullshit.
People are gullible as fuck. It seems like stupidity (defined as taking things at face value without questioning them) is a very desirable quality in the modern society, and apparently, even asking questions and raising points about underlying motives in considered unacceptable.
More like ... we have lots of evidence that handing a small handful of essentially random people a large and disproportionate concentration of humanity's entire wealth tends to make them:
* act above the law
* use their wealth to attack and generally bully others to get their way
* exert disproportionate influence (relative to their actual insight or utility of their actions) on people's lives, government, and society as a whole
* choose other winners and losers in the market (this is not inherently good or bad, but when bad it is disproportionately bad)
* decide what things the rest of humanity should pay more or less attention to
* consume exorbitantly in the face of still-existent human poverty, disease, security, environmental concerns, and so on
and most directly
* decide how and to whom that wealth will be distributed long after they've "earned" it, thus continuing a cycle of haves and have nots
And so based on that evidence, all things being equal, having less concentration of wealth and more equity is better for society as a whole. (See: Friedman, Piketty, Smith, Keynes, George, et al)
Whatever argument you may have about this billionaire or that billionaire, hopefully it's easy to understand why we as a society should be exceptionally wary of the negative impacts of encouraging overly concentrated wealth versus the positive benefits of encouraging risktaking and entrepreneurial reward.
21 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 65.9 ms ] threadThis is like saying “All poor people are criminals”
This is the sort of thinking you need to leave behind in childhood. There is no way a reasonable grown adult can hold this opinion seriously.
Sounds like you need to meet more adults unfortunately.
Not much there to take serious their claims of being more adult than others.
> If we suppose that the goal of society is to produce the greatest utility, and that the utility wealth provides an individual is sub-linear (i.e. twice as much money makes you less than twice as happy), then inequality is inefficient resource allocation.
* aninhumer, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14505342
Now, perfect equality is probably equality as bad, as there's no (extrinsic) incentive to make things better and be (externally) rewarded for it, but the US is back at the point of being back in the Gilded Age:
* https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2014/11/06/f...
* https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2015/december/weal...
Billionaires are "bad" because they signify concentration of wealth/power that can skew the working of the democratic process where each citizen has an equal say in the direction a country should go.
I often find myself frustrated by the "billionaires are bad" argument because I interpret it as an argument against rewarding performance and productivity. It is objectively true that different individuals have differing ability and desire to contribute to society. Incentivizing and rewarding productivity over idleness will maximise productivity.
On the other side, I suspect there are those who are frustrated by the argument that "billionaires are not bad" because they observe the huge levels of inequality that currently exist and conclude that this can't possibly be an efficient use of resources.
I think there is a middle ground. Clearly, some level of differential reward structure in society is necessary to maximise innovation and productivity. But perhaps the current levels of inequality are also sub-optimal.
However, I don't think that wealth re-distribution (taxes, etc) is the right answer. That seems to be penalising the player, not the game. Perhaps part of the solution might involve reducing barriers to entry so that more people can participate in the market.
It's also worth highlighting that most wealth is created, not transferred. Most billionaires (in a free market) become so by creating valuable businesses and producing value. If Jeff Bezos never created Amazon and never became a billionaire, we'd all be poorer, not richer.
When individuals hold massive amounts of wealth, they are de-facto no longer bound by the laws that bind the ordinary people, since they can influence the very politicians that are supposed to incentivize and reward productivity over idleness. When a human has some kind of power, they will do anything not to lose it - that's a fundamental property of humans.
"Person has money, therefore person brought value" makes sense in theory, but in practice it seems that the most effective ways to obtain massive amounts of wealth contain fair amounts of corruption, fraud and swindle. There isn't a single billionaire in history that hasn't been eventually revealed to have done terrible things to gain, keep or increase their wealth, most of which could be argued to bring more harm to the society than the value that was brought in the first place. John D. Rockefeller and the destruction of the public transportation system comes to mind as an example.
> However, I don't think that wealth re-distribution (taxes, etc) is the right answer. That seems to be penalising the player, not the game.
The point of the video is not that we should re-distribute the wealth of the billionaires more - it's that we should stop them from not paying taxes that are already in place, by closing off the various loopholes that allow them to have their cake and eat it too.
I don't think this is true. It may make for a comfortable story to tell ourselves, but I think if we examine the data, it would show that the most effective way to obtain - and maintain - massive amounts of wealth involves a lot of hard work, producing value, and yes, even a fair helping of luck.
> There isn't a single billionaire in history that hasn't been eventually revealed to have done terrible things to gain, keep or increase their wealth, most of which could be argued to bring more harm to the society than the value that was brought in the first place.
This seems more like observation bias to me. Could you not also say that a mugger or drug dealer has done terrible things to gain, keep or increase their wealth? I can understand there is a common desire to hold wealthy people to higher moral standards than "normal" people - but that seems both unrealistic and ethically misguided. I'm not saying they should have no accountability, only that we should recognise that if given the opportunity, most people would behave the same or worse.
Further, I wouldn't necessarily concede that the assertion that all or most billionaires have done terrible things to gain, keep or increase their wealth is true. Certainly some have, but most have not. I think it's also worth recognising that wealthy people have an entire set of problems that is not often discussed - they are constant targets of fraudsters and con artists. Think how that might affect one's outlook and interactions.
I'm fairly skeptical of this claim, to me it seems that all signs point otherwise. Would you care to share more information on what kind of data convinced you of that stance?
> I'm not saying they should have no accountability, only that we should recognise that if given the opportunity, most people would behave the same or worse.
I completely agree - it's in the human nature to want to keep wealth and power at all costs, even when it harms others. But to me, that seems like even more of a reason we should keep wealthier individuals in check more rigorously than an average Joe - because they're more powerful, it is much easier for them to abuse the law, and their misdeeds have a potential to cause an order of magnitude more damage to the society.
> Further, I wouldn't necessarily concede that the assertion that all or most billionaires have done terrible things to gain, keep or increase their wealth is true. Certainly some have, but most have not.
Some have been proven to have done terrible things, some have not. Those who have not been proven may or may not have done terrible things. Of course, in the eyes of the law, people are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. It is just my hypothesis (albeit unverifiable) that they have, at least most of them, done terrible things. No human can accumulate that kind of wealth without screwing over someone else - not because it's impossible to do in itself, but rather because those who play by the rules would be cut down by the competition who don't. It is somewhat similar to steroid use in professional bodybuilding - natural bodybuilders can't even dream of competing for Mr. Olympia, it's just physically impossible, so anyone who even wants to try must do steroids.
OPINION: Finally, a billionaire willing to smack back at capitalism
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33223639
* Note: Above post was flagged after 50-mins.
And the related prior HN thread on Patagonia founder giving away the company:
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32842357
People are gullible as fuck. It seems like stupidity (defined as taking things at face value without questioning them) is a very desirable quality in the modern society, and apparently, even asking questions and raising points about underlying motives in considered unacceptable.
Bill Gates' relationship with Epstein is very troubling, but if youve followed that story I don't think it's fair to call them "best buds"
* Adam Conover, with whom I wasn't previously familiar
* act above the law
* use their wealth to attack and generally bully others to get their way
* exert disproportionate influence (relative to their actual insight or utility of their actions) on people's lives, government, and society as a whole
* choose other winners and losers in the market (this is not inherently good or bad, but when bad it is disproportionately bad)
* decide what things the rest of humanity should pay more or less attention to
* consume exorbitantly in the face of still-existent human poverty, disease, security, environmental concerns, and so on
and most directly
* decide how and to whom that wealth will be distributed long after they've "earned" it, thus continuing a cycle of haves and have nots
And so based on that evidence, all things being equal, having less concentration of wealth and more equity is better for society as a whole. (See: Friedman, Piketty, Smith, Keynes, George, et al)
Whatever argument you may have about this billionaire or that billionaire, hopefully it's easy to understand why we as a society should be exceptionally wary of the negative impacts of encouraging overly concentrated wealth versus the positive benefits of encouraging risktaking and entrepreneurial reward.