This article does not provide a statistically significant observation. It seems to read as an envious rant about a few potential bad apples. Just because you are a billionaire doesn’t preclude you from being intelligent and hardworking. Some families don’t get swept up in the wealth and require commitment from their children to make their own money and claim such as the LVMH group family and the Murdochs. Their wealth mostly sitting in startup equity, listed large cap equity and other GDP driving asset classes such as interest bearing instruments. Their children tend to inherit a lot of those genetics and traits. They may not see all the consequences to life themselves but they aren’t necessarily oblivious to them either.
"In a kind of a zen way, those born ultra-rich live perpetually in the moment. Since they understand very little about causality, they do not understand how events happen or things get made. They can be filled with mystical wonderment at the spontaneous generation of material reality. They can also be blind to social realities that sit outside their lived knowledge, which is terrifyingly narrow."
It's funny to read this kind of bullshit but imagine it being a description of like, Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Pointing out somebody who was born into wealth who's good at a thing doesn't disprove his thesis.
I'd counter your example with another: the documentary Born Rich pretty well captures the article's point. There are lots of young people who were born into very wealthy families who clearly don't understand how anything works even at a basic level and at some points of the movie the more self-aware ones are anxious about and reflect on this fact.
For instance one admits that she doesn't understand how her credit card bill ends up with so much money on it every month, how people could possibly live on a fraction of what she spends, or how money is made or how expenses are paid. This fills with anxiety because she understands that she is utterly dependent on the largess of her family.
> Politicians describe the ultra-rich as infinitely mobile, and claim that is why we can’t tax them.
That doesn't sound true; high-income houses pay a disproportionate amount of the tax burden and any type of corporate tax will fall disproportionately on the ultra-rich. There is a truism here that you can't tax poor people because they don't have enough money to cover the State's bills - by virtue of controlling all the wealth it is difficult to see how the very wealthy people can avoid paying most of the taxes. If they've managed to avoid classing their income as income then that'd do it, but that isn't happening because of a fiction that they are "infinitely mobile".
And more to the point I'd like to make - there is a better argument than one of mobility. People tend to have a position that high taxes are appropriate and someone else obviously has to be the one to pay them. That is one of those strategically stupid ideas where when they get what they want it tends to make them worse off (see also, the economic outcomes of socialism). The ultra-wealthy aren't benefiting personally from their money, the ability of a human to enjoy excess wealth starts to cap out practically in the millions. All that wealth and money sloshing around is being used to make the lives of fairly ordinary people better. Most of Amazon's benefits flow to the lifestyle of average people rather than Bezos' lifestyle, it just happens his dose of improvement is extremely concentrated. If the money is taxed out of Bezos, ordinary people will suffer a bigger hit before he suffers any personal inconvenience - he isn't using enough resources personally to make redistributing them important. The accounting benefits flow to him, but the physical world benefits aren't (you can check this by imagining doubling Bezos' money - his lifestyle will be unchanged so obviously he isn't reaping any benefits from that in the physical world).
I worked for a 2nd Gen plutocrat for a while. It was fascinating to watch him get visibly agitated and distressed when reality refused to obey his whims. The ordinary attitude of "hmm, well that didn't work, let's try something else" had to first get over the petulance and anger at the universe for not doing what he wanted.
As much as being that rich is obviously a blessing, it's also a curse. I'm grateful for my privileges, but also my lack of such extreme privilege.
The part the article misses is that not only are such people disconnected from the consequences of their own actions, they're disconnected from the consequences of other people's actions as well.
Abortion bans don't apply to them. Hospitals closing don't apply to them. Wars didn't apply to them. All external problems are also solved with money.
This is what makes them fundamentally unfit to be in government. I think we should have a net worth cap and undo citizen's United.
> All external problems are also solved with money.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Money is probably the most convenient way to solve problems (whenever it is possible), and I cannot think of a person who'd prefer to solve problems in some harder, more cumbersome way when given the option to solve it with money.
I think you missed his point completely. The point is that money removes the consequences of their and other's actions. Without this visceral understanding of the world, those people are not fit for power.
>From the perspective of the impoverished, this class of people combine the decadence of Versailles with the brutality of war criminals.
The author is making this out to represent the end of modernity, but that's a description of medieval nobility, even literally so - he said Versailles!
14 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 39.2 ms ] threadIt's funny to read this kind of bullshit but imagine it being a description of like, Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
I'd counter your example with another: the documentary Born Rich pretty well captures the article's point. There are lots of young people who were born into very wealthy families who clearly don't understand how anything works even at a basic level and at some points of the movie the more self-aware ones are anxious about and reflect on this fact.
For instance one admits that she doesn't understand how her credit card bill ends up with so much money on it every month, how people could possibly live on a fraction of what she spends, or how money is made or how expenses are paid. This fills with anxiety because she understands that she is utterly dependent on the largess of her family.
That doesn't sound true; high-income houses pay a disproportionate amount of the tax burden and any type of corporate tax will fall disproportionately on the ultra-rich. There is a truism here that you can't tax poor people because they don't have enough money to cover the State's bills - by virtue of controlling all the wealth it is difficult to see how the very wealthy people can avoid paying most of the taxes. If they've managed to avoid classing their income as income then that'd do it, but that isn't happening because of a fiction that they are "infinitely mobile".
And more to the point I'd like to make - there is a better argument than one of mobility. People tend to have a position that high taxes are appropriate and someone else obviously has to be the one to pay them. That is one of those strategically stupid ideas where when they get what they want it tends to make them worse off (see also, the economic outcomes of socialism). The ultra-wealthy aren't benefiting personally from their money, the ability of a human to enjoy excess wealth starts to cap out practically in the millions. All that wealth and money sloshing around is being used to make the lives of fairly ordinary people better. Most of Amazon's benefits flow to the lifestyle of average people rather than Bezos' lifestyle, it just happens his dose of improvement is extremely concentrated. If the money is taxed out of Bezos, ordinary people will suffer a bigger hit before he suffers any personal inconvenience - he isn't using enough resources personally to make redistributing them important. The accounting benefits flow to him, but the physical world benefits aren't (you can check this by imagining doubling Bezos' money - his lifestyle will be unchanged so obviously he isn't reaping any benefits from that in the physical world).
As much as being that rich is obviously a blessing, it's also a curse. I'm grateful for my privileges, but also my lack of such extreme privilege.
Abortion bans don't apply to them. Hospitals closing don't apply to them. Wars didn't apply to them. All external problems are also solved with money.
This is what makes them fundamentally unfit to be in government. I think we should have a net worth cap and undo citizen's United.
I am afraid of idealist elites living in a paralel reality that manipulate the populace into voting against their interests. These ones terrify me.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Money is probably the most convenient way to solve problems (whenever it is possible), and I cannot think of a person who'd prefer to solve problems in some harder, more cumbersome way when given the option to solve it with money.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2364922
The author is making this out to represent the end of modernity, but that's a description of medieval nobility, even literally so - he said Versailles!