Sure, but the point is that the original post claims that rich people are completely innocuous, which is just blatantly false. Anyway form of power, whether through private capital or public political, is worthy of critique and skepticism.
There is definitely some truth in this. However, what would you proposed to either prevent people from becoming ultra-wealthy or prevent them from having political power?
I am saying it concentrates wealth yes, and that this leads to corruption when the relationship between wealth and power isn't sufficiently tamed through various regulations.
I'm suggesting that for amounts of wealth past some (admittedly arbitrary) point, there is such a high concentration of power that it raises ethical questions, regardless of how the funds was obtained. Just thinking along the lines of Dr. McCoy in Xmen:
"And I worry about how democracy survives when one man can move cities with his mind."
A billionare may not be able to move a city with his mind, but he could outright buy one! Just a thought. :)
Given the medieval wealth disparities between the billionaire class and the average person, I find it difficult to trust their pontifications on financial and political matters. They are still people, but people operating on a very different moral compass than my own. Living in wealth and comfort is one thing, but the morality needed to acquire and retain billions in the face of all that could be done with it means we operate under very different rules.
Money is a poor form of meritocracy because once you have it you can tilt the board towards you and yours forever regardless of future merit.
Worse the portion of wealth from true merit is cover for just how much is graft, rent, and corruption.
The end point of any system whereby power gives one the ability to further consolidate power needs to be balanced with redistribution else all power naturally concentrates in a shrinking few.
No man is self made. Billionaires are generally the children of lesser wealth.
This relies on an assumption that 1) the only (or only important) places wealth can exert power is in government, or 2) that the likely harm of centralizing measures to address abuse of power in other spheres is greater than the likely benefits. 1 seems plainly false. 2 is much more plausible, but should still be stated explicitly and supported rather than implicitly assumed
This is exactly why individuals should not be allowed to have tens (let alone hundreds!) of billions of dollars in wealth - they become all-powerful and too easily subvert the will of the people. They become their own ruling class, which is unacceptable in a functioning democracy.
So economic processes and analysis create the illusion of a wealthy elite who run everything, but there's not really a ruling class...
I disagree, and the fact that "wealth tends to remain with the wealthy" combined with some nepotism doesn't just create the illusion, it creates a system functionally the same.
Your implication of some nefarious plot to convince the ignorant that there is a ruling class sounds a bit delusional to me. A little ironic in the context of you accusing me of seeing things that aren't there...
If it were personal wealth it might be a reasonable proxy, though in much of the world weath and corruption often go hand in hand.
Do you really want to allow in every rich kid in the world that thinks it'd be cool to screw off in the US for a few years at the expense of someone who's distinguished themselves in their field?
As a matter of fact, society has not a single valid reason to allow concentration of excessive wealth on some kind of restricted group or "elite" (as, by the way, also promoted erroneously by the idea of the "American Dream"). Here are a few facts to explain that this concept is not sane at all:
- Excessive wealth is usually hoarded (in bank accounts), not used: But if you want the economy to work the most (creating jobs, etc.), you need to make money circulate as much as possible (which is not what rich people usually do).
- Excessive wealth ends up being used for corruption (famous example: the Koch brothers), simply because it can. You can not get rid of corruption without getting rid of excessive wealth concentration.
- Excessive wealth could "morally"/"ethically" only be justified by the existence of "really free will" (a concept which we can never reasonably take as a basis, given the fact that this concept is of religious nature, not rational thinking): Free will -> free decision -> merit of the better decision -> excessive wealth. As noted, this is how society excuses the existence of excessively rich people, and it's completely flawed and wrong.
- Excessive wealth will always has the tendency to become even more excessive: it gives its holder an "unfair" advantage.
- A part of excessive wealth will always be used to protect the "unfair advantage", thus eliminating equality even more.
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