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Comment by cwperkins | Hacker News Reader

Real question: If I start a business and people love my product so much so that I become a billionaire. Am I a bad person?

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You’re a bad person if you don’t give most of it away. Nobody needs a billion dollars.

>the man who dies leaving behind many millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during life, will pass away " unwept, unhonored, and unsung," no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be : "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

—Andrew Carnegie

No, not in the least. But you do then question the context which allows a few to accumulate so much wealth while simultaneously observing a significant proportion of the population with stagnant levels of wealth.

Well, they got the widgets the new billionaire sold. They wouldn't have bought them if they didn't find it advantageous. Win win.

Of course not. Is the owner of a monopolistic company a bad person? No. Is it good for society to allow a company to become a monopoly? No.

Under current Democratic party norms: yes.

AOC aside, there's also Obama's famous "you didn't build that" monologue.

I find it hard to believe this curt post portrays your real intellectual opinion, as opposed to your emotional feelings. It just seems like shit stirring.

It is pretty clear that new wave Democrats (e.g., Justice Democrats, or the like) are more than willing to consider any billionaire immoral because they are billionaires.

At least that is what their most prominent pols say.

That's... The opposite of clear. It's not Billionaires that are on trial, it's the system. Billionaires are the symptom.

You may not agree with that, but that's what's going around.

Do you really believe this?

The democrats are on the whole not against billionaires, there is simply an increase in popularity to make billionaire pay more tax. Something closer to historical levels no less.

Then people make comments like this and try and things into a storm in a teacup....I wonder if this is how they truly see the policy or its just cheap internet comments.

I only know what I read.

"Coates followed up: "I hate to personalize this, but do you think it is moral for individuals to, for instance—do we live in a moral world that allows for billionaires? Is that a moral outcome?"

The answer from the congresswoman [AOC] was emphatic and came without any hesitation. "No, it's not. It's not. It's not. And I think it's important to say that."

https://reason.com/archives/2019/01/28/are-billionaires-immo...

"Technology executives and venture capitalist have also expressed increasing concern in the past few weeks about Democrats’ denigration of business leaders, said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), whose district includes Silicon Valley."

“It should come as no surprise that a few billionaires want to continue to hoard as much wealth as possible, increasing their corrupting influence over our political system,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wave-of-tax-...

edit: added [AOC} to make it clear which congress member was speaking to Coates.

If you read your own quote from Coates, he reformulates his question midstream. Is a world with billionaires moral? Is that a moral outcome?

He's not asking if billionaires are moral people. That's not the same question.

The bigger point is how they take the statement of one person and make out like is applies to the group.

Anyone can twist an arguement to any POV like this. Its cheap debate method and seems typically fanatics trying to avoid reality of a reasonable conversation on a topic.

It seems to me like the answer is obviously "no", and that nobody outside the extremes in all these wealth disparity conversations even suggests such a thing, so I wonder if you had a more subtle question in mind along similar lines.

No, but you shouldn't even be able to become a billionaire in the first place. That capital should be reinvested into society, not held by an individual.

They reinvest it. They don't swim in it like Scrooge McDuck.

No you are not a bad person.

If you knew for a fact that you would never make more than $100million no matter how successful it was would you still try to start a business?

The true colors are out in force

Personally, I don't go so far as to advocate abolishing billionaires, but I do favor a very high tax bracket like 80 or 90 percent to fund basic redistribution. This would not abolish billionaires, but would make it harder to become a dollar billionaire.

When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton answered: "Because that's where the money is."

Well, at least you understand that you’re robbing someone.

This is frankly an absurd reduction, and harmful to rational discourse. While arguing for and against it can be a helpful thought exercise, it's depressing how often I see it simply stated in indignation.

Not at all. Taxation isn't robbery at all. The tax system one of the institutions that makes it possible to create great enterprises in the first place.

Seems like Elon Musk is a "good" billionaire for instance. The people who want to get rid of billionaires don't seem very well informed and use it as some kind of catch-all to explain where all their issues come from. It's very much disconnected from reality.

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