If you live in a country that uses the term Gen Z, you're probably richer than most of the world.
Stop celebrating being rich as a virtue, because it's not, it's a vice.
Stop celebrating being rich as a virtue, because it's not, it's a vice.
"nobody needs" is a protest that doesn't matter to anyone except people interfering in other's personal business.
What nobody needs is a stranger telling them how much money they deserve to have and blaming all the ills of world on their success. Nobody needs that except people looking for power over others who have no personal or business interest in listening to them.
At a certain point, no, it really isn't. When a single individual has enough money to influence public policy where I live, I would definitely say that's too much money. It becomes my business when someone who votes with their dollars gets more votes than I do with my actual vote.
But I don't think you should get a say in someone else's income just because you think they earn to much. That's none of your business.
People who have the ability to move things tend to move more things. I don’t see this as explicitly wrong, but natural. On the other hand, efforts to give masses of people disproportionate political rights have led to more murder in the last century than any in civilized record. And I would include American imperialism in that judgment.
Yes, I am absolutely against unlimited free speech to the extent that it undermines democracy. I will say it explicitly here: no single, private citizen, whether as an individual or through some corporate proxy, whether that's some PAC or Amazon.com, should be able to influence public policy to the extent that they are able to today.
As for your straw man about my judgement being superior, I did not say that. I said that voting with ones dollars should not be more powerful than voting with one's votes. I believe in 1 person = 1 vote. So, in fact, I am claiming that my view on public policy is no better than someone with millions or billions of dollars.
But, what do I know? After all, I am actually_a_dog on the internet. ;-)
And I would wager that an individual who requires transacting in foreign markets as an effect of their properties will have more information and therefore more determination than yourself, a dog who has no concept of civilized record. :P Thus I do not find it abysmal that such individuals have more representation in the determination of public policy. I in fact have stipulated that blind dogmatism of democracy is actually harmful - which the American Republic was cognizant of.
(As to the point of how such personas with the need to be political to preserve their wealth and how it effects your locality, I am an advocate of laissez-faire whereby oligarch penetration in human communities is not possible because federal legislation was never intended to regulate neighborhoods.)
Most good fortune in the world comes down to luck and help of literally everyone else. Not wanting to share that wealth comes down to pure greed, ego, and ignorance.
Veritasium – Is Success Luck or Hard Work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I
And do you consider yourself lucky or unlucky in life? Your handle suggests the latter.
I can attest I do not wish to share my wealth with those who are cynics ;) does that make me a bad human? Does it make me a bad human that I choose to cultivate myself further, exacting greater human flourishing in the process? Am I lucky to do so, or am I determined to do so? And how is society not benefiting from my greater efforts at being human, which necessarily implicates more integration with my fellow race?
In this context, that's an interesting typo.
I don't know about you, but I need more than -10 million dollars.
Also, in a longer, more interesting form: https://courses.aynrand.org/works/the-meaning-of-money/
Yep, a toddler who was born into an aristocratic family has provided more value to society than any public school teacher ever has.
And the public school teacher is not paid a market value by definition.
Also, you don't personally get to decide what has more value than something else, the market does (which is what you are doing with the implied statement that the public school teacher provides more value than the toddler's family)
* there are probably a handful of millionaire nurses out there
Edit: to be clear, I'm not arguing that the market doesn't reward people for providing economic value to the world. I just disagree that that's the type of value that's relevant when discussing whether someone is virtuous. If two people make the same amount of money selling vacuum cleaners, but one kicks an orphan every time they make a sale, I don't think many would say they're equally virtuous.
You can judge each action a person takes, and the intent behind it (I do think intent matters) and and apply the virtuous label to those on a case by case basis. If you do that, it may well be that in aggregate one person could be more virtuous than the other - but in either case there could be some mistakes that a person makes. I think black-and-whiting the issue makes it needlessly polarized.
So that being said, 'contributing to society' is a very complicated topic. Everything is so inter-linked that you can make anything look good/bad depending on the framing.
I don't necessarily agree that by simply accepting a job as a nurse you are contributing more than a millionaire trading crypto. After all most people have their 401k invested in stocks and such. So it may very well be that someone who is day-trading may be growing the nurses 401k - (for example). Again, its just a thought - and like I said the framing can make anyone look good/bad. Wouldn't you agree?