There is not proof that it did happen either. And absent a proof either way, this country has long ago decided to function on the presumption of innocence. Maybe you think it's a good idea to change that?
Next time you should be clearer in your statements. What exactly is “it” here? In the context where you are answering my comment about the alleged wealth extraction, “it” can only mean wealth extraction
Now you are saying it means wealth concentration. That’s moving the goalposts.
But in a country like the US, people can become wealthy without wealth extraction. Michael Jordan is a billionaire. Tom Brady is not yet, but he will become one at some point. Are they guilty of wealth extraction?
Robert Langer, the MIT professor and one of the Moderna cofounder, is also a billionaire. I got a Moderna shot, did Robert Langer "extract" wealth from me?
> And if anybody, billionaire or otherwise, believes a capitalist free market system allocates resources/wealth perfectly correctly to those who provide the most value and deserve it the most, then they are wrong,
You are saying, those who are naive are wrong.
But that goes against one of the most important principles of the US and Western word (and hopefully a principle for the rest of the world too): the presumption of innocence. I choose to subscribe to this principle.
If Bezos extracted wealth from his position, then I'd like to see him being prosecuted for that, I'd like to see a court of law decide that he is guilty, and to see that he gets his just punishment.
Gates went through that. It was determined that Microsoft abused their monopoly power, in a court of law.
Various states and the Federal DoJ have started working on a case against Google and some other Big Techs that they are violating the anti-trust laws. If it turns out to be so, let them be punished.
What you are advocating is instead a declaration of the impotence of the justice system. Lot of people are becoming rich by being bad, there's nothing we can do about that, so let's pass some laws to take them down from their pedestals.
There are a few things wrong with this. One is that you implicitly renounce the principle of the presumption of innocence. The second is that you are treating an effect rather than the cause. The third is that you'll hurt innocents in the way (like Michael Jordan or Tom Brady).
But the most important is that you subscribe to a message of hate. Bernie Sandert's "hate the rich" message is not that different from Trump's "hate the immigrants" (which is the true meaning of "MAGA") message.
Hate is a very cheap way to get votes. And hate begets hate.
Try “opposition to Marxism”.