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Comment by abhayhegde | Hacker News Reader

This whole comment is an unhealthy take.

> Would the world really be any different if executives were paid $4 million instead of $4 billion?

Definitely! You're asking if worsening wealth inequality hurts anything. This greed and unfair compensation is the entire reason why vasts of people suffer through life while ridiculously few get to have control over theirs. I mean that on one hand you have people who can't afford housing and food, and the other can't meaningfully spend whatever they are bestowed with.

> How would the world be a better place if we stripped executives of their wealth?

Would a redistribution of that wealth imply better living standards for everyone?

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> Would a redistribution of that wealth imply better living standards for everyone?

No.

> I mean on one hand you have people who can't afford housing and food, and the other can't meaningfully spend whatever they are bestowed with.

The fabulously wealthy aren't spending their billions on consumption.

You're mistaking wealth and captial for money.

> > Would a redistribution of that wealth imply better living standards for everyone?

> No.

Why not?

> The fabulously wealthy aren't spending their billions on consumption.

Naturally not, that would be impractical. However, their immense wealth affords them immense power in society and that is of concern.

> You're mistaking wealth and captial for money.

I see this repeated very often by people defending the ultra rich and never understood why they think it was a good reply. Especially in this case, as their point was some people barely scrape by while others have so much money it’s more than they can reasonably spend. Nothing they said indicated they were confused about the difference between money and wealth.

> The fabulously wealthy aren't spending their billions on consumption.

True. They don't have to. They can and they would if it came to it.

> You're mistaking wealth and capital for money.

Neither. I'm saying they hold an insane amount of power over society. Also, nobody has to own so much money. There will be lenders begging you take their money if you're powerful enough.

>> How would the world be a better place if we stripped executives of their wealth?

>Would a redistribution of that wealth imply better living standards for everyone?

Basically no. This is the misconception about wealth inequality in general.

Living standards are more about goods and services produced, not numbers in a bank account. The wealthy consume more, but not proportional to their wealth. most of their wealth isn't used for consumption at all.

Elon Musk must doesn't eat 100 cattle a day, have 1,000 personal doctors, or live in 1 million different houses.

If you took all of Elon's wealth, sold it off and redistributed it (assuming this is even possible), you would just see more expensive burgers, more expensive doctors, and higher cost of rent.

This is because Elon isn't using up all the resources. He just has a higher number in a computer somewhere.

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