I think “Is it morally appropriate for anyone to be a billionaire?” is an absurd question. Morality and wealth are independent of each other. One can become a billionaire while being very moral or very immoral, and one can become broke while being very moral or very immoral. https://twitter.com/DanRiffle/status/1087434606763298817 …
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Replying to @lpolovets
The interesting question should be reframed as “What limits does a just society impose on wealth concentration?” Justice applies to society as morality does to individuals. There may be no moral wrong in how a particular individual’s wealth was acquired, yet it’s not just.
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Replying to @lpolovets
A few independent but reinforcing points that come into play:
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Replying to @paul_arnold @lpolovets
1. We are a community. When a (very) rich man benefits from the community he came up and participates in—the culture, the state, the public resources, the direct support of others—but his gains accrue only to himself, it's fair to ask if that's just.
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Replying to @paul_arnold
Gains don't only accrue to the rich. They (generally) only get rich by creating far more value than they capture.
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Replying to @lpolovets @paul_arnold
What evidence makes you believe this?
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Replying to @nbashaw @paul_arnold
A few categories of wealth: - inherited (key is how your predecessors made their money) - well-gotten (you create value, capture some of that value) - ill-gotten (you extract more value from others than you provide to them) Anecdotally ill-gotten feels rare: mafia, theft, etc.
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Because most transactions are voluntary, people only transact when they think they're getting more than they're giving up. E.g. even with HF trading (low valuation creation), the counterparty thinks it's getting a good deal, otherwise it wouldn't transact.
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My friends, meet labor monopsony! (cc @noahpinion) https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-05/supply-and-demand-does-a-poor-job-of-explaining-depressed-wages …
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Replying to @kimmaicutler @nbashaw and
I'm not sure I get the implications of this article. Jobs are voluntary, and if one company underpays then others can pay more to compete? E.g. if I don't like being an Amzn warehouse worker, I can do that at Walmart, or become a truck driver, or etc.
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Replying to @lpolovets @kimmaicutler and
Presumably people are at a specific job because they think other jobs are worse, otherwise they would switch to better jobs over time. And a wage floor will make some jobs untenable, which feels like an economic inefficiency.
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