this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
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The issue I'd take with that is that it's hardly any more or less "luck" than any other billionaire.
There's less than 3000 billionaires in the world. It's not like the other 2999 were wildly more qualified and had the perfect strategy that inevitably and directly led to their billionaire status.
And while he did become a billionaire by selling to Microsoft, he would have even without that most likely. The game has sold enough copies that it would have made him a billionaire, even without the sale to Microsoft.
And I think it's unfair, even if that wasn't the case, to lay the sins of the buyer at the feet of the seller, when the seller isn't otherwise doing anything wrong. It's basically the "no ethical consumption under capitalism" thing. There is no one he could sell to that wouldn't be "unethical", and therefore he'd be morally obligated to never sell it to anyone. He's as "morally corrupt" for that as any of us are when we shop at a grocery store or buy/rent housing.
And I said it elsewhere, I am in no way arguing against him being appropriately taxed on this income (or potentially standing wealth). I simply push back on the idea that billionaires can only become such by being morally bankrupt exploiters who stomp on the heads of millions of the proletariat to get where they are.
Are there some like that? Absolutely. Is it the vast majority? Depends on how you define "stomping on the heads of the proletariat," but it's probably a good chunk at minimum. But the only requirement is luck. Not cruelty or exploitation.
I'm all for progression tax structures. I'm all for taxing the rich. But statements like "all billionaires got their money by exploiting the poor" makes one look, at best, uncritical of your own positions. It's counterfactual name calling of the out-tribe, the same as calling everyone you disagree with a Nazi.
Every billionaire are where they are at by being at least somewhat lucky. In a lot of cases they are simply lucky enough to be born to the right family. Some have worked to get where they are, but its not just hard work or effort that got them there.
And I would argue that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and I would also argue that that is the case for just about any other societal system as well. After all, none of us can live without being a burden or hurting others at some point. That's life. Its also more or less the concept of "original sin" that Christians go on about. Its fine to acknowledge that and only by doing so can society at large takes steps to reduce systematic harm where we can.
That being said, billionaires, by having more capital, have more power and influence under capitalism, so it can be argued that they get a larger part of the blame for systematic issues, especially as many of them do utilize their power to maintain the status quo or push for more harmful systematic policies. And the ones that aren't actively pushing such policies are still benefiting from such policies. And they could donate their fortunes to charitable causes, but in my opinion that's not something that we should have to rely on them doing and does nothing to solve the systematic issues at play.
At the end of the day, it's its not as if its a black and white issue, but the statement that no one "earned" a billion dollars is largely true in the sense that if you work hard or put in the effort, you can make it. Even in Notch's case, if he didn't decide to sale to Microsoft, maybe he might still be a billionaire today, but would he have earned it himself? Its not like he was the only one working on the game even when he sold the company. I'm not sure what the compensation the others working at Mojang got, but if he continued to independently develop Minecraft, getting to 300 million sales requires significant development effort between porting the game to various platforms and ongoing content updates. If he ended up getting the majority of the payout, then he would have very likely did it at the disproportionately at the expense of other's effort.
A billion dollars is a lot of money. Like a lot of money. I don't necessary think its wrong to have the opinion that billionaires shouldn't exist. At least in the system we have today. Now, I'd say that its the system that's the problem, not necessary any individual billionaire, but if they get to wieild the power that comes with their fortune, then its fair to have more blame for it as well.
I don't disagree with a single thing you have just said, nor have I. But then, based on all that, would you agree then that the sentence "[A billion dollars] can only be stolen and exploited from other peoples' labor" is counterfactual?
Because that's the only point I'm making. I'm with you on the additional social responsibility that should be encumbant upon billionaires. I'm with you on fixing systematic issues that allow them to exist.
My one and only point for this whole thread is that you can be a billionaire without "stealing and exploiting other people's labor."
I think what we are getting to is the semantics of it. Theoretically, it should be possible to be a billionaire without stealing and exploitation. I think that in reality though, a billion dollars is so much money that's its hard to see how a single person can amass that much wealth without being exploitative, intentionally or not. Even if you were given that much money, holding onto it would require investing into a system that is rife with exploitation.
I'll admit that I'm by no means an expert on billionaires and there might exist some that made their fortune without exploitation. And I'm including indirect exploitation here. Maybe that's another point of semantics, but its one that I feel very much matters in this context.
I don't think this is semantic though. The initial post said that "Nobody earns a billion dollars. It can only be stolen and exploited from other peoples' labor."
That statement does not read as "they were at least involved indirectly in some behavior at some point in their life that was in some way unethical." It is purporting a direct relationship between their achieving a billion dollars and an active exploitation of others direct labor. That is why I pushed back against it.
And here is my issue with including indirect exploitation in the consideration. It vastly waters down culpability. A billionaire is just as guilty of indirect exploitation as you or me or the Pope. There is literally no action at all that one can take that I couldn't make some argument for being a form of indirect exploitation. So when you say that billionaires are exploitative for indirect exploitation reasons, it seems churlish. It loses all meaning because it's basically tautologically true. Why should I care about it if the person telling me that the billionaire is exploiting people is actively and continuously engaging in the exact same type of exploitation?
Because a billionaire isn't "just as guilty" in an exploitative system. They are more guilty because they benefit more and they have more power due to their capital. If you can't see that, then I guess we won't ever agree.
Do you have a job? If so, you should know how hard it is to earn money. The level of effort required to even get minimum wage is usually astounding. And maybe you went to school and learned to do more skilled jobs, so you don't have to work as hard as a minimum wage laborer. Maybe you can justify it as being smarter or more skilled and that's fine. But do you think someone that "earned" a billion dollars actually worked ten thousand times harder than someone who earns 100k. Or a thousand times harder than someone that earned a million dollars. Or are that much smarter or more skilled?
In your original example, you talk about how and individual could make a game that could get 300 million in sales while ignoring that vast amount of effort it realistically takes to do so. Way more effort than a single individual person can do. Getting to those kinds of sales would take the effort of many people, so if a single person benefits more than the others involved in that effort, then they did so by exploitation of their labor.
But if becoming a billionaire is truly just luck, then what are they to do? If I gave you a billion dollars right now, out of the blue, no strings attached, are you now morally bankrupt because you're a billionaire?
What if you leverage your power and capital to affect positive change (like Bill Gates for instance)? Do you still deserve the guillotine?
If you bankrupt yourself by giving every American a one time 4 dollar payout ($4 ร 300mil Americans), are you now clean, or did you waste your chance to make a meaningful difference with your power and capital?
What exactly would you have to see Notch do now or have done in the past to make him not the villain in this narrative? What can he or could he have done to be morally in the right?
I'm not calling to break out the guillotine. Just the acknowledgment that the system is flawed and support initiatives to minimize exploitation and pay their labor fairly where they can. At the very least stop using their capital to support initiatives that only support growing their own capital at the expense of others.
But we're talking about this in the context of a thread that started with the claim that all billionaires are morally bankrupt (paraphrasing).
I agree with you that the system is flawed, but if the stance you're taking is that there is literally no set of actions before or after becoming a billionaire that someone could take that makes them not morally bankrupt, then maybe the initial position is flawed at best and useless at worst?
Not to repeat myself again, but I agree that labor should be fairly compensated and that systems need to be fixed to reduce inequality, and I am in no way shape or form stating otherwise. I feel like this conversation keeps going in loops, where I say that it's self defeating to state falsehoods in defense of advocating for systemic change, and you countering with "but there needs to be systemic changes!"
We're on the same page in that regard. I have exactly one point, and it's that if we agree that the statement that all billionaires are necessarily morally bankrupt is false, then we should stop using it to support our advocacy, as it is merely an additional reason to dismiss said advocacy.
The claim was that billionaires shouldn't exist and that to get that amount of money requires exploitation. You are the one taking that to mean that they are automatically morally bankrupt. I have broken down my more nuanced take that you seem to mostly agree on, so I guess I'm not sure why you are continuing to push on this one point. No one has called for actually punishing billionaires for this in this specific comment chain; I know that opinion is all over elsewhere, but that's not relevant to what we have been discussing.
Personally speaking, I'm doing okay under the current system, I recognize where my labor is and has been exploited and am lucky enough myself to get by with what leverage I have. But I recognize that I'm just one bad accident from losing my livelihood and not being able to provide for me and my family. And if the wealth gap continues growing, then billionaires, or the owning capital class in general, should be worried about violence against them. And if that day comes, I for sure ain't sticking my neck out for some fucking billionaire.
At the end of the day, we can disagree on messaging, but I'll leave that to proper organizations to get the message right and try to support them when I see them to hopefully turn things around before it turns to violence. But we're not going to convince anyone here by just getting the perfect message for the masses.
You are right that we seem to be talking in circles, so I'm done here. Going to GI back to enjoying the rest of my weekend and I hope you have a good one.
Yeah, the only thing I'd push back on is why I keep harping on that one point. I think that's been the whole cycle here. I've been saying, "I think X," which has been responded to with a "here's a more nuanced and detailed TUVWYZ," to which I respond with, "yeah, I agree with you on all those letters, but I'm specifically talking about X." And then the loop goes around again. I'm "continuing to push this one point" because it was the point I opened with and the only one that mattered for the purposes of the discussion at hand.
But, all that said, I'm not too worked up about it, and I agree this has gone on longer than it probably should have. Not everyone needs to agree on everything, and I think this issue, while a pet peeve of mine, is ultimately small in the grand scheme of things.
Hope your weekend has continued well, and I'll get back to enjoying mine as well. :)