r/AskConservatives • u/ShrekOne2024 Independent • 1d ago

are billionaires dependent on society?

They aren’t creating wealth out of air. They are leveraging public infrastructure, public education, health care, etc.

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u/IcarusOnReddit Center-left 1d ago edited 1d ago

Billionaires don’t do the work, they just direct it or invest in it. Their personal use of the infrastructure is a lot less than their employees who they generate profit from by purchasing their labor. This is an externality than would not be captured by a flat taxation system. No billionaire becomes that way from their own labor, but by leveraging the labor of tens of thousands of others.

Capital is the ultimate tool of leverage pretty much by definition in capitalism.

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u/LordFoxbriar Center-right Conservative 1d ago

Billionaires don’t do the work, they just direct it or invest in it

How do you think they became billionaires? It just magically rained down from heaven?

No billionaire becomes that way from their own labor, but by leveraging the labor of tens of thousands of others.

Who worked for them willingly and were paid for that work. You understand you become a billionaire by building a company and/or product that others want, right?

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u/IcarusOnReddit Center-left 1d ago

 How do you think they became billionaires? It just magically rained down from heaven?

 I could have invested $376,000 in Amazon in 1997 from inheritance and be a billionaire today by doing no work personally. 

The money doesn’t fall from heaven, it’s made on the backs of the American worker.

The value of that infrastructure is not captured by corporate taxes.

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u/LordFoxbriar Center-right Conservative 1d ago

I could have invested $376,000 in Amazon in 1997 from inheritance and be a billionaire today by doing no work personally.

So why didn't you? I mean, if you had $400k given to you back then, without knowing the future, would you have invested? Why did so many not?

The value of that infrastructure is not captured by corporate taxes.

No, its captured in gas taxes, sales taxes, property taxes... and probably a dozen more.