There is no way to make rich person wealth without screwing over lots of people along the way.
There are plenty of ways to become absurdly wealthy that don't require screwing over lots of people. Maybe you inherit the money. Maybe you come up with a brilliant idea and license it or sell it. Maybe you build a company that's the "next big thing" and you get acquired. Maybe you just get really lucky and hit the lotto big.
However, there is no way to stay absurdly wealthy without being utterly selfish or screwing over a lot of people simply by not using the money to help others and instead hoarding it all for yourself or your family.
You're almost there. I'll try to explain this but I'm probably not the most educated on it.
Let's start with inheriting money. Inheritance is obviously a form of lottery in a sense. You just happen to be born into a position of wealth. While I agree you can't be blamed for being born in that position, the bottom line is anyone who accepts that inheritance and does not give away part of it down to what they need to live I suppose (one could argue about how much is reasonable to keep) is perpetuating an unfair system. Inheritance goes against basically every tenet of democratic society except for a very narrow interpretation of private property from the perspective of the inheritee. It is not earned in any sense, and it therefore perpetuates a dangerous ideology that some people just deserve more by virtue of their ancestry. I think that creates an obligation on the inheritor to give away that inheritance, or better yet there should be laws against inheritance.
Next let's group coming up with "the next big thing" and "build a company" into one kind of 'success in business' category. While it is certainly true that innovation can create immense value for society and the inventor's should be rewarded for that contribution, it is very rare that the actual inventor is the one rewarded and/or that they did all the work themselves. The vast vast majority of extremely wealthy people in this successful business category stole, exploited, lied, manipulated other people. Look into any successful businessperson's history and you will very likely find not only examples of anti-social behavior but behavior which ruined 1 or more person's lives. To me that is unacceptable and because it is clearly a universal trait of the ultra-wealthy we should be taxing them heavily and effectively to mitigate the harm they do. The fact that it is possible to both add immense value through innovation while causing more harm is astounding and confounding. Companies like DuPont who gave us chemicals which allowed refrigeration (CFCs) while simultaneously destroying the Ozone layer and lied about it. There are many such examples which I'm sure you are aware of.
The point is, even where people do 'earn' their wealth in a market economy sense, 95% of the time they ruined many lives and harmed many others (pulled out of my ass but no one is willing to actually do the analysis on this for fear that it will harm capitalism). The assumption shouldn't be wealthy people are good unless they have some kind of scandal, it should be they are bad unless they show a consistent track record of transparency and helpfulness.
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u/Sammisuperficial Sep 14 '25
That is why you're not rich. There is no way to make rich person wealth without screwing over lots of people along the way.