It's Basically Just Immoral to be Rich

[ashling]

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/03/its-basically-just-immoral-to-be-rich
A reminder that people who possess great wealth in a time of poverty are directly causing that poverty…

Here is a simple statement of principle that doesn’t get repeated enough: if you possess billions of dollars, in a world where many people struggle because they do not have much money, you are an immoral person. The same is true if you possess hundreds of millions of dollars, or even millions of dollars. Being extremely wealthy is impossible to justify in a world containing deprivation.

Even though there is a lot of public discussion about inequality, there seems to be far less talk about just how patently shameful it is to be rich. After all, there are plenty of people on this earth who die—or who watch their loved ones die—because they cannot afford to pay for medical care. There are elderly people who become homeless because they cannot afford rent. There are children living on streets and in cars, there are mothers who can’t afford diapers for their babies. All of this is beyond dispute. And all of it could be ameliorated if people who had lots of money simply gave those other people their money. It’s therefore deeply shameful to be rich. It’s not a morally defensible thing to be.

To take a U.S. example: white families in America have 16 times as much wealth on average as black families. This is indisputably because of slavery, which was very recent (there are people alive today who met people who were once slaves). Larry Ellison of Oracle could put his $55 billion in a fund that could be used to just give houses to black families, not quite as direct “reparations” but simply as a means of addressing the fact that the average white family has a house while the average black family does not. But instead of doing this, Larry Ellison bought the island of Lanai. (It’s kind of extraordinary that a single human being can just own the sixth-largest Hawaiian island, but that’s what concentrated wealth leads to.) Because every dollar you have is a dollar you’re not giving to somebody else, the decision to retain wealth is a decision to deprive others.

[NCTraveler]

1. .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028883577

[ashling]

2. Thanks

My computer moves so s l o w l y
that I often miss things

[NCTraveler]

3. I just posted so you could see the comments.

I think it is worthy of a second op.

[Nitram]

4. Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, where do you draw the line between well-off and rich?

If it is truly a moral issue, then the American middle class is obscenely wealthy by Third World standards. Personally I agree that no one should be allowed to have a billion dollars - any surplus above a certain amount should be used by the government to improve the lives of and provide opportunities for the poor. But how do we decide on that cutoff in a world context where thousands of people are slowly starving in the streets of large cities?

[ashling]

6. Depends

I'll let you know after I win the lottery


Seriously though,

you pose an interesting question, one for which I have no answer. It is a moral conundrum. The point made by the author that

every dollar you have is a dollar you’re not giving to somebody else,
the decision to retain wealth is a decision to deprive others.



Your point about the scale of misery in this veil of tears (as it were) is well made.

I can't help thinking of a line the movie A Knight's Tale where Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany) tells the squires the name of one of his works which they obviously have not heard of. Geoffrey say "well it was allegorical" to which Roland (Mark Addy) replies: "Well, we won't hold that against you, that's for every man to decide for himself. "

I guess What I'm saying is, I guess everybody has to decide for themselves

1) My masters paper in political science was entitled Gilded Again: Economic Inequality in the age of Extreme Wealth

2) I used as a resource for that paper a book entitled, The Moral Measure of the Economy by Chuck Collins & Mary Wright. It was an excellent book on social accountability.

3) Joe Biden, said, "show me your budget and I will tell you what your values are"

That's what life is all about, my friend : Morals, Values, and Social Accountability . . . there may be more to it than that, but whatever it is escapes me at this moment.

[LanternWaste]

9. I don't think a distinction of degrees rises to the platform of Devil's Advocacy

I don't think a distinction of degrees rises to the platform of Devil's Advocacy, which by its very nature takes exception to a premise rather than a detail.

Nitpicking seems a more accurate descriptor.

[SharonAnn]

5. It means that you've captured (taken) the value created by the labor of others.

While there is a differential of value created by different jobs, there is absolutely no one who creates a value of hundreds of millions of $ a year without taking it from those who created it. The value (wealth) is created by labor.

For example, one can own a lot of land or mineral resources, but it has no value unless someone actual "works it" to grow crops, mine it, pump it, etc.. One can even inherit a lot of capital $ but unless someone does something to "work it", it doesn't increase in value. it may not even maintain its original value. But put it in a bank, the bank loans it out to someone who "works it" buy starting a business, building a building, etc.

I know, this is a gross simplification, but you get the idea.

As Lincoln said "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Abraham Lincoln
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin395631.html

[Nitram]

7. Hasn't every American done that? Eat fast food, shop at Wal-Mart, eat food harvested by

migrant workers, wear clothes imported from China, India, Vietnam - wherever people work under inhuman conditions for a mere pittance. Everybody on DU probably uses technology that incorporates metals or minerals mined under exploitative conditions. No one is innocent.

[jmg257]

8. How much are we allowed to keep before we just suck?

[LanternWaste]

10. No doubt, a question we should often ask ourselves rather than only when presented

No doubt, a question we should often ask ourselves rather than only when presented to us. I imagine we all of us will have a most different and palatable public answer than we do if answering only to ourselves with sincerity and truth.

Pretty damned easy answer... as long as we're not trying to advertise too much cleverness by invoking the petulance of absolutism within simple hypotheses.

[jmg257]

12. Ha you'll have to explain that last bit...

[Rustyeye77]

11. Communism or muerte.

Comrade Fidel