Should billionaires exist? 「Yes or No」

[Shin-Mutsu]

But anyone can dig a ditch. Thus, because most people can fulfill that job, they do not receive as much pay as someone with more specialized skills or knowledge, because ditch-digging is something most anyone can do, but engineering requires specialized knowledge. Engineering is just as important as the ditch-digger, if not more so, because they design the infrastructure we all use and depend upon, and they have specialized knowledge, so they are paid more, because while anyone can be a ditch digger, you can't expect an average Joe to succeed at engineering.

Actually I expect that most people could become competent engineers, but that's beside the point. The point is that certain jobs are denigrated as unskilled so as to justify underpaying them, not because they don't involve utilising any skills. Calling certain jobs unskilled is a lie, a lie now so ubiquitous that there probably aren't any people telling it maliciously, almost everyone has fallen for it and now repeats it, sincerely believing it to be true.

Exactly. Just because some jobs require arguably less skill than others doesn't mean they should be underpaid, or people working them belong under the poverty line.

[Kubra]

How unfortunate.


Those are both quite obviously skills, but I suppose that it follows that one would have to contrive a nonsense meaning of the word "skill" so as to justify categorising some workers as unskilled.

Ok then "marketable skill". Better? Flipping hamburgers is not a marketable skill because anyone can do it, but not everyone is skilled at critical thinking and analysis or say, understanding nuclear physics, and the people who are capable of those things have marketable skills that earn them more pay. because their skills are in demand but in short supply.

>critical thinking and analysis
>Marketable skills
Lol
I'm getting throwbacks to 2008, when all the humanities grads hit rock bottom, and one of em ended up getting burned alive in one of the silliest workfare programs the army has ever come out with.

[HIreland]

Skilled labor is worth more than unskilled labor because it requires the investment of a lot of labor to learn the skill, so the higher value of skilled labor is the worker earning back his investment of having learned the skill. If there was no benefit to learning a skill, why would anyone be motivated to do so?

And this has to do with billionaires how?

I wasn't the one who dragged the conversation to this topic, but if I had to venture a guess someone must have defended billionaires by saying they provided a valuable service and had thus earned their wealth and then this point was attacked with a claim that all forms of labor are equally valuable and should be payed the same. You'd really have to read through the thread to find out how we got here, this debate has gone all over the place.

[Kubra]

Also, in any case, the dialogue of "some skills ought to be paid better" seems to be one of micro being applied to macro, as if there are skills to justify having the virtual fiefdom that extreme wealth may give.

[Ifreann]

Skilled labor is worth more than unskilled labor because it requires the investment of a lot of labor to learn the skill, so the higher value of skilled labor is the worker earning back his investment of having learned the skill. If there was no benefit to learning a skill, why would anyone be motivated to do so?

Are you aware that many people put a great deal of time and effort into learning skills that they never monetise? Lots of people, for example, learn how to play a musical instrument, just for the pleasure of playing it, just because they feel like their life is enriched by having that skill, and they never intend to pursue a musical career. So the idea that people would never learn a particular skill unless there was a financial reward for doing so is refuted just by looking at the world around us.

[Shin-Mutsu]

And this has to do with billionaires how?

I wasn't the one who dragged the conversation to this topic, but if I had to venture a guess someone must have defended billionaires by saying they provided a valuable service and had thus earned their wealth and then this point was attacked with a claim that all forms of labor are equally valuable and should be payed the same. You'd really have to read through the thread to find out how we got here, this debate has gone all over the place.

Well, we can certainly say that billionaires labour is not a hundred thousand times more valuable than the average worker.

[Kubra]

Skilled labor is worth more than unskilled labor because it requires the investment of a lot of labor to learn the skill, so the higher value of skilled labor is the worker earning back his investment of having learned the skill. If there was no benefit to learning a skill, why would anyone be motivated to do so?

Are you aware that many people put a great deal of time and effort into learning skills that they never monetise? Lots of people, for example, learn how to play a musical instrument, just for the pleasure of playing it, just because they feel like their life is enriched by having that skill, and they never intend to pursue a musical career. So the idea that people would never learn a particular skill unless there was a financial reward for doing so is refuted just by looking at the world around us.

plenty of people read Wittgenstein, only to find themselves now less employable in continental European academia and in a far too competitive market outside of it.

[Ifreann]

Are you aware that many people put a great deal of time and effort into learning skills that they never monetise? Lots of people, for example, learn how to play a musical instrument, just for the pleasure of playing it, just because they feel like their life is enriched by having that skill, and they never intend to pursue a musical career. So the idea that people would never learn a particular skill unless there was a financial reward for doing so is refuted just by looking at the world around us.

plenty of people read Wittgenstein, only to find themselves now less employable in continental European academia and in a far too competitive market outside of it.

And let that be a lesson to us all to never read.

[HIreland]

Skilled labor is worth more than unskilled labor because it requires the investment of a lot of labor to learn the skill, so the higher value of skilled labor is the worker earning back his investment of having learned the skill. If there was no benefit to learning a skill, why would anyone be motivated to do so?

Are you aware that many people put a great deal of time and effort into learning skills that they never monetise? Lots of people, for example, learn how to play a musical instrument, just for the pleasure of playing it, just because they feel like their life is enriched by having that skill, and they never intend to pursue a musical career. So the idea that people would never learn a particular skill unless there was a financial reward for doing so is refuted just by looking at the world around us.

Sure many people are self-motivated, but it is not a significant enough number and to a significant enough degree to support a society. A few people will decide to become engineers because they love engineering at no benefit to themselves, but nowhere near enough. And as I said, learning a skill is a form of labor, should they not be rewarded for it?

[Kubra]

plenty of people read Wittgenstein, only to find themselves now less employable in continental European academia and in a far too competitive market outside of it.

And let that be a lesson to us all to never read.

oh no, you *should* read rich Dad poor Dad, then organise paid-for seminars for gullible rubes. That is far more valuable than philosophy, insofar as value is something that is paid for.

[Kubra]

Are you aware that many people put a great deal of time and effort into learning skills that they never monetise? Lots of people, for example, learn how to play a musical instrument, just for the pleasure of playing it, just because they feel like their life is enriched by having that skill, and they never intend to pursue a musical career. So the idea that people would never learn a particular skill unless there was a financial reward for doing so is refuted just by looking at the world around us.

Sure many people are self-motivated, but it is not a significant enough number and to a significant enough degree to support a society. A few people will decide to become engineers because they love engineering at no benefit to themselves, but nowhere near enough. And as I said, learning a skill is a form of labor, should they not be rewarded for it?

anyone ever notice how these arguments always involve the party of value disparity placing engineers on a pedestal? Never doctors, never defense consultants, never public servants, it's always engineers.

[Ifreann]

Are you aware that many people put a great deal of time and effort into learning skills that they never monetise? Lots of people, for example, learn how to play a musical instrument, just for the pleasure of playing it, just because they feel like their life is enriched by having that skill, and they never intend to pursue a musical career. So the idea that people would never learn a particular skill unless there was a financial reward for doing so is refuted just by looking at the world around us.

Sure many people are self-motivated, but it is not a significant enough number and to a significant enough degree to support a society. A few people will decide to become engineers because they love engineering at no benefit to themselves, but nowhere near enough. And as I said, learning a skill is a form of labor, should they not be rewarded for it?

I have no objection to engineers being rewarded for their labour in an economic context in which money is required for one to live. I'm just saying that money isn't necessarily the only thing that motivates people, so if we didn't have that whole thing where people need money to live, we could still get enough engineers to keep everything from literally falling apart.

[HIreland]

Sure many people are self-motivated, but it is not a significant enough number and to a significant enough degree to support a society. A few people will decide to become engineers because they love engineering at no benefit to themselves, but nowhere near enough. And as I said, learning a skill is a form of labor, should they not be rewarded for it?

I have no objection to engineers being rewarded for their labour in an economic context in which money is required for one to live. I'm just saying that money isn't necessarily the only thing that motivates people, so if we didn't have that whole thing where people need money to live, we could still get enough engineers to keep everything from literally falling apart.

People have other motivations that lie outside of market influence, sure, but these motivations are small, unpredictable, and not in any way aligned with where society needs them to be. Some people chose to kill themselves, but that doesn't mean you can dissolve your army and count on your enemies to all commit suicide. (Unless this "suicide" is the two-bullets to the back of the head kind that communist countries are famous for.) You have to provide additional incentives to net enough people into each career, such as the market does with higher pay for more critical workers.

[Atheris]

As long as the poor and middle class still get good lives, I don't see why not.

[Page]

As long as the poor and middle class still get good lives, I don't see why not.

That is impossible while billionaires exist.

[Old Tyrannia]

No, I don't think it's moral to amass that much money. I think that you can have millions or even tens of millions of pounds or dollars and still be reasonably good person, for a given value of "good," but beyond that there is absolutely no reason why you should hold on to that much wealth.

[Post War America]

Short answer: No

Long answer: There is no way on earth somebody becomes a billionaire through the sweat of their own brow. Exploitation of the labor of thousands of other people, at a minimum is necessary. Therefore the resources given to one person ought to be redistributed to ensure the good of all, by force if necessary.

[Ausbel]

If anyone was actually doing that, I'd call for a law against it. Body fluids on the currency, very bad for the covid!

Puts a new meaning on the phrase "bang for your buck".

Damn that 100 dollar bill do be looking sexy though

[Shin-Mutsu]

No, I don't think it's moral to amass that much money. I think that you can have millions or even tens of millions of pounds or dollars and still be reasonably good person, for a given value of "good," but beyond that there is absolutely no reason why you should hold on to that much wealth.

I'm curious, would part of your reasoning be similar to this argument?

If you are spending time with your family, you have time that should be spent working.

In fact, you don't need a family. And that silly church you go to on Sundays? Unnecessary. Your job is your God, and you will work for him day and night.

Hyper-Capitalism is literally the antithesis to traditional values and it's hilarious for people to try claiming they support both.

[Old Tyrannia]

No, I don't think it's moral to amass that much money. I think that you can have millions or even tens of millions of pounds or dollars and still be reasonably good person, for a given value of "good," but beyond that there is absolutely no reason why you should hold on to that much wealth.

I'm curious, would part of your reasoning be similar to this argument?

If you are spending time with your family, you have time that should be spent working.

In fact, you don't need a family. And that silly church you go to on Sundays? Unnecessary. Your job is your God, and you will work for him day and night.

Hyper-Capitalism is literally the antithesis to traditional values and it's hilarious for people to try claiming they support both.

I don't necessarily disagree with Kanadorika's points, at least not entirely, but that's not what I was getting at with my first post. My point was quite simply that you're an immoral person if you have that much wealth at your disposal and you don't give most of it away to charitable causes.

[The Blaatschapen]

The majority of people in the US under the poverty line are working multiple jobs or overtime. Your point? "Work even harder?"

If you are spending time with your family, you have time that should be spent working.

In fact, you don't need a family. And that silly church you go to on Sundays? Unnecessary. Your job is your God, and you will work for him day and night.

Hyper-Capitalism is literally the antithesis to traditional values and it's hilarious for people to try claiming they support both.

Interestlingly enough, there is 0 billionaires who get their wealth all by themselves. All had people working for them, and thus profiting from the labour of fellow human beings. So it's not work that makes one crazily rich, it is having other people working for them.

[Senkaku]

I think a hundred million dollars is more than enough for a human being. Anyone can realize pretty much all of their desires with that much money. Have people max out there, and the money they make after that can be put to better use serving the public, whether it's building a new train line or public art or a nuclear power station or public housing or anything else.

[Claorica]

No, but I don't necessarily think the government should put a hard cap on their earnings or obliterate them for existence: for one I shudder to think what the government would do with such an influx of money - be it another mislead attempt at helping people by a program that wastes most of its cost on overhead or giving people money that immediately goes to drugs or alcohol or another terrifying weapon that we don't actually need that will be used either to try and scare Russia and China not into doing something they already have no reason to do or to murder brown people in the desert for some rich dude's interests or some idiot in DoD's long-term game plan; For two, that money should be disseminated through actual charity and through development, or through ethical business practices to actually better the human race, especially the communities and countries that these successful businessmen work in. Henry Ford created the standards by which we currently measure how workers are treated, Vanderbilt founded a university, Carnegie gave most of his fortune to a variety of causes, and the Rockefellers backed the Arts.

[Kowani]

No, but I don't necessarily think the government should put a hard cap on their earnings or obliterate them for existence: for one I shudder to think what the government would do with such an influx of money - be it another mislead attempt at helping people by a program that wastes most of its cost on overhead or giving people money that immediately goes to drugs or alcohol or another terrifying weapon that we don't actually need that will be used either to try and scare Russia and China not into doing something they already have no reason to do or to murder brown people in the desert for some rich dude's interests or some idiot in DoD's long-term game plan; For two, that money should be disseminated through actual charity and through development, or through ethical business practices to actually better the human race, especially the communities and countries that these successful businessmen work in. Henry Ford created the standards by which we currently measure how workers are treated, Vanderbilt founded a university, Carnegie gave most of his fortune to a variety of causes, and the Rockefellers backed the Arts.

If you wanted to defend business ethics, you should not have picked Gilded Age tycoons who are the poster children of "charity for PR to cover up my horrible abuses"

[Jupiter and its moons]

as long as they pay taxes and a living wage to their workers. otherwise they ought to have their wealth taken from them and redistributed among their workers.