Opinion of billionaires

[Cassius]

Are trouser braces really esoteric enough to provoke that reaction? As long as you're wearing a jacket they're not especially noticeable.

My experience would be no, though I'm informed that e.g. brown shoes are seen as Bad in finance - not a fact I'll ever have cause to worry about naturally - so Lord knows wrt some workplaces.

Basically the same scenario - generally speaking, if someone in an entry level position in financial services (or applying for one) wears braces it's assumed (often with good reason) that they've watched Wall Street too many times and think they're Real Life Gordon Gekko. Given that the whole point of being in an entry level position is to do the sh**tty jobs and not to draw negative attention to oneself, wearing braces is not advantageous (as with brown shoes, dodgy haircuts, pinstripes and the like). Now, whilst I wasn't around for when braces were in vogue, I do rather like the aesthetic they bring. On the other hand, I'd also like to present as narrow a target as possible, so I'll pack it in until such a time as I don't have to worry (as much) about how my sartorial choices are perceived.

Also on the jacket business, that is a fair point, but on the other hand offices can get pretty sweaty (especially if the cooling is poor/non existent or you're positioned in an awkward spot getting hit by the sun full blast), and jackets are pretty cumbersome things to sit/work in.

Ofc, this is just my personal experience and knowledge, but it is what it is.

[Vcrew192]

What exactly justifies someone earning a billion dollars, anyway? Unless you don't think economics has a moral component that isn't "I've got mine, now f-ck off." In which case, I really don't know what to say, other than some cliches about how the American Cult of Individualism that sanctifies private property rights as the highest moral good is utterly corrosive to society, makes Baby Jesus cry, etc.

if there was only so much "wealth" in the world and it was impossible to make more you'd have an excellent point.

Exactly. We have an entire generation of people who grew up being taught that the economy is a piece of pie that everybody takes from; the rich got more of the pie and poor got less. That's the most ignorant analysis of free market economics ever put forward.

The reason people are justified in being billionaires is that the capital they have accumulated is only a fraction of the capital that they have generated for other people not just through jobs but also basic consumerism.

Rich people don't just sit on their money. They hire contractors and construction workers to build them huge towers and mansions, pay factory workers to build them nice cars and yachts and airplanes. There are entire industries propped up only on Forbes 500 members.

When people here statistics like "the Forbes 500 total net worth dropped 8% last year" they think they somehow won the zero-sum game of the economy. In truth, we all lost.

[Devout Centrist]

George Soros will be our savior.

[RINO Tom]

Earning money is a consequence.  It's not an outcome that's predetermined by some justification committee.  So, it really doesn't matter if it's "justified" for someone to earn a billion dollars.  They earned it, and it's theirs now.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Of course, this poll merely asks our personal opinion of billionaires, not whether they are needed or whether we should seize their wealth for the benefit of the masses. Perhaps they are a sort of necessary yet noxious by-product of an efficient - a debatable point - but that doesn't mean I have to think they are anything but immoral wretches.

[parochial boy]

Private yachts and jets aren't good things though. Neither are mansions. Why should we be happy about people building them when they could be doing something else?

You might disagree, but I am sure that you can think of examples of spending and employment that make people worse off even if they improve our national standing on basic economic indicators.

To echo your words: We have an entire generation of people who grew up being taught that any increase to GDP is an objective good; that GDP is an objective measure of our collective success as a country; that the most important goal for any political leader should be increasing this number a few percentage points over the previous year. Never mind the environment, never mind social norms, never mind community, never mind human health, never mind human dignity, never mind that it's extremely difficult to understand what GDP actually means, particularly in a heavily financialized economy.

The point of this litany isn't to dismiss economics out of hand or to justify illiteracy or lack of curiosity. It's that we should care about things beyond economic growth, and that we should understand what economic growth actually comprises and whether that is something worthwhile. We have an array of values against which economic growth ought to be judged, and many of them we cannot coherently reduce to another number in an enormous cost-benefit analysis. You can't just say that GDP is growing or that jobs have been created and celebrate this as an achievement - we need to actually understand how life is changing.

Moreover, in certain respects there really is only so much wealth in the world - from non-renewable natural resources that exist on this planet in finite quantities (e.g. fossil fuels, heavy metals), to natural processes with a finite capacity (e.g. hydropower, the water cycle), to limitations of space (e.g. there is only so much coastline that we can develop).

The main impact of billionaires would appear to be that they hold back median income.

Of course, if someone's understanding of economics starts and ends with a supply-and-demand graph, you wind up with posts like vcrew's.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

No I don't. You just interpret any principled argument against the immoral behavior of the rich as if it was born out of personal hatred because you're incapable of comprehending the principles on which it's based.

Sorry, I tend to interpret responding to "Having lots of money doesn't magically make you evil" with "disgusting plutocrat shiller" as thinking all people with lots of money are evil. Claiming that isn't hatred or prejudice against a group is absurd.

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"I may make a million dollars and keep it all to my self, but this other guy makes a billion dollars that he keeps to himself"

Its still giving 0% of your money back to society. BTW, I'm pretty sure the absolutist perspective you follow doesn't like factoring mathematical relationships into anything.

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This statement is so laughable in so many ways that I don't know what else to say.

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Beautiful

[Antonio the Sixth]

You've been on here for almost a year. Learn to quote posts properly, for f**k's sake.

You're manifestly incapable of comprehending the premises of my argument, or else you wouldn't be rambling on about muh mathematical relationships when those have absolutely no relevance to my point.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

You seem to have trouble grasping the basic premise on which my moral premise is based. And yet, it's a very simple one: the right to property is not absolute. I am among those who believe that some degree of private property is beneficial to society (which I think sets me apart from our actual socialist posters), but I also believe that society has the right to set limits, both in what kinds of things can be owned and in how much wealth can be owned. By definition, everything that does not belong to an individual or group of individuals must belong to society as a whole. When you understand this premises, the answers to your questions should be self-evident.

They are net takers?  So you do admit it is possible for them to contribute, but for some reason, no matter what good they do, if they use that money to cure diseases or lift people out of poverty, this will always be less important to you than the fact that they had more money than you feel comfortable with them having?

The only way they can contribute is by giving back all the excess money that they cannot legitimately own and something more. Any profit gained through the investment of money that is not legitimately theirs (and, by virtue of exceeding a certain amount, it isn't legitimately theirs) means that they are net takers.

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Society. See above.

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That's, admittedly, a tougher question. I'm open to arguments as to what the appropriate limit is, as long as people recognize that such limit does exist. I'd say it's well below a billion, though.

Your position doesn't flow necessarily from a belief that private property is not absolute.  One can  imagine that some society might decide for whatever reason decide that it is in its best interest for some people to be able to accumulate a large amount of money.  But you are saying that you would find whether this would truly be in the interest of society to be an uninteresting question, merely on the basis of this idea that all property that exists or might exist is ultimately owned by society at large?  This baffles me.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Your position doesn't flow necessarily from a belief that private property is not absolute.  One can  imagine that some society might decide for whatever reason decide that it is in its best interest for some people to be able to accumulate a large amount of money.  But you are saying that you would find whether this would truly be in the interest of society to be an uninteresting question, merely on the basis of this idea that all property that exists or might exist is ultimately owned by society at large?  This baffles me.

All I'm saying is that I believe that the burden is on advocates of private property to argue why, in a given specific case, private property is morally legitimate and socially beneficial. I think that it is in most cases - it can easily be demonstrated that most people's ownership of most things is a net benefit for society. But that case is a lot harder to make when you're talking about people who own more than the GDP of several countries. In these cases, redistributing a large part of this wealth to the benefit of society as a whole strikes me as the self-evidently morally preferable option.

[TJ in Oregon]

I would argue that private property is a natural right but not an absolute one. It follows logically from natural law that if stealing is wrong, then there must be some sense in which material objects belong to a particular person or group. Thus there is a right to property. However, simply because something belong's to someone does not give them a free reign to do whatsoever they wish without regard for the sake of others. On an individual level, we should always ask whether our use of resources for individual pleasure is done with respect to the needs of others. As a society, it is right and proper for the government to levy taxes upon us to use for the operation of social institutions and for those in need. I believe this is best done via means tested welfare policies rather than universal society support to better respect the dignity of individuals to provide for themselves and instill a culture of personal responsibility rather than hedonism.

[Tartarus Sauce]

I refuse to characterize any group as good or bad solely based on their wealth.

This is the correct response. As for Democrats that reflexively consider them HPs, how is that any better than the demonizing Republican's have done with poor people?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I would argue that private property is a natural right but not an absolute one. It follows logically from natural law that if stealing is wrong, then there must be some sense in which material objects belong to a particular person or group. Thus there is a right to property. However, simply because something belong's to someone does not give them a free reign to do whatsoever they wish without regard for the sake of others. On an individual level, we should always ask whether our use of resources for individual pleasure is done with respect to the needs of others. As a society, it is right and proper for the government to levy taxes upon us to use for the operation of social institutions and for those in need. I believe this is best done via means tested welfare policies rather than universal society support to better respect the dignity of individuals to provide for themselves and instill a culture of personal responsibility rather than hedonism.

See, that's the problem right here. I think "natural law" is a preposterous notion that has no place in moral or political philosophy. The arguments for it are a product of the worst tendencies in Enlightenment thought (basically a clumsy attempt at replacing God with "nature" as the foundation of morality that I hope we can both agree is problematic, albeit we propose diametrically opposite alternatives to it) and simply don't withstand intellectual scrutiny.

[TJ in Oregon]

I would argue that private property is a natural right but not an absolute one. It follows logically from natural law that if stealing is wrong, then there must be some sense in which material objects belong to a particular person or group. Thus there is a right to property. However, simply because something belong's to someone does not give them a free reign to do whatsoever they wish without regard for the sake of others. On an individual level, we should always ask whether our use of resources for individual pleasure is done with respect to the needs of others. As a society, it is right and proper for the government to levy taxes upon us to use for the operation of social institutions and for those in need. I believe this is best done via means tested welfare policies rather than universal society support to better respect the dignity of individuals to provide for themselves and instill a culture of personal responsibility rather than hedonism.

See, that's the problem right here. I think "natural law" is a preposterous notion that has no place in moral or political philosophy. The arguments for it are a relic of the worst of Enlightenment thought (a clumsy attempt at replacing God with "nature" as the foundation of morality that I hope we can both agree is problematic, albeit we propose diametrically opposite alternatives to it) and simply don't withstand intellectual scrutiny.

I think we may mean totally different things when we refer to natural law. For one, natural law is a pre-enlightenment scholastic idea. By invoking it I do not mean a Hobbsian state of nature but the idea that humans have some intrinsic moral aspect to our own natures. In this classical sense, natural doesn't attempt to replace God with 'nature' but treats God (assuming you are using the classic definition of both) as the source of our nature. It isn't a replacement but a description of the law inscribed upon every human heart.

Generally the objection to natural law is that humans don't have natures.

[Devout Centrist]

I refuse to characterize any group as good or bad solely based on their wealth.

This is the correct response. As for Democrats that reflexively consider them HPs, how is that any better than the demonizing Republican's have done with poor people?

I mean, the left is leftist.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I would argue that private property is a natural right but not an absolute one. It follows logically from natural law that if stealing is wrong, then there must be some sense in which material objects belong to a particular person or group. Thus there is a right to property. However, simply because something belong's to someone does not give them a free reign to do whatsoever they wish without regard for the sake of others. On an individual level, we should always ask whether our use of resources for individual pleasure is done with respect to the needs of others. As a society, it is right and proper for the government to levy taxes upon us to use for the operation of social institutions and for those in need. I believe this is best done via means tested welfare policies rather than universal society support to better respect the dignity of individuals to provide for themselves and instill a culture of personal responsibility rather than hedonism.

See, that's the problem right here. I think "natural law" is a preposterous notion that has no place in moral or political philosophy. The arguments for it are a relic of the worst of Enlightenment thought (a clumsy attempt at replacing God with "nature" as the foundation of morality that I hope we can both agree is problematic, albeit we propose diametrically opposite alternatives to it) and simply don't withstand intellectual scrutiny.

I think we may mean totally different things when we refer to natural law. For one, natural law is a pre-enlightenment scholastic idea. By invoking it I do not mean a Hobbsian state of nature but the idea that humans have some intrinsic moral aspect to our own natures. In this classical sense, natural doesn't attempt to replace God with 'nature' but treats God (assuming you are using the classic definition of both) as the source of our nature. It isn't a replacement but a description of the law inscribed upon every human heart.

Generally the objection to natural law is that humans don't have natures.

I won't go as far as to say that humans don't have natures, because research does seem to suggest that certain aspects of our behaviors are genetically predisposed and it wouldn't help my case to deny that. I'll note that the vast majority of appeals to "human nature" are inappropriate and are most often used to justify patently immoral things, though.

My point, however, was that moral naturalism - the idea that moral principles can be deduced from empirical observation of natural phenomena - is an inherently absurd and dangerous philosophical idea. You can't deduce an "ought" from an "is". Even if it is true that humans have certain natural predispositions, nothing tells us which of those predispositions are moral and which aren't. So any appeal to "human nature" to justify a given moral principle (against theft in this case) is inherently fallacious.

[TJ in Oregon]

I won't go as far as to say that humans don't have natures, because research does seem to suggest that certain aspects of our behaviors are genetically predisposed and it wouldn't help my case to deny that. I'll note that the vast majority of appeals to "human nature" are inappropriate and are most often used to justify patently immoral things, though.

My point, however, was that moral naturalism - the idea that moral principles can be deduced from empirical observation of natural phenomena - is an inherently absurd and dangerous philosophical idea. You can't deduce an "ought" from an "is". Even if it is true that humans have certain natural predispositions, nothing tells us which of those predispositions are moral and which aren't. So any appeal to "human nature" to justify a given moral principle (against theft in this case) is inherently fallacious.

I still think we're talking past each other because we have a different understanding of what we mean when we say man has a nature.

The is/ought distinction of Hume takes for granted the non-existence of formal and final causality, when those things are precisely the content of the disagreement.

The classical understanding of natural law is that man's faithfulness to his nature (ie. the perfected form of man and man's own final causality) is morality. Specific descriptions of it are virtues. I do not mean to imply that man can look at the natural world, or economics, or something of that sort, and perform a statistical analysis of whether stealing leads to better or worse outcomes (what tells us whether they are better or worse?).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, yes, if you define human nature as the fulfillment of the purpose of our existence (whether this purpose be laid out by God or can be discovered through other means), then yes, this definition of human nature is one and the same with morality. But that's somewhat tautological, isn't it? If human nature is defined as human morality, then it doesn't really provide any clue in figuring out what is moral and what isn't, and we're back to square one. Either you are saying that "human nature" as most people define it (ie, the set of innate tendencies common to our species) that helps us figure out right and wrong, or you are merely claiming that "human nature" is human goodness, in which case we still have to find out what human goodness is.

BTW, the link you have put up in your post doesn't work.

[TJ in Oregon]

BTW, the link you have put up in your post doesn't work.

I fixed it.

Well, yes, if you define human nature as the fulfillment of the purpose of our existence (whether this purpose be laid out by God or can be discovered through other means), then yes, this definition of human nature is one and the same with morality. But that's somewhat tautological, isn't it? If human nature is defined as human morality, then it doesn't really provide any clue in figuring out what is moral and what isn't, and we're back to square one. Either you are saying that "human nature" as most people define it (ie, the set of innate tendencies common to our species) that helps us figure out right and wrong, or you are merely claiming that "human nature" is human goodness, in which case we still have to find out what human goodness is.

It is not tautalogical to say human goodness is adherence to human nature because it says:
1. Humans have a nature (defined as I have above) at all.
2. There is such a thing as goodness (which a lot of people disagree with).
3. Goodness is a thing's adherence to its nature (which seems obvious but is also a point people disagree with).

The above statement is an abstraction, a metaphysical formalism of sorts. It was not intended as a rigorous application to specific moral questions. Now, as it pertains to specific moral questions, one can start by considering the human life cycle, obvious teleology in it, our tendency to form clans, etc. as ways of shedding light on what our nature is. There are other even more obvious conclusions that can be drawn. For example, if something's goodness is its faithfulness to its nature, then lying is clearly bad. A lie is saying that which is not. Most of us probably agree that lying is wrong most of the time, but there are often consequentialist defenses made of lying. The original premise may seem like a truism, but it is actually different than a lot of the things people argue about today!

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm sorry if I have misrepresented your argument. I didn't mean to, although I maintain that the use of the word "nature" obfuscates more than it clarifies in this context. So let me try to summarize your argument as I understand it. If I'm mistaken on a point, please let me know.

1. You define human nature as the principle that leads human beings towards the realization of their final causality. In other words, you're using nature as a substitute for telos - the purpose for which human beings exist.
2. You claim that human goodness resides in adherence to human nature - which, again, can be taken as to mean fulfillment of the human telos.
3. You then argue that the content of this telos can be investigated from observing how human beings actually behave (to quote, "considering the human life cycle, obvious teleology in it, our tendency to form clans, etc. as ways of shedding light on what our nature is").

I disagree with 1 on semantic grounds that I hope are clear by now. I think using "nature" in this context only muddies the waters. I know there is a philosophical tradition that defines "nature" in this way, but I am willing to risk criticizing it.

2 is something I'm actually willing to agree. I do maintain that it is somewhat tautological, insofar as the only rigorous definition of good that I'm aware of is "that which ought to be", and by definition, everything that exists ought to fulfill the purpose for which it exists. Thus, to me, saying that human goodness resides in fulfilling the human telos is like saying that human goodness resides in human goodness. It might define goodness (which is a worthwhile endeavor in and of itself), but it doesn't characterize it.

Now, 3 is what I find preposterous. I don't believe that observing human tendencies and behaviors can tell us anything about what human goodness is. I think that "natural" human tendencies (many of which are not actually natural, but socially constructed) are as likely to lead humans away from their telos as towards it. That's actually a point where I doubt Christian theology would contradict me, given the role that the original sin plays in it. "Human nature", understood as innate tendencies within human being, is taken to be either partially or, in some theologies, totally depraved. Therefore, I just don't believe that observing them is a reliable way to ascertain what's right and what's wrong.

[bore]

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