> Better than questioning the morality of looking into rich people's bank accounts, is the question of whether it is ethical for people to accumulate so much in the first place.
The economy is not a zero-sum game. Bezos has "accumulated" company stock by building the freaking company. He didn't stockpile food he took from someone's mouth. He created value, and got value in trade for it. That is not unethical.
I'm willing to debate whether it is ethical to be uncharitable if you have great means. But can we please dispense with the notion that merely being wealthy is wrong?
Nobody said being wealthy is wrong. It was stated the system is unethical that allows one to die on the street with nothing, and another to possess all, where enough is available for everybody.
We don't have to take food from somebody's mouth to prevent them from eating. In an economic system where you must have dollars to find food, you need only prevent them from getting enough money. And I'm not even saying Jeff Bezos does this. Nobody does it on purpose. It occurs naturally is our economic system, so we must determine whether it is ethical.
> The economy is not a zero-sum game...
it's also not a vacuum. The value of the dollars is nothing without a whole lot of other stuff going on. for instance: a 500B/yr standing military to protect the interests that keep those dollars valuable; a labor force that has been turned into a business commodity; the destruction of finite natural resources; the manipulation of the sovereignty of foreign peoples... it goes on.
Being obscenly wealthy is so obviously wrong that many aspiring 'american dream' (TM) candidates can't even conceive of alternatives.
While Jeff has undoubtedly worked hard and he is probably even above avarage smart, he is has NOT worked 100'000x as hard and is NOT 20x times smarter than the average Joe.
Currently once you are rich it gets even easier to get even more rich. It should be the opposite. There should be a headwind making it harder the richer you get.
It's fine that you disagree, but it rubs me the wrong way that you feel we should 'dispense with the notion'. Clearly the notion is one that a lot of people consider, at the very least, worth discussing. Implying that its ludicrous isn't much of an argument.
The economy is not a zero-sum game. Bezos has "accumulated" company stock by building the freaking company. He didn't stockpile food he took from someone's mouth. He created value, and got value in trade for it. That is not unethical.
I'm willing to debate whether it is ethical to be uncharitable if you have great means. But can we please dispense with the notion that merely being wealthy is wrong?