Quote from: JoelKatz on July 20, 2011, 08:06:16 PM

Quote from: makomk on July 20, 2011, 04:17:30 PM

Congratulations. You've missed the entire point of my argument whilst spotting why I wasn't complaining about the existence of wealth disparity in general.

It seems the entire point changes fairly regularly.

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The issue here is not that the ditch digger has more money than the CEO, but that the poor have to justify their money in the eyes of the market in a way that the rich don't. If a ditch digger fails to dig efficiently they'd get the sack, but there's no way of sacking the wealthy if they enrich themselves at the expense of real progress - the only way they can lose their wealth is through gross incompetence.

How can a ditch digger lose money that's in his bank account? And even the wealthiest person can be fired.

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CEOs are actually a good example. They can run company after company into the ground through bad management and still leave each job with lots of money, because the other board members that appoint them are also members of the CEO class and in on the take. You've got an entire group of people enriching themselves at the expenses of driving others down.

The same is true for a ditch digger. Generally, no matter how bad a job he does, he still gets paid for his time. He can work for company after company getting paid for however long it takes them to figure out he's a lousy ditch digger.

A wealthy person who makes his money from investments cannot be fired. His capital can be confiscated but that is a different matter entirely.