I ask because it’s hard for me to imagine how one individual can amass $100 million in wealth without theft from those actually producing value.
Services and intangible property.
If I write and record a song, and 100 million people like it enough to pay me a dollar for it, that’s $100 million right there. If I then tour and sell out stadiums and arenas and negotiate a cut of $10 per ticket (and make sure that the staff that actually makes the event possible gets paid fairly, and incorporate that into the ticket price), and end up selling 10 million tickets, that’s another $100 million to myself.
I’d argue that there’s no exploitation or theft there. It’s just scaling to a huge, almost unfathomable volume of sales.
The same can be true with other forms of intellectual property. A popular book may sell billions of copies. A popular piece of software might be downloaded billions of times. Even without copyright, one can imagine a patron/tip/donation model raising billions for some superstars.
Other services might not have a property model, but can still scale. There are minor celebrities making a living doing Cameos for $500 per video, who can easily do 20 a day. Nobody is getting hurt when someone does that.
So I’d argue it is possible to earn a billion without exploitation. They should still be taxed, though.
Yeah I can see that, very interesting example. I have to think about that more as I’m already thinking of loads of similar examples. I guess at the end of the day a 90-99% tax above $x would still be “fair” but it def is a different perspective on ultra wealth that might not necessarily be “stolen.”
Services and intangible property.
If I write and record a song, and 100 million people like it enough to pay me a dollar for it, that’s $100 million right there. If I then tour and sell out stadiums and arenas and negotiate a cut of $10 per ticket (and make sure that the staff that actually makes the event possible gets paid fairly, and incorporate that into the ticket price), and end up selling 10 million tickets, that’s another $100 million to myself.
I’d argue that there’s no exploitation or theft there. It’s just scaling to a huge, almost unfathomable volume of sales.
The same can be true with other forms of intellectual property. A popular book may sell billions of copies. A popular piece of software might be downloaded billions of times. Even without copyright, one can imagine a patron/tip/donation model raising billions for some superstars.
Other services might not have a property model, but can still scale. There are minor celebrities making a living doing Cameos for $500 per video, who can easily do 20 a day. Nobody is getting hurt when someone does that.
So I’d argue it is possible to earn a billion without exploitation. They should still be taxed, though.
Yeah I can see that, very interesting example. I have to think about that more as I’m already thinking of loads of similar examples. I guess at the end of the day a 90-99% tax above $x would still be “fair” but it def is a different perspective on ultra wealth that might not necessarily be “stolen.”