[tcbawo]

Some people look at societal improvements as byproducts of increased wealth generation. In other words, me getting rich is good for the world, presuming I am not cheating/robbing someone else in the process. Although, apparently that's an optional ethical boundary for some.

[Boxbot]

Wealth generation is not wealth distribution. It is entirely possible for you to become very, very rich thru wealth distribution resulting from processes that retard wealth generation or reduce wealth globally.

Actually generating wealth is hard, it's so much easier to inject yourself into existing transactions and take a cut instead.

[Apocryphon]

Ah, so trickle-down economics then.

[clay_the_ripper]

I disagree. Just because someone got rich doesn’t mean they created value for society. It’s just means that they were able to capture some meaningful % of the money that flows around and take some for themselves. It also ignores the massive externalities of the destruction of the natural world. Yes, an oil tycoon can get rich, but only at the expense of an externality we all pay for (pollution, climate change) that is not factored into the price of the product they sell.

This is the central fallacy of capitalism and is the “greed is good” methodology. Greed is not good. Good is good. Helping people is good. Valuing people’s lives is good.

I read a great definition of evil: anything that values systems over people.

People and their well-being is the most important value in the world. Not money. Not wealth. Not shareholder value. You can create enormous shareholder value and still ruin people’s lives. That’s called evil.