[50656E6973]

>if I find a gold nugget while hiking, somehow that hurts society?

If one person controls all the money in the world, would you consider that to be harmful to society?

If so, to what degree would that money/wealth need to be shared for that harm to subside to acceptable levels?

[burroisolator]

> If one person controls all the money in the world, would you consider that to be harmful to society?

Probably not since the money would be worthless: why would anyone want to use this money?

[50656E6973]

It's a hypothetical question, assuming they have no other option

[jandrese]

The paradox of capitalism. Due to the positive feedback loop of capital it naturally gravitates towards a system where a single individual controls all of the capital, at which point the system has completely collapsed.

In practice it would have collapsed before that point, but for basically the same reason. None of the capital is where it needs to be to be useful. This is why you need stuff like progressive taxes, public works projects, and social programs on top of capitalism, to pull money out of the top and re-inject it at the bottom lest the system get too top heavy.

[_0nac]

Citation needed. If anything, capitalism seems antifragile: individual wealth never seems to last beyond the 3rd generation.

[monocasa]

Do you have a source for that, that isn't the pithy unsourced statements from a wealth management company in an ad campaign?

[skookumchuck]

The article itself shows that each Disney generation has less money. The Kennedys are another example. Are the Rockefellers the richest people in America? The Vanderbilts? The Carnegies? The Morgans? The Astors? The Gettys? Nope to all.

The richest today are first generation - Gates, Bezos, Buffet, Musk, Case, etc.

[InitialLastName]

In other words, the only way to stabilize capitalism is for those with the money-piles to spread it around just enough that those without don't try to take any extra.

[skookumchuck]

> If one person controls all the money in the world

Finding a gold nugget takes nothing away from anyone else. Wealth is not a fixed pie at all - wealth can be created, which is what free markets do.

[asark]

It's not about the gold, it's a reductio argument aimed at gaining your agreement that there's some line beyond which inequality is harmful, so the disagreement can move on to the topic of where the line is whether than is inequality even possibly bad.