| > Labor and trade are not zero sum. The decision of where the generated dollars go is zero sum. Certainly, my point was that possessing a greater share of wealth is not the same as the completely unearned disparity in distribution of common resources in the author's hypothetical scenario. We live in a world of scarcity, so disparity when that scarcity is left up to market forces is to be expected and in fact could even be argued to be earned. This is completely different than this sort of village commune that the author envisions. Nevertheless, the author equates the two to justify her argument, which I believe is fallacious. > Do you mean they can't 'earn' it in their eyes, or are you agreeing that a certain amount of wealth cannot actually be earned? The former. This responsibility that the author posits her rich peers have is based on nothing other than her feeling that they didn't earn their position and aren't even using it properly, which will only go away after said peers do something that alleviates this feeling. What is that thing? Only the author knows. Maybe she doesn't even know, she just knows that she wants the rich people to fix it. > they come nowhere near taking care of that burden on their own. I don't believe it's fair that they even be under some sort of implied burden. Unless they are criminals, their family earned that wealth playing the same game as everyone else and have chosen to use it to ensure their offspring are comfortable. I see no problem in that. |
Even though some fraction of the disparity is earned, a lot clearly isn't.