[aianus]

The real wealth that car companies created went to consumers in form of consumer surplus.

The automobile used to be a toy for millionaires, now even (American) minimum-wage workers can travel daily in comfortable, individual, climate-controlled vehicles capable of incredible speeds.

I would pay $100k for a ten-year-old Civic but I don't have to because the car companies work hard and compete with each other and have driven down costs and prices to the bare minimum.

Same for many of todays billionaires / huge corporations. They're generally not stealing from us, but creating enormous wealth for all of us in the form of consumer surplus with their desirable goods and services.

[Valakas]

But are the billionaires the ones actually responsible for creating all that value? Is Bezos actually responsible for 10 000x the value of what Amazon produces than a worker? If Bezos didn't exist, there would be another "Bezos". He just happened to be there at the right time and do the right things. We discount all the effects that luck and society play in making a "Bezos". The company is what is providing that huge amount of value, not the person.

[pgt]

You have to apply your argument to yourself, which is "are you responsible for creating any of the value you create?" If you didn't exist there would be another you, so luck and society made you. But you know that is not true. You are where you are, and you can step away at any time.

[lotsofpulp]

People willing to work for less in countries other than America is where much of the consumer surplus in the past few decades has come from. As well as not needing people to work in the first place.