[manigandham]

> "how average people try to defend the rich"

It's pretty simple when you realize the majority of the rich started as average people.

Wealth is relative, you're likely better off than 95% of the planet. Should we reduce your salary because of what a rural farmer makes in China?

[ficklepickle]

Nope, they did not. But you speak to a very American delusion. Defend the ultra-rich because you think you will be one some day. You will not.

And yes, we should prioritize everyone having a decent baseline quality of life. Excess wealth doesn't make people happier anyway.

[manigandham]

Majority of the world's richest people are self-made. [1] I know many millionaires and met a few of these billionaire CEOs who have come from nothing and worked their way up.

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-riche...

> "But you speak to a very American delusion."

It's called the American Dream. Freedom and opportunity to achieve your own goals, something people seem to take for granted until they go somewhere that doesn't have it.

> "Defend the ultra-rich because you think you will be one some day. You will not."

You shouldn't assume, but even if I never become a billionaire, I sure don't need to hate them for it. I defend their ability to attain success, not their wealth.

[orestarod]

Creating better conditions for everyone >>>> playing a game with a set success rate of 0.01 % and f*ck the rest. Also, the game is not fair to begin with. It's called a Dream for a reason. Feels like going bankrupt trying to win the lottery.

[VvR-Ox]

I am pretty sure they did not as most wealth is inherited AFAIK.

Here a snippet of an interesting article on this[0]: "Yet the opportunity to live the American dream is much less widely shared today than it was several decades ago. While 90% of the children born in 1940 ended up in higher ranks of the income distribution than their parents, only 40% of those born in 1980 have done so."

This correlates to the fact that wealth concentrates in few and fewer people around the world (the 1% for whom laws, governments, borders etc. do not exist).

It is not about a comparison with the people who are at their worst (and it will probably not be Chinese farmers but that is another topic). It is about fairness and an average level we can ALL agree to.

I want all people to have a meaningful existence and a life that they think is worth living because in my frame of mind this is fairness.

As long as people starve and children cannot afford to got to school and women are being used, sold and shipped like some goods etc. I cannot stand to see people who get so much more than they need just to spend all the money on stupid things (please take a look at some of their instagram profiles and youtube videos if you don't know what I refer to).

The best of behavior I saw is people like Musk who puts his money into businesses which hope to (really) "make the world a better place" - at least if this is true and not some sales pitch (we can discuss about this in a few years when there is more results I think).

Others like to frame themselves as "benevolent" super-humans who are giving away money to charities. This is "green washing" most of the times to improve their PR. The money they give is a joke and these charities do not change the world as you can see.

Why does someone need or even deserve to own 50 cars and 7 houses? No one contributes that much to the world that he would deserve that and especially not while others are dying because they cannot afford to buy food.

This "hard work" that is needed to become rich is using others and ignoring all moral implications in many times. I had two opportunities in my lifetime to become (kind of) rich and both where at least dubious in one way or the other. It is about cheating governments to not pay any or too much taxes and it is about customers who are willing to pay a huge amount of money for someone to "take responsibility" he does not really take in the end. Also you can cheat consumers like "big tobacco", sugar etc. do.

Staying in this position only took them some money to pay scientists, politicians and others to be legally sold or even recommended and advertised.

These systems are built by generations of people without moral (maybe they are raised like that) and inherited to alumni who are at least as numb and asocial.

=> No one deserves to be that rich no matter what they do. => They become rich by using people like you and me without moral implication or hesitation. => They try to uphold the "American Dream" so we stay quiet until we are as poor as the people on the bottom. (look at Warren Buffet who talked about the "War of the Rich against the Poor")

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/jun/20/is-the-am...