[CryptoPunk]

It doesn't map to desire perfectly, but it does generally.

If anyone truly needs a mask, (e.g. a delivery driver delivering packages to customers, a doctor, a nurse), that represents an economic need for whatever service they provide.

Their employer will be able to charge a high price for their service, and afford to pay a high price for PPE for them.

Even when the mapping is imperfect, the fact that the rich guy was able to afford a mask while others weren't does some social good: it increases the reward for being wealthy, which promotes more productive behaviour from society at large.

[michaelmrose]

>which promotes more productive behavior from society at large.

Greed is good is an ideology for the morally impaired with limited attention span. A relatively small differential in wealth and large differential in social standing is arguably enough to achieve maximum "productive" behavior after which diminishing returns are had.

As proof observe many European nations that are almost as productive wherein the wealth of most practitioners of most professions tops out much lower than their US counterparts and yet they produce similarly to our citizens.

[CryptoPunk]

Greed is not good. Productive behaviour is good. Market economies encourage people to be productive in order to satisfy their self-interest.

Defining pursuit of self-interest as greed is the type of ideologically motivated moralizing that leads to people ignoring rational arguments and the evidence on what types of laws work and what don't.

>>As proof observe many European nations that are almost as productive wherein the wealth of most practitioners of most professions tops out much lower than their US counterparts and yet they produce similarly to our citizens.

1. The U.S. is significantly more productive than Europe on a per capita basis.

2. Even if 1 weren't true, your argument would prove nothing, as there are a vast array of differences between the EU and the US that could explain your observation. Your 'proof' is nothing of the sort. It's lazy confirmation bias. The empirical evidence, in the form of analysis on large datasets, strongly suggests being more market-based is associated with more rapid economic development. For example see this study: https://web.archive.org/web/20170821004405/http://ime.bg/upl... There's no evidence of any threshold where that benefit diminishes. These empirical observations are strongly supported by the basic economic theory.

[schoen]

The issue about how much the rewards for being wealthy promote productive behavior reminds me of the remark by David D. Friedman that

> My imaginary capitalist has capital because he worked hard clearing part of the boundless forest while his employee to be was being lazy and living on what he could gather--so it is entirely just that the capitalist gets part of the output of his land and his employee's labor. But the leftist doesn't like that hypothetical. His imaginary capitalist inherited his capital from a father who stole it. I don't like that hypothetical.

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/My_View_o...

I often suspect Friedman is right that a lot of normative disagreements boil down to different intuitions about what people typically do to become wealthier.

[CryptoPunk]

Yes, agreed on the different intuitions on the source of wealth.

The fact that market economies so vastly outperform non-market ones is a pretty clear indication that wealth-generation in market economies generally has positive economic externalities, and as such is socially beneficial on the balance.

[fatbird]

it increases the reward for being wealthy, which promotes more productive behaviour from society at large.

It encourages rent-seeking behaviour, which is not necessarily productive, and in times of crisis, demonstrably not so.