[ChainOfFools]

> being honest is a tax

Being honest is an investment in an honest society and a just future. Of course, the problem with being honest is that, as with any ideological conflict, those who volunteer for the front lines make the most sacrifices, and have to trust that the tide will someday turn in favor of their side, even though they may never see it happen. So there's a lot of "you go first" noise instead of active effort to walk the talk.

Nonetheless this trending fad of referring to any cost that has no obvious immediate benefit to the payer a tax is starting to outgrow the original, and usefully narrow, scope it once had.

It would be equally valid, semantically, (and I would argue more valid prescriptively) to observe that having to constantly verify at great expense what in an honest society you could you could otherwise trusted at nearly zero expense, is the more costly and pernicious "tax" on total human productivity.

[munificent]

I probably should have been clearer that I believe strongly that it's a tax worth paying. My point was just that I think it's statistically extremely unlikely for a consistently honest person to become obscenely wealthy because the cost/benefit proposition gets worse and worse the richer you are. It's relatively easy to walk away from a dishonest deal that nets you a hundred bucks. But it takes a lot more character to walk away from a dishonest deal that nets you a hundred million.

I tend to assume (possibly without sufficiently compelling evidence, but I'm allowed to believe what I want) that anyone who's reached stratospheric wealth has done so by not walking away from some of those shady deals.

You may be right that "tax" is not a good metaphor.

> to observe that having to constantly verify at great expense what in an honest society you could you could otherwise trusted at nearly zero expense, is the more costly and pernicious "tax" on total human productivity.

I agree 1000%. The value of a society made of honest people is radically improved efficiency.

[e40]

> My point was just that I think it's statistically extremely unlikely for a consistently honest person to become obscenely wealthy because the cost/benefit proposition gets worse and worse the richer you are.

From experience this completely lines up with what I have seen, in my almost 40 year career. I've watched serial entrepreneurs to things I would never dream of. It was then I knew, I'd never be rich.

The only quibble I have with your idea: it's not just billionaires. Of course, there are more millionaires who are still honest, but the percentage compared to the non-millionaire working population is much lower.

When you own and run a business, you are constantly confronted with decisions that have a good and bad path. The bad path, for me, is when I answer "yes" to the question "will this make it harder for me to sleep well at night?" Those decisions came up so often early in my career. I pride myself on how well I sleep at night, but I'm not rich.