[AA-BA-94-2A-56]

This article feels like an attempt to morally wash one's hands of the moral stink of capitalism. Do you really think that because you're in tech and not mining, that the accumulation of wealth is any less driven by exploitation?

By the way, I don't know the answer to this. I myself am a landlord. But if we're getting into morality, let's fully examine this.

11.5% of Americans are below the poverty line. The same economic system that makes is possible to become rich enforces a roughly 5% unemployment rate. This unemployment rate is necessary to prevent a wage price spiral. There are people who are paid a lot of money (Federal Reserve), whose job it is to pull levers and turn dials until the unemployment rate is at that magic 5%. They actively ensure people can't make a living, to allow you the chance to accumulate wealth.

You may not be directly responsible for their poverty– but their poverty makes your accumulation of wealth possible. Without a 5% unemployment rate, the delicate balance of the economy cascades into oblivion in a wage-price spiral.

So here's my moral question– do you then owe them anything? Do you owe society anything?

Maybe there is something wrong with "just being rich" if you don't attempt to use some of your money for the betterment of your community and society that is actively made worse to allow you to get rich.

If you want to get rich, get rich. But don't fool yourself into thinking that it's morally good. It can be, but it's probably not. Because it's probably at the expense of others in some direct or indirect way.

By the way I'm pulling punches here. This is a very gentle response to try and get you to think differently about your ethics.

---

If you're the sort of person that always needs to feel morally right, then I would say getting rich probably isn't for you. Any moral argument you can come up to protect your ego would be fragile, and easily undone.

[kortilla]

The fed does not target an unemployment minimum. Their mandate is to reduce it after controlling inflation.

[AA-BA-94-2A-56]

Yep you're right, thanks for the correction.

[blackeyeblitzar]

> By the way I'm pulling punches here.

Out of curiosity where can I find the unabridged version of this?

[AA-BA-94-2A-56]

I haven't personally written anything beyond this comment, but what I'm getting at is the economic concept of externalities. These are the economic results to the environment/people/society as a whole, that are difficult to measure.

A liquor store opens up next door to your home– economic activity goes up, but drunks sing sea shanties at 2am keeping your family awake, resulting in you losing your job due to bad performance, then property values plummeting.

An oil company moves into town and starts fracking. Quarterly profits are high, and the town's economic activity rises, because it has more patronage at the local pub. There are more jobs, and everyone buys themselves a new pickup. But people get sick, and the water goes brown. A charity purchases hundreds of thousands of plastic bottles of water. Economic activity goes up. Microplastics, people start taking extra time to shower/bathe, wash dishes, and health problems. Profits are up, but did society actually benefit? In the long run, people will move away from the town, leaving it in economic ruin. All because the company did not care about externalities.

One example of this concept is Broken Window Economics. If you broke a window, economic activity/GDP would go up because someone would be employed to fix the broken window. But was anything of value produced? Did society truly benefit?

OP is essentially ignoring externalities. He is making the most of a system designed to benefit him at the expense of poorer people, and washing his hands of any guilt because the effect is invisible to him. But that's a fallacy. The rich get advantages that nobody else gets, like being able to avoid tax in totality (essentially getting a free ride, while everyone else pays for society). There are many other ways that society is wholly optimised to make things better/easier for the rich.

I digress. To answer your question, without pointing out socialist authors (who are right on the money with their criticisms of capitalism), I can really only tell you my own thoughts about it.

I'll leave you with this quote on the tragedy of the commons:

> Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit – in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. -- Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons