[gkoberger]

I think there's a bit of nuance here. AOC is directionally correct, but of course there's exceptions.

I do think Taylor Swift and JK Rowling "earned" a billion dollars.

I don't think Elon Musk or Donald Trump "earned" their wealth.

Elon, for example, did earn a lot of it. People gave him money for Teslas.

But he disproportionally makes profit off regulatory credits, selling his own companies to each other, and burdening his companies with debt. He's forced people to work through pandemics, undermined the SEC, stolen data from the government, bought elections, and (if you want to believe recent stories) may have even helped cheat in the most recent presidential election. He directly caused hundreds of thousands of deaths due to DOGE budget cuts, all while getting billions of dollars worth of contracts via SpaceX and xAI.

Or Bezos. Amazon uses our roads and infrastructure. A majority of Amazon warehouse workers rely on public assistance. I believe Bezos is a phenomenal founder, but his returns have subsidized by us.

There's a reason Taylor Swift doesn't get brought up when people talk about the rich. You _can_ earn a billion dollars, but more often than not you have to screw over a lot of people to get there.

[ieatcandlewax]

I don't understand this dichotomy between the people you've mentioned—nobody makes hundreds of millions of dollars in a vacuum by themselves. Swift had her parents, staff, record companies that helped push and advertise her and rowling has a similar story.

That and Taylor does get brought up the whole time for being rich and wasteful, I can't count how many times I've heard about her incredibly short private jet trips in the past few years.

Your criticism of Bezos are also a bit ridiculous. Nearly every company that isn't B2B SaaS junk uses roads in some degree. I fail to see how the warehouse workers being on public assistance have anything to do with Bezos—if you wanted them to be self sufficient a politician could increase the minimum wage.

Your criticisms of Musk dishonest, but I would also argue that he didn't "earn" a lot of the money for Tesla, as he's just a jackass with a bachelors in econ that did none of the work on it.

AOC/Bernie types have never been directionally correct, as allowing the government to rob you in America will usually not correlate with any increase in QoL for the general populace. Someone on here described taxes in America and Western countries as "tithes" like you would pay to the mafia as "protection" money, where every dollar you give them makes them more capable of extorting the next one out of you.

[gkoberger]

AOC once summed up her political position as "I believe that in a modern, moral and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live," and I would consider that directionally right.

[WalterBright]

Then I can presume we can measure AOC's morality by how much she anonymously donates to anti-poverty charities.

[essdas]

This statement is a logical fallacy and one as accomplished as Walter Bright surely knew that while writing it.

[csallen]

I don't think it's a fallacy since AOC so clearly implies, if not outright states, that the reason people are poor in America is because people richer than them have too much money, and should have less. If that applies to them, why doesn't it apply to her? At what level is the cutoff?

[gkoberger]

No, her argument is not that people have too much money, it's that the system allows for it. She's dedicating her biggest resource, her time, to fixing this.

There's a greater wealth inequality in the US now than there was at any other point in time.

[WalterBright]

Explain how it is a logical fallacy.

[snark_attack]

For one, if she “anonymously” donates to charities, how would anyone ever attribute any donations to her??

For another, as a sibling comment points out, AOC can have a much greater impact by influencing policies that help the people than through charitable donations, which, let’s face it, are just a bandaid on the structural issues that lead to such wealth inequality. Making something one’s professional goal when in a position of influence is much more impactful than optional activities on the side like charitable donations.

[gkoberger]

Homelessness won't be ended with just money, it'll be solved with (or caused by) politics and policies.

But the reason it's a "fallacy" is AOC could donate 100% of her current salary for 63,000 years and that would equal 1% of Elon's current net worth.

Even if you did get 1% of Elon's money, it wouldn't be enough. Real change comes from structural change, not pure cash.

And as the original person pointed out, you're clearly smart enough to know that.