[Amadou]

On the other hand, I new a girl who came over on a post-Tienanmen visa (they let practically anyone from China in to the US for a while after that incident). She was from a rural town, yet she told me they had a saying about Shanghainese (apparently there is a lot of regional jingoism there). The saying translated roughly as "You can't get that rich without doing something bad."

[ekianjo]

Maybe. I'm not saying that the attitude I described is universal, but I feel like in China you get a certain respect for being successful.

I feel it used to be the same in the US at some point in time. Getting rich was seen as a reward since you provided a good solution to consumers and therefore you could gain from the overall value you provided to society.

On HN, I'm not sure what is the trend, since you see people saying that "profit is evil" and stuff in that line of thought, as well as folks cheering for SpaceX, Tesla Motors' CEO Elon Musk who is getting very rich through the process of what he does - and it does not seem to bother many people in these kind of situations.

[mjn]

I feel it used to be the same in the US at some point in time. Getting rich was seen as a reward since you provided a good solution to consumers and therefore you could gain from the overall value you provided to society.

I don't think that's ever been the case in the US. There's long been an ideal that anyone can become prosperous, in the sense of upper-middle-class; that's the "American Dream". But people have also long been skeptical of the very wealthy, and in the early US there was even an ideal (though a pretty counterfactual one) that the US didn't really have any super-rich, in contrast to the British, but rather was a nation of approximate equals, everyone a tradesman, shopkeeper, yeoman farmer, etc.

The 19th-century industrialists were very unpopular among the general population, especially in the period before several of them made extensive efforts to improve their popularity through PR and philanthropy. Some of the industrialists themselves were even conflicted about the role of extreme wealth in society, which motivated writings like Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth", in which he argued that the wealthy had an obligation to spend their wealth to improve society through philanthropy, and ought not to either spend it purely on personal luxury, or to keep it and produce hereditary family fortunes in the old European style.

[yodsanklai]

"I feel it used to be the same in the US at some point in time."

It's interesting you say that because European right wingers always depict the US as a paradise where people can be wealthy (which they equate to successful) and respected for it.

"On HN, I'm not sure what is the trend, since you see people saying that "profit is evil" and stuff in that line of thought, as well as folks cheering for SpaceX, Tesla Motors' CEO Elon Musk"

I don't see any contradiction. Most people feel one should be rewarded based on their contribution to society, and have respect and admiration for skilled and ambitious persons.

What is usually debated is: how much should be the reward, and how to assess everyone's contribution.

[ekianjo]

It's interesting you say that because European right wingers always depict the US as a paradise where people can be wealthy (which they equate to successful) and respected for it.

What's interesting about it? And I have no idea why you start putting politics inside here - that was not the point. You are right about one thing, in Europe people are despised if they have money, no matter if they deserved it or not.

What is usually debated is: how much should be the reward, and how to assess everyone's contribution.

Vote with your wallet/dollars. What else is there to measure ? Honestly I don't see who would be in position to decide "what should be the reward" or these kind of things. That's why we have market systems, to avoid stupid solutions to this kind of issue.