It’s seriously a mental illness, a “rich mind virus” if you will, and we should design the rules of society accordingly.
Some of these people have an innate drive and even some skills that could contribute to society in a positive way. There should be a place for them just like any other disabled person. But that doesn’t mean they should be able to run wild until they harm others.
We as a society need to get away from the tendency to categorize a person as good or bad based on one aspect of their life and generalizing that to everything else. Assuming that somebody is moral, ethical, honest, or a capable leader based on their net worth is definitely one of the more egregious examples right now.
Just like a crackhead or a heroin junkie can do whatever crazy shit a non-addict would never even think of, so do the rich billionaire money-addicts.
Just look at the difference between CEO’s and mega-class actors. Lots of actors can be addicts, yeah, but not many of them are that addicted to money, and while they might buy things we consider ridiculous, they’re not actively ruining society, just benefitting from capitalism.
Whereas people like Bezos are addicted to money and actively ruining the world. He could lose 99% of his wealth and still live the same, barely fucking notice a thing in his quality of life.
NYTimes sucks and I don’t link them anymore but for thus exception as an opinion piece from Sam Polk.
It’s seriously a mental illness, a “rich mind virus” if you will, and we should design the rules of society accordingly.
Some of these people have an innate drive and even some skills that could contribute to society in a positive way. There should be a place for them just like any other disabled person. But that doesn’t mean they should be able to run wild until they harm others.
We as a society need to get away from the tendency to categorize a person as good or bad based on one aspect of their life and generalizing that to everything else. Assuming that somebody is moral, ethical, honest, or a capable leader based on their net worth is definitely one of the more egregious examples right now.
It’s addiction.
Simple as that.
Just like a crackhead or a heroin junkie can do whatever crazy shit a non-addict would never even think of, so do the rich billionaire money-addicts.
Just look at the difference between CEO’s and mega-class actors. Lots of actors can be addicts, yeah, but not many of them are that addicted to money, and while they might buy things we consider ridiculous, they’re not actively ruining society, just benefitting from capitalism.
Whereas people like Bezos are addicted to money and actively ruining the world. He could lose 99% of his wealth and still live the same, barely fucking notice a thing in his quality of life.
NYTimes sucks and I don’t link them anymore but for thus exception as an opinion piece from Sam Polk.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/for-the-love-of-money.html
He wrote a whole book about it
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27274419-for-the-love-of-money