The problem with this argument is that "being rich" is relative. Anyone want to wager that the author's "maximum moral income" is approximately the same as his/her income?

Isn't someone who makes $50,000 /yr extremely wealthy from the perspective of someone whose income is ~$5,000/yr (like a lot of people in India[1])?

Come on A.Q. Smith - how can you justify even owning a computer when people are starving? Is it immoral to waste money on dinner and a movie when that's more money than some people make in a week?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(PPP)...

(Edit: slight rephrase)

What about the fact that pursuit of wealth can drive innovation that benefits the whole world. The creation of mobile phones has allowed many parts of the world access to information and opportunities they didn't have before. The motivation to work hard and create new product is lessened if you know that all your money over $250K will be taken by force. Innovation would still take place but likely at a much slower pace.

The purpose of innovation is to create happiness. We need to weigh the happiness innovation creates with the unhappiness that the system promoting innovation creates. This calculus is complicated.

More equitable distributions of goods and services create more happiness than less equitable ones due to strong diminishing returns on happiness from external things. Furthermore, a lot of unhappiness is caused by wanting that results from comparing yourself to others, so equitable distributions also directly reduce unhappiness. On the other hand, feeling in control also causes happiness, and having your income taxed heavily does cause some perceived loss of control.

Ultimately I think that a slower pace of innovation resulting from a more humane system with a more equitable distribution of wealth would make people happier. We don't know for sure though, so it is worth experimenting to find out. That being said, the Nordic countries have done this experiment and they are rated as the happiest nations on earth despite having a horrible climate, so there is some evidence for my position.

Do you think that inventors will ransom their genius? And if they can't get super rich then they'll just sit on their hands?

No, but I think there is a difference between having the great idea and putting in the work it takes to bring it to market on a global scale. Fantastic ideas won't go away, just the motivation to put in the hard work of turning an idea into a product.

I'm going to interpret this as an accidental piece of satire. It is so shallow in its analysis, overlooks so much, and makes so many mistakes that it is absolutely devoid of worth if interpreted as a serious piece.

I thought it was satire.

Take Musk. He got rich from selling Paypal. Had he spent the money on charity as this post suggests (or demands) we would have had no Tesla and no SpaceX.

I think the world is often be better off by rich people doing more of what made them rich in the first place.

Maybe that just means that current charities need to be disrupted.

Part of the problem is most charities throw money at symptoms rather than addressing the root causes.

The root of an awful lot of the problems charities try to address is that people are poor. They aren't poor because of Elon Musk, but there's a good argument to be made that if it weren't for capitalism (now, not historically) we could have developed nations where there were no poor.

I don't think capitalism itself is the problem. Capitalism is basically just a policy of individual freedom extended to control of production, which honestly is hard to argue with. The main problem in my mind is that as a culture we've bought into the mistaken notion that more goods and services mean more happiness. Of course, this notion is primarily the result of the capitalist propaganda machine we call advertising. If we restricted advertising it would do a lot to tame the beast. Another problem is that we've walled everything off, so if you want to live you need to play the capitalist game. People should be able to opt out if they want.

That being said, while I'm mostly pro-capitalism, I'm also in favor of income redistribution. Happiness from wealth has hardcore diminishing returns, and visible inequality directly creates unhappiness. Based on these facts, significant income redistribution is really a moral imperative.

The world doesn't need, nor will most of it benefit from, either Tesla or SpaceX.

SpaceX is life support for the capitalist cancer of exponential growth, so I agree with you there. On the other hand, electric vehicles are going to be necessary for a sustainable future.

Sure, but we don't really need Tesla to give us electric cars. Every auto manufacturer is going to be doing that soon enough.

I'm as fiscally liberal as they come, but holy shit, the arguments presented here are bad.

Besides the obvious and tired appeal to some arbitrary notion of morality, a good portion of the article is just tautology.

And it is immoral as well to use your immense wealth to swing elections and impose your views on what should be a democracy, but increasingly is becoming a pay-to-play oligarchy.

Words cannot describe how much I disagree with this article.

And yet words are the only way you can describe how you disagree with it. Try.

I'd just like to point out that this article was written by a journalist living in Baltimore, Maryland - someone who is doubtlessly earning in the top 10% of all incomes worldwide; someone who enjoys a standard of living far above what most in the world could reasonably hope for.

I think it's immoral to call other people immoral.

Maybe I'm just bad at spotting satire, but I'm pretty sure this is satire(?)

That's cool, it's an imperfect world anyway.