For this (me) critic of billionaires (the possibility of being one, not the humans who are), it’s not ideological. It’s based on an analysis of leverage (like GP’s comment), where the levers are necessarily some mix of advantage/privilege (feedback loop as discussed all over) and exploitation (not solely as a moral issue, but that issue is inescapable). It’s impossible to be/become a millionaire without access to, and activating, those levers. I don’t care about the moral character of the humans this analysis addresses. I care about the opportunity and moral failure it imposes on others.

I don't know if you intentionally switched from billionaire to millionaire, but it seems entirely possible (and even somewhat common) to become a mere millionaire by actions and careers that most would consider virtuous combined with sound saving and investing strategies. I don't know if my parents are actually millionaires or not, but if not, they're not far off and they were both public school teachers whose parents were blue collar steel mill, coal miner, and in nursing. Those are not careers marked by the excessive use of exploitive leverage by the employees.

Your parents used leverage as well in “investing strategies”. By putting your money in the stock market, you’re using the leverage wielded by all of corporate America.

No that was definitely an autocorrect misfire. Becoming a millionaire is accessible to most of the mid-upper middle class in the US. It does still press on the same levers, but increasingly in ways that are opaque to a the people entering.

if someone considers making a billion dollars to be some form of social theft, then making a million dollars by giving $100,000 to a fund manager .. may also constitute social theft for that critic.

Theft isn’t a word I used. I intentionally used the words advantage, leverage and exploitation the way I did for a reason.

Using your example, a billionaire doesn’t hand 1,000 more dollars to a hedge fund manager and get 1,000 times more wealth amplification. They hire a team of accountants and lawyers to do 1,000 times that base amplification each.

Making 100k and having a stock based retirement plan is an open drainage from the wealth factory, it definitely has access to the same levers, but it’s effectively the equivalent of a pension, just managed in the marketplace according to marketplace rules. That earning category is basically the automobile manufacturer lead/plant manager of our generation, the only difference is there’s more people who get that slice. People in this role largely don’t have the capacity to even think about increasing their leverage, they just get “benefits” and call it a night.

People who become billionaires have an entirely different approach. Their work is split between using whatever leverage they have access to, and whatever affords greater leverage. It’s mathematically the only way (given current dollar valuation) that you can get that many dollars.

I'm intentionally trying to separate the moral and the mechanical for the purpose of understanding--both understanding the structure of the way the world works and how we can make it better as well as understanding the arguments of those for whom it's ideological.

(See also the sibling comment to your by pdonis.)

I see what you mean here, but I think the shift in mode of analysis from moral to scientific blunts the force of the critique.

Another interesting perspective...

The term "using leverage" is often used in a creditor / debtor relationship. But it's funny how the term works because in that setting "using leverage" is usually associated with the debtor being the exploited one in the relationship.

More generally, in a given exploitive relationship it's not always obvious who is exploiting who.

Does using leverage not involved skillful means?