> do you really think so little of boat-builders that you don't think they'd turn their hand to something else than building yatchs, that would be good and profitable for all involved

do you think so little of boat-builders that you want to tell them what they should do with their lives? I imagine if they're building boats it's because they like building boats, and are more than happy that there are obscenely rich people there to pay them a livelihood designing and building beautiful yachts.

I think you're missing the point. They'd still keep building boats right? Except they wouldn't exclusively serve the ultra wealthy. Because the market wouldn't exist. Because people shouldn't be insanely wealthy. Because that comes at a cost to other people and is entirely a function of social systems, systems that we should make benefit everyone and not just a select few.

So if they're still building boats (presumably for no one?) Then they won't be the nurses etc earlier in the thread that this line of reasoning was countering.

It seems like you're struggling to imagine what people would even do with their lives if the industries that cropped up to service the ultra wealthy dissapeared. I am here to reveal to you, they would just work for other people performing needed services or producing goods. Simply put, there would be more for everyone else if the ultra wealthy did not exist to suck up so many resources.

Not at all - you've badly misread what I said.

You and one other person in this thread are saying:

- the super rich shouldn't be around because they employ people to do the wrong jobs; those people should do other jobs, and removing the super rich is how we achieve this important aim

- the super rich aren't required to keep those people employed; the same demand will magically appear if we remove the super rich

You are particularly distinguished because you say both at different points, which is funny. But I am commenting at one time or another on either of those points above.

"The way that hundreds or thousands of hours of human lives swirl about their whims" and many other little quotes in the thread betray the real motivation here. There are many more industries/groups of people that "waste" (under some moralistic definition I would disagree with, but it's a separate discussion) less per capita, but more in aggregate. E.g. most air travel. Or really any large entertainment-related industry (I love video games, but is there really nothing more productive the game developers and players could be doing?)

What is really going on is good ol' envy. Historically- primitive egalitarianism, as rational and helpful for building a good society as other aspects the social structure of clans and tribes.

This usually happens in practice, too; but for a large fraction (and maybe a large majority) of leftists it's also the poorly hidden goal - "virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries"