testfactor , 3 months ago

The issue I’d take with that is that it’s hardly any more or less “luck” than any other billionaire.

There’s less than 3000 billionaires in the world. It’s not like the other 2999 were wildly more qualified and had the perfect strategy that inevitably and directly led to their billionaire status.

And while he did become a billionaire by selling to Microsoft, he would have even without that most likely. The game has sold enough copies that it would have made him a billionaire, even without the sale to Microsoft.

And I think it’s unfair, even if that wasn’t the case, to lay the sins of the buyer at the feet of the seller, when the seller isn’t otherwise doing anything wrong. It’s basically the “no ethical consumption under capitalism” thing. There is no one he could sell to that wouldn’t be “unethical”, and therefore he’d be morally obligated to never sell it to anyone. He’s as “morally corrupt” for that as any of us are when we shop at a grocery store or buy/rent housing.

And I said it elsewhere, I am in no way arguing against him being appropriately taxed on this income (or potentially standing wealth). I simply push back on the idea that billionaires can only become such by being morally bankrupt exploiters who stomp on the heads of millions of the proletariat to get where they are.
Are there some like that? Absolutely. Is it the vast majority? Depends on how you define “stomping on the heads of the proletariat,” but it’s probably a good chunk at minimum. But the only requirement is luck. Not cruelty or exploitation.

I’m all for progression tax structures. I’m all for taxing the rich. But statements like “all billionaires got their money by exploiting the poor” makes one look, at best, uncritical of your own positions. It’s counterfactual name calling of the out-tribe, the same as calling everyone you disagree with a Nazi.