teawrecks , 3 months ago

I just looked at the list of the top ten billionaires. It includes: Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook (one hit wonder) Jeff Bezos: Amazon (one hit wonder) Bill Gates: Microsoft (one hit wonder) Larry Page: Google (one hit wonder)

Not a single one of these hit billionaire status via a one-hit-wonder. Every single one of them did so via a pattern of exploitation.

Sure, some of them might have had a one-hit-wonder that resulted in their first few million. But to keep climbing past a billion required steady, consistent, methodical, unethical exploitation and anti-competative practices. These are the poster-children for exploitative billionaires in our society.

You say that a small business can’t grow to be a multi-billion dollar business? Tell that to literally any of the above.

I didn’t say that. I said that (the overwhelming majority of) small businesses cannot become a billionaire company without a pattern of exploitation.

the only point I’m making is that it’s in fact possible to become a billionaire without exploiting other people’s labor…If we agree on that point, then we are fully in agreement.

Sure, it’s theoretically possible. But that might account for less than 1% of currently living billionaires, if any at all. Do we agree?