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Quite unbelievable
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this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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I mean, it makes some sense. I suppose people who access vast wealth through inheritance or marriage might not be very motivated, but if someone worked to become a billionaire, this means that long before that point he had the option to retire in absolute luxury and never work again, but he chose to keep working. Even when he had more money than he could ever possibly spend, he kept working. I think it's hard to have more dedication to one's work than that.
At a certain point it's not really working, so much as moving capital around and watching it constantly grow, because of its extractive properties. More of an obsession, like constantly winning at gambling, just one jackpot after another, and still you can't tear yourself away from the table.
Nobody worked to become a billionaire. It is mathematically impossible to work hard enough to become a billionaire. To make a billion dollars, one must buy something from someone for less than it's worth, often their labor, and then sell it for more than it's worth. The money always comes from somewhere, some value that was taken from others.
I'm not sure how that's related to my post, since I didn't claim that billionaires necessarily earn the money they have, just that many of them work hard. Look at Elon Musk - he's so busy that he barely sleeps. He's doing a lot of stupid stuff now, but he's putting much more time and effort into that than almost anyone else puts into his job, despite the fact that he never has to worry about having his needs (basic or otherwise) met.
But I'll take the bait - Marx was wrong. Knowing what to buy, how to transform it, and who to sell it to is in itself valuable. Carrying the risk of loss is also in itself valuable. Putting together the money to do all that is in itself valuable.
This isn't what Marx thought about buying and selling. Buying and selling involves labor like any other work, so of it'd have value according to Marx.
The other points here simply beg the question. It's only in the context of capitalism that carrying personal risk of loss or putting together personal money for productive ventures are valuable economic contributions an individual can make.
Please name one person who has independently gone from nothing to billionaire. Every billionaire I am aware of had tons of money from family to begin with and usually a mountain of connections as well.