I don’t mean doctor-making-150k-a-year rich, I mean properly rich with millions to billions of dollars.
I think many will say yes, they can be, though it may be rare. I was tempted to. I thought more about it and I wondered, are you really a good person if you’re hoarding enough money you and your family couldn’t spend in 10 lifetimes?
I thought, if you’re a good person, you wouldn’t be rich. And if you’re properly rich you’re probably not a good person.
I don’t know if it’s fair or naive to say, but that’s what I thought. Whether it’s what I believe requires more thought.
There are a handful of ex-millionaires who are no longer millionaires because they cared for others in a way they couldn’t care for themselves. Only a handful of course, I would say they are good people.
And in order to stay rich, you have to play your role and participate in a society that oppresses the poor which in turn maintains your wealth. Are you really still capable of being a good person?
Very curious about people’s thoughts on this.
Gotta say, I’m getting a little tired of moral relativism being trotted out as a defense of bad people.
Too tired to read logical arguments? Comfortable in your assumption that all rich people are bad people, based on your distaste for the few famous rich people who are constantly in the news? The vast majority of the world’s billionaires prefer to stay anonymous.
Not that I’m pointing out any specific rich people as good people, I’m just pointing out the illogic of automatically linking a person’s moral qualities with their wealth without knowing anything else about them. Would you assume the contrapositive, that all poor people are good people?
Relativism is a cop out argument for or against anything. It’s a hail Mary, it’s a sign you’re scraping the bottom of the rhetorical barrel.
But yes, I’d say that the simple fact of having a billion dollars makes you immoral. All other parts of your life aside. It is immoral simply to have that much money and not be using it to help people.
In the modern world of fiat currencies, crypto currencies, stocks, and other fictitious denominations of value, I wouldn’t assume that having great wealth necessarily means that you are hoarding resources away from the greater public. In fact, people with massive bank accounts cannot withdraw all of their money even if they tried, because banks only hold a fractional reserve on the assumption that the overall sums of withdrawals will be balanced out by the overall sums of deposits.
Money by itself is worthless, it is tokens to be traded for goods and services. No matter how much money you have, you cannot buy more than what is willingly for sale to you, and money that sits never spent may as well not exist.
If a hacker got into your bank account, and added many zeros without your consent or knowledge, are you now a bad person?