CounterPunch has this piece from economist Richard Wolff, A Critique of Obscene Wealth.
One attempted justification argues that obscene wealth is society’s reward for those people making crucial contributions to social welfare and progress. Billionaire Elon Musk, for example, contributed the electric car, some would argue; billionaire Jeff Bezos offered the speedy ordering and delivery of goods. But Musk’s electric car was a late step in a long evolution of electricity, batteries, and automobiles. Constituting that evolution were many contributions by many people along the way. Musk’s contribution was impossible without—and thus dependent on—all those prior contributions. Rewarding contributions and contributors justly would entail rewarding them all, not exclusively Musk. Doing the latter is manifestly unjust and unjustifiable.
The relevant parallel here is a village battling to escape flooding from a nearby river’s impending overflow. A subset of villagers gather to dig sand, acquire sandbags, fill them with sand, and then pass them forward, from person to person, so that the last person standing closest to the river, named Elon, can pile bags on the river’s bank. A grateful village collects $10,000 to reward those responsible for the happy outcome: no flood. The check for $10,000 is handed to Elon. Rewarding in this way—rather than sharing the reward among all those who collaborated to produce the outcome—is more of an incentive to position a single person in a particular place rather than to work alongside all the fellow villagers who contributed to the outcome.
(graphic via adobe.com)
