Do you believe that rich people should exist?

[Bumpitybumper]

Having read lots of threads on here, I am starting to wonder about the proportion of people that believe that rich people shouldn't exist at all and that policies should be enacted to ensure a more or less even distribution of wealth.

So out of interest and just to satisfy my curiosity please vote:
YABU - there shouldn't be rich people in this country and that wealth should be distributed evenly to the extent that people aren't significantly richer than others.
YANBU - rich people are a necessary (and potentially even desirable) part of society

As humans we have the intelligence, the ability and the resources to provide everyone with a regular sized property that suits their needs. Everyone should have access to clean drinking water, food and medical care. Rich and poor doesn't need to be a thing but humans are selfish to the core and instead continue with survival of those who can accrue the most resources. No one needs a 27 bedroom mansion with 8 bathrooms, a tennis court and a swimming pool. Every human needs drinking water.

He's highly representative of modern wealth. Pretty much none of it comes from hard work and dedication, most of it comes from ownership of assets and profiting from others hard work.

I can tell you I worked far harder as a research scientist to make a small salary than I did to make several million from doing nothing else but owning properties.

Fortunately I was a research scientist 30 years ago when I could buy a house, I would not be able to do that job in this day and age.

It's not possible to get decent health care or policing in this Country any more because the rich have asset stripped the country and profited from others misery. Your idea of entrepreneur comes from a hollywood movie and not knowing people in those circles. You have no idea how many companies get floated onto exchanges which legally exist extract money from investors to pay the salaries of the directors while delivering nothing whatsoever.

You're naive and appear to be suffering from some kind of stockholm syndrome.

I think the gap between the wealthiest & the poorest should be much smaller.

However, a system that guarantees an even income distribution allows people to opt out of the social contract and simply not work productively. I do think hard work should pay off, whether that's as a nurse or farmer, running a business or being employed as an accountant.

Some people are genuinely victims of circumstance but many people have more power and control over their lives than they think.

Of course people are poor because they 1) choose to be or 2) make poor choices which means they deserve it.

Thank fuck there are so many stupid and witless people around who are willing / deserve to be poor. Otherwise who would serve and make your food, clean your streets, educate your children and take care of you when you get old?

Be grateful that some people choose a life of helping others and actually do work really hard.

I live in Scandinavia. There are rich people and people who choose lower paying work (and people who fuck up in life). Very little live in poverty and nearly all have somewhere warm to live, money for food and dignity. It is possible. It all comes down the government you choose.

most of it comes from ownership of assets and profiting from others hard work.
I can tell you I worked far harder as a research scientist to make a small salary than I did to make several million from doing nothing else but owning properties.

This is really true. Too many people accrue too much wealth purely from ownership of assets. Thats capitalism for you. A home shouldn't be an income stream. I'd like to see more businesses run at least party as john lewis style employee partnerships.

And delivering a return on it

As a pp pointed out, addiction in the form of drugs, alcohol, gambling and so on is a huge driver of poverty and terrible consequences for the families. It picks its victims at random from the rich to the poor, and rich gamblers/addicts don’t tend to stay rich for long. (A book called Splendour & Squalor by Marcus Scrivener describes the loss of several substantial fortunes from this).

However, no one has yet to come up with a solution. Inequality is often cited as a reason - maybe, but plenty of rich people also become addicts, alcoholics and gamblers, and countries with a smaller gap between rich and poor are not exempt from the problem.

I live in Scandinavia. There are rich people and people who choose lower paying work (and people who fuck up in life). Very little live in poverty and nearly all have somewhere warm to live, money for food and dignity. It is possible. It all comes down the government you choose.

@Abstractthinking Genuine question, how is this achieved where you live? Is it through high taxation?

Musk's businesses are currently successful despite him, rather than because of him. His shareholders aren't impressed with his cash burning side projects.

Not everyone has insurance - lots of people do actually just pay the fees. And paying tax on "earnings and benefits" isn't the same as paying tax on fees - with income that has already been taxed too.

Yes and individuals as opposed to their employer also pay for their own medical insurance.

Except in the bit of my post you quoted I clearly wrote that some people are genuinely victims of circumstance. This means neither 1 or 2. Why misrepresent what was written?

Yes, purely because I have no issue with wealth, and think most incredibly rich people are asset and "net worth" rich, but not necessarily cash in the bank rich.

I also think it's important that people have something to motivate them and aspire to, and for many that motivation will be financial, else there becomes no point in taking risk, pioneering or building.

However, I'm not fond of wealth hoarding. It makes little sense to me to keep millions in the bank when there are so many people in dire need. But to each their own I guess.

Money "sitting in a bank" gets lent out by banks in the form of loans

No it doesn't

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/07/28/banks-dont-lend-out-depositors-money/

the utopia of everyone having the same money brings up the distopia of lowly jobs like bin men, street cleaners etc people would say why should i do a shitty job if i can get a better job like doctor etc for the same pay, wasn't this the Russian revolution idea that everyone would be equal and look what a disaster that was, and read animal farm same utopian ideals and who ended up more equal the pigs, in society someone will always end up with more money than everyone else

There's no such thing as money sitting in a bank. See above post.

Out of 28 members of the Labour cabinet, only 4 of them went to private school. It's the most state educated cabinet in decades.

I think many people for example feel very conflicted about rich people being able to buy a better education or health care than the ordinary person.

No shit Sherlock!

There is quite a lot of ground between "wealth distribution in the UK is now unfair" and the Russian Revolution. Simply compare us to other more equitable countries.

I’m not interested in Communism no.

For the system to work, ideally we would need the average person to contribute as much as they earn. The issue is that a large majority of people pay less into the system (taxes) than what they use (all public services).
Reducing the gap between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ means taking even more from the net contributors, but what it is in it for them? Why wouldn’t they then just stop working (and contributing) or cut their hours (same amount at the end of the month but less tax paid)?

But you have started with the false premise that most people don't want rich people to exist! I don't believe it's true.

I never made any assumption about your personal circumstances. Nor did I say that poor people are automatically victims of the rich.

I think you're the one making assumptions and presenting the arguments you wish I'd made.

When people are no longer allowed to be wealthy and lose all incentive to work then everyone will be poor!
This has already been tried and proven horrible. It's called communism.

This!

I wish more rich people these days were like Andrew Carnegie, rather than Elon Musk. They should exist, they should pay tax and they should make a positive contribution to society and not do more to bring about climate change than a million normal people combined.

My DH says no one should get to be a billionaire. When you get to a billion, someone should give you a certificate and say… well done, you’ve won capitalism. No more now. No one needs to be a billionaire.