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

I think Billionaires shouldn’t exist. There is too much disparity for some to have so much.

But I do take issue with people who wish to characterise the likes of dh and I as elites.

Dh and I were born to immigrants, both sets of parents abusive. But we spent all of our 20s building a business - no meals out, no holidays, living in a run down flat - a lot of mental anguish. We have a household income of around £250k.

I don’t have a problem with rich people existing. The fact that technically anyone can work themselves into a position where they are comfortable and not counting every penny is what drove me to strive for better for myself. I grew up poor in unstable living conditions, we moved around a lot and often ran out of food at the weekends. It was the kind of poor where I was relieved to go to school because I would be able to eat well at least once that day. The knowledge I could get myself out of that situation is what drove me and I have been pushing myself to achieve better for the better part of 25 years. I’m at a point now where, barring a major disaster, my DC will never know the life I did as a child.

Most posters are correct in that extreme wealth (hundreds of millions is my definition) just continues to widen the gap between richest and poorest. People with this status have access to all sorts of means to pay minimal tax, so although their total amounts sound high, the are proportionately minuscule, which is unfair as those who create their vast wealth also pay proportionately more tax.

As a society, we can’t afford for that to continue, as looking far into the future, I dont see it ending well for anyone.

Of course it is true.

I grew up in a very working class area (to put it politely) and there was a hell of a lot of inverted snobbery around. Local teenagers would key fancy cars for no other reason than they must have belonged to rich people.

Millionaires should exist. If you've invented something lucrative you should enjoy the rewards.

I don't believe billionaires should exist (where their great grandkids couldn't spend the money in their lifetime). Businesses shouldn't rely on government handouts for their workers while their bosses are obscenely rich.

Of course!
Do you want to eliminate us?
😁 Joking.
Rich people and less well off people will always exist, unless we are taken over by aliens.

Would you say you are rich? Are you the people that need to be taxed at very high levels for the sake of wider society?

The Private system provides extra capacity at a huge price, further reducing the amount of money that can be spent within the NHS.

The NHS has many powerful advocates but at the end of the day, if people can pay and get a quicker / better service they will. We live in a capitalist society, profit speaks louder than picket lines.

Yes, many staff work for the NHS and then do their overtime in Private Health care to retain both a great pension and have a better hourly rate on the overtime. The NHS then fills these gaps with agency which costs a lot more.

I'm not saying people are wrong to use Private services. All I'm saying is there is a disadvantage to poorer people, that was your question.

I don't think 'rich people' shouldn't exist, not sure where you're drawing the lines but it doesn't really matter. Human nature is to group together and create 'others', as such even if we removed rich and poor completely there would soon be a new system in its place to sort people by.

No one should have $239 billion while people are dying from lack of access to things easily correct with a basic amount of money (basic health care, food, shelter etc...).

@housethatbuiltme That's a ridiculous amount of money, but if someone has made that money, should a government take most of it away from them? I mean, they can, but what would be the result? Would people stop attempting to be entrepreneurial and not start businesses anymore, because it's not worth it if they're successful?

OP you are basically espousing communism. That has never worked out as a political doctrine for any country that tried it.

I think that the cost of housing has massively warped people’s standard of living based on wildly different salaries.

And - I think where you live in the UK also means how far your money goes varies dramatically and so impacts your perception of ‘rich’ or ‘wealth’.

So - if you owned a terraced house in my street outright and had a £65k income and no kids…. Yes your life would be comfortable.

If you needed a mortgage and had childcare costs to pay… well, you wouldn’t be able to live here at all at your £65k threshold. It wouldn’t cover the mortgage (which you wouldn’t be eligible for), let alone the cost of childcare etc. I don’t live anywhere fancy - it’s just expensive.

We have created a huge problem in the UK via the cost of housing that those on even quite high incomes don’t see that translated into a notably higher quality of living.

And another problem with high house prices is the amount of people's money that goes into unproductive rents or mortgages.

Cheaper housing would allow people to spend more money on other things, helping the economy by increasing spending power.

I'm not because I have no problem with rich people. I have been surprised at these kinds of views being expressed quite widely on MN though so wondered about the prevalence of them. It seems (according to the poll) that it is a significant minority who believe rich people shouldn't exist but they are certainly very vocal.

I fundamentally disagree with being able to buy preferential healthcare or education. I always have. Advantage should not be thing that can be purchased. I also disagree with generational wealth. That just widens the gap between the haves and the have nots.
Billionaires should not exist. It's obscene that a small number of people hoard the world's wealth while millions have no access to clean water and millions more are unable to buy enough decent nutritious food.
There should, as far as I am concerned, be a wealth cap, which includes assets and investments as well as what might be considered ready cash. There is absolutely no need for anyone to have more than £10, 000,000 of combined income and assets.
There should also be a cap on the pay gap between those at the top of companies and those on the shop floor. I believe this should be in the order of 25 x the lowest income.
We do need people to be able to earn more for jobs that require more skill/knowledge/time commitment, otherwise there is no incentive for people to become doctors, engineers etc. But I believe that we need to have a fundamental rethink of which roles are actually important for the smooth running of society and reward people appropriately. The minimum amount that people get paid needs to increase greatly, as does the support given to those who, for whatever reason, cannot work.
My views are a little softer now than they were 40 odd years ago when I was a teenager, but they haven't really changed. Poverty is an outrage and a shame on humanity, but so, perhaps more so, is extreme wealth.

I completely agree with this. Private hospitals also cherry pick which operations they will do and the moment anything goes wrong, the patient is shipped back into the NHS as an emergency.

Yes they should, governments have ALWAYS taken money of people.

Its called taxes and billionaire pay a tiny amount in relation to their worth and income which is absoloutly NOT acceptable.

The incentive is still there to be an successful. It not even against millionaires, its not like people will say no I'm going to exist on the bare minimum because Im not allow more than I could ever possibly need. It is simply against people hoarding obscene amounts removing it from circulation and thus purpose while millions go without due to that.

perhaps you should be asking a different question ....

should poor people exist ?

Yes hard work should be rewarded but intelligence?
People are born intelligent or unintelligent, there shouldn't be reward for genetic luck.

I don't think someone should be able to be a billionaire - I actually don't know how you could sit on billions knowing full well what the rest of the world looks like.

People should absolutely be able to be wealthy though - and I 100% do not put the 65k earners in that bracket.

I don't believe that rich people shouldn't exist. I do object to rich people who hide their wealth in off-shore tax havens and those who buy influence with politicians to make laws that prioritise the rich.

My apologies to your dog, I quoted it in a negative manner if that helps?

But talent should surely be rewarded and intelligence is one of the most useful forms of this? How else would we encourage innovation and excellence? I want the best minds working on our most difficult problems and I think they should be paid extremely well for this.

People should be able to acquire as much wealth as the system allows. If you don't want them to be able to earn more than X or own more than Y, go into politics and change the system.

That said, I think we all prefer that people with a lot of money don't rub it in our faces through conspicuous consumption. Arseholes paying hundreds of pounds for a steak with gold sprinkled on it come to mind. (Some billionaires are amazingly nice, even though they are probably a bit less nice on average because you need a certain amount of self-centredness to get to a billion.)

But even then it's complicated. A superyacht creates a large number of skilled jobs just to keep it afloat, far more than having that money sitting in the bank. And most of the objects of beauty around us have been created by, or with the backing of, wealthy individuals.

I would say I am comfortable. I do not feel like I am disproportionally well off to that point it is negatively impacting others.

I think there should be a cap on personal wealth.
E.g 10 million pounds per person.

I think it should be a very high cap to promote productivity, entrepreneurs and people working hard to leave their children generational wealth...
But I can't see anyone ever needing more than 10 million. That is enough to invest and the capital will remain including accounting for inflation to leave to children/grandchildren.

Over 10 million, it is distributed to very tightly moderated and audited public services.

I think you are being ignorant or obtuse.

Many of your so called wealthy will be salary earners who are well paid and may be able to fund private school and healthcare. Yes they may have privilege but it comes at a cost. They may have a comfortable life but they will never have private islands, jets. yachts etc.

But their 'wealth' has not disproportionately increased over recent years and may even have decreased due to increasing costs.

For those not dependant on salary, the asset wealthy in recent years have increased the ability to 'create' profit - from every day companies at the top like supermarkets and energy companies, P&O, Amazon, etc who increase profits and squeeze workers down to landlords charging exorbitant rent.

This is the old 'labour theory of value' where the surplus value created by the poor increases the coffers of the already wealthy. Complicated by the payment of UC to underpaid workers and HB to underpaid workers. Which is basically tax payer payment to employers and landlords.

To stop the wealth transfer we need fair wage and rent control.