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0 pointsAnthonyMouse2y ago0 comments

That's something else entirely.

You could have someone who is solidly in the investment class and only works three hours a year, but during those three hours they tell their pet executives to put the capital into energy storage tech and new housing construction and do a lot of good in the world.

You could have a low-level white collar worker who isn't making very much money at all, all of it in wages, who decides to screw over the company's customers with something economically inefficient because it gives them some advantage in internal corporate politics.

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lmm2y ago

> You could have someone who is solidly in the investment class and only works three hours a year, but during those three hours they tell their pet executives to put the capital into energy storage tech and new housing construction and do a lot of good in the world.

If they're making skilled capital-allocation decisions that most people couldn't, that's work. If they're being charitable in the allocation of their ill-gotten gains, that doesn't make them any less ill-gotten.

Rentiers inherently make their money in a zero-sum way; it's perhaps not the only way to be zero-sum, but it is a major one.

AnthonyMouseOP2y ago

> If they're making skilled capital-allocation decisions that most people couldn't, that's work. If they're being charitable in the allocation of their ill-gotten gains, that doesn't make them any less ill-gotten.

Why do they have to be ill-gotten gains? Someone could invest money they've earned through productive work.

And could invest it in something charitably while still making money, e.g. you have the option to make 10% doing something anti-social or 5% doing something socially beneficial and you consciously choose the latter knowing you could make more by being less charitable.

> Rentiers inherently make their money in a zero-sum way; it's perhaps not the only way to be zero-sum, but it is a major one.

Do they? Suppose you have some money and you put it in some investment fund and then live off the earnings while having no real involvement with how the fund is managed. Meanwhile the businesses you invested in are off doing productive net-positive things with your money that wouldn't have been possible had you stuffed it in your mattress, while yielding you a positive return which is nonetheless smaller than the total amount of net good created by the business.

The best you can say is that the returns are zero-sum, even if the act of investing is positive sum. But isn't that true of anything? If you get a raise, that's zero sum. Someone else would have had the money in the alternative.

lmm2y ago

> Why do they have to be ill-gotten gains? Someone could invest money they've earned through productive work.

Because your hypothetical was specifically about someone who doesn't do productive work?

> Suppose you have some money and you put it in some investment fund and then live off the earnings while having no real involvement with how the fund is managed. Meanwhile the businesses you invested in are off doing productive net-positive things with your money that wouldn't have been possible had you stuffed it in your mattress, while yielding you a positive return which is nonetheless smaller than the total amount of net good created by the business.

You're begging the question - why was it your money in the first place?

If it's value you've produced, yes you can partner with someone else to compound it. But if it's just privilege that you had, then you don't get any credit for allowing it to be used productively.

> The best you can say is that the returns are zero-sum, even if the act of investing is positive sum. But isn't that true of anything? If you get a raise, that's zero sum. Someone else would have had the money in the alternative.

If you do something that produces real value in the world then that's positive sum - if you turn some planks and nails into a table, that table is more valuable than the stuff that went into it, the world is better off.

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lmm2y ago

Rentiers inherently make their money in a zero-sum way; it's perhaps not the only way to be zero-sum, but it is a major one.

AnthonyMouseOP2y ago

Why do they have to be ill-gotten gains? Someone could invest money they've earned through productive work.

> Rentiers inherently make their money in a zero-sum way; it's perhaps not the only way to be zero-sum, but it is a major one.

lmm2y ago

> Why do they have to be ill-gotten gains? Someone could invest money they've earned through productive work.

Because your hypothetical was specifically about someone who doesn't do productive work?

You're begging the question - why was it your money in the first place?

If it's value you've produced, yes you can partner with someone else to compound it. But if it's just privilege that you had, then you don't get any credit for allowing it to be used productively.

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