My pleasure!
Ah yeah the article is somewhat circular referencing when it comes to evidence provided that having x amount of billionaires is fine and sign of a lovely healthy and beautiful society (as long as they align with party interests). It’s interesting how there’s an implicit assumption in China that there are things like reputation and power which can’t be bought by money. But yes, I see where you’re coming from.
I’m still trying to chew on your second point. It’s gotten me questioning some assumptions. Billionaires feel like an inevitable emergent property of a market mostly because there are at least 1 billion people in the world who have different estimates of “value”. I’m imagining an “ethical” billionaire who got rich creating some video game in his spare time charging folks a low $5. Would you say there’s a flaw in the society for creating such a billionaire? Maybe it’s on the backs of exploitative low cost chip manufacturers who make computers or some energy provider… or is it that the market will balance since competition will cut into the profits of the first developer which then should, in an ideal world, would curb the growth of the billionaire. If I’m reading you right, you’re claiming that there’s a threshold after which there’s implied “corruption” or collision to allow for unchecked growth?
In China’s case (at least from the article in this thread, not OP), it seems they ‘cautiously allowed’ the formation of billionaires back on the day to ‘supercharge’ the economy with that extra profit incentive. It’s what that money can buy is the big question and in which China claims to have a limit.
Thanks for engaging :)
deleted by creator