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Originally posted by passthedutchie
There is a difference between a respectable and honourable return for the great work they have done and true greed.
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So tell me what that difference is, exactly. I want a dollar amount. Is keeping $50,000 OK? What about $500,000? $5 million? $500 million? Where do you draw the line between an "honourable return" and "true greed"?
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I'm a student and I give what I can to charity. A computer is necessary for my own advancement. A couple extra million for a man/woman who has tens of millions is not necessary if that money could potentially save millions of lives.
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So now we're talking about lives. This very day, in some developing country, one person died because he didn't have the food, medicine, and shelter he needed for survival. The $800 you spent on your computer could have saved that one life. Is his life worth your own advancement? People who could have "saved millions of lives" but didn't are greedy and evil, but because you could have only saved one and didn't, that's OK?
In case you don't see the broader argument I'm making here, you have no basis for making an arbitrary judgment as to what is a "moral" or "empathetic" (is that a word?) amount of money to have, and what isn't. Because it's just that: arbitrary. I don't have the inclination to look up the figures right now, but I'd be willing to bet that rich people as a group give a far higher percentage of their income to charity than the middle class.
Sure, Mr. Drug Company Owner has millions upon millions today. What if tomorrow, he gets hit with a liability lawsuit that could cost him everything? What if his competitor finds a far cheaper way of producing his best-selling drug?
For whatever reason he decides that he wants to keep that money, he has that right, because he earned it. Maybe that makes him an asshole, but as Dennis Leary taught us, being an asshole is every person's right.