Yesterday’s debate about Warren v. Gates saw me rehashing debates I’d had with my Libertarian brother about the problems with billionaires. I’ve said many times that no one SHOULD be a billionaire, and one diary made the point that nobody has “earned” a billion dollars.
The implication was that while people may have acquired $1+ billion, whether legally through wages & profits, or illegally, nobody has done something to truly deserve such a fortune. Maybe that sounds insulting to you, but I agreed and stand by that assertion: nobody, no matter how brilliant, creative, innovative, or essential to life as we know it, DESERVES to be a billionaire.
Let’s perform a little thought experiment to see what I mean, shall we?
For this thought experiment, let us suppose I, as a pharmaceutical researcher, discover a wonder drug that cures all diseases: whether infections diseases caused by bacteria, virus, or fungi; prions like mad cow; inherited genetic diseases like sickle cell; birth defects of all kinds; cancer (every last one of the hundreds of varieties); ANYTHING that would kill a human being before violence or old age would do so is cured with one dose of my wonder drug. I discovered it all by myself, no one in the laboratory believed in me, they thought me mad, but I did it. My brilliant mind has created the ultimate panacea. I call it the Omni Cure, and it is the single greatest innovation in the history of medicine, arguably the greatest in the history of the species. People the world over rejoice. Cancer patients weep with relief; seniors suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s suddenly remember themselves and their family; doctors and nurses in NICUs all across the globe practically venerate me as a living saint.
All of humankind, eternally grateful to me for my brilliance, declares that I should receive a stiped of one million dollars a month, every month, for as long as I live. Considering the average pharmaceutical researcher makes between $80,000 to $100,000 per year as a starting salary(1), this is a huge boost to my income. Of course, I definitely deserve this wage: if I haven’t earned this kind of wealth and compensation from single-handedly ending the greatest killer of humans in the history of the species, who else could?
So, I get my million dollars a month. Every month. On the first of the month, I see $1,000,000 transferred into my bank account by an eternally grateful and indebted human race. Months go past, and my account grows. Decades go past, over and over. I’m a humble man, so after about a year I’m completely out of things to buy: my whole family have homes, paid in full; we all have our dream cars, money in the bank, set for life; college funds for children and grandchildren, and so on. After just a couple years the money is piling up, the tiny pittance I spend even on food and clothes a drop in the bucket compared to what floods in every month.
$12,000,000 a year is a lot of money, after all. So, it shouldn’t take long to hit my first billion at this rate, should it?
It takes me 83 years to hit the one billion mark. I am 34 years old today: I have to live until I am 117 years old, easily the oldest human in history, before I am paid a billion dollars.
But wait, it turns out all my research has granted me eternal youth! After 83 years, I’m still young and vigorous. Humanity shrugs; I saved everyone from disease, I’ve earned a long life and a deal is a deal after all. They keep paying me.
Decades go by. Then centuries. Then millennia.
After 4,370 years I am FINALLY as rich as Michael Bloomberg.
It takes me another 1,513 years (and change, but who’s counting at my age?) to lap Mark Zuckerberg.
After another 1,427 years I can finally go to Warren Buffet’s grave and brag I’m richer than he was...well, at least back in 2019.
Another 1,506 years go by and I leave that nerd Bill Gates in the dust.
Then, at long last, I finally earn more than Jeff Bezos. How long?
I collect my 12 million bucks a year for 9,250 YEARS before I earn as much as Bezos has today, as of your reading this.
If that doesn’t clarify to you why nobody DESERVES to be a billionaire, then nothing will.
1: explorehealthcareers.org/...