A tiny minority of wealthy people are rich because they lied, cheated or stole their way there. When you get to the uber-rich from free societies it gets even slimmer still.
Take a drive through a wealthy suburb. Look at all the families in expensive houses. Do you really think they lied, cheated and stole their way to those houses? And I don't mean some Marxist 'all property is theft' view, I mean actually took something without permission or told a lie in order to get someone to hand over money. And that's just one small area within one country. When you add up all the wealthy people in free societies you'll find a lot of hardworking/lucky/smart people and very few .
How about some of the successful YC exits that have made the founders wealthy. Were they lying, cheating or stealing?
I don't pretend there aren't people who haven't cheated their way to riches, just that they are a tiny, tiny minority of the people who have a lot of wealth. Sure, if you're going to look at the courts system, that's what you'll find. But that's like inspecting a garbage dump and announcing the world is covered in litter.
But if you look around and all you see liars, cheats and theives, then you've got a very skewed view of reality.
If this is your worldview :
'I believe that a very large percentage of those who are extremely rich partook or do partake of significant "stealing and lying" to get there or stay there.'
Then there is nothing more you and I can discuss because we look at the world in very different ways. And I loudly wonder what you're doing on this site.
On the other hand, your own view might be skewed if you are only looking at USA.
USA offers the most opportunity(including numerous lottery type multipliers for outliers) to get rich without breaking common ethic norms .
I am currently in a European country with an average Gini coefficient. Still, almost everyone (read over 90%) of rich have indulged in suspicious behavior while creating their fortunes. Since this is only using public information, one can only hazard to guess what lurks around in shadows.
Sadly, when I look at a rich suburb here, most of it belongs to people who have benefited from corruption, embezzlement, stealing, lying, cheating, contraband(least of evils here) et al.
Take a drive through a wealthy suburb. Look at all the families in expensive houses. Do you really think they lied, cheated and stole their way to those houses? And I don't mean some Marxist 'all property is theft' view, I mean actually took something without permission or told a lie in order to get someone to hand over money. And that's just one small area within one country. When you add up all the wealthy people in free societies you'll find a lot of hardworking/lucky/smart people and very few .
How about some of the successful YC exits that have made the founders wealthy. Were they lying, cheating or stealing?
I don't pretend there aren't people who haven't cheated their way to riches, just that they are a tiny, tiny minority of the people who have a lot of wealth. Sure, if you're going to look at the courts system, that's what you'll find. But that's like inspecting a garbage dump and announcing the world is covered in litter.
But if you look around and all you see liars, cheats and theives, then you've got a very skewed view of reality.
If this is your worldview : 'I believe that a very large percentage of those who are extremely rich partook or do partake of significant "stealing and lying" to get there or stay there.' Then there is nothing more you and I can discuss because we look at the world in very different ways. And I loudly wonder what you're doing on this site.