Why Jeff Bezos Should Push for Nobody to Get as Rich as Jeff Bezos

Farhad Manjoo, you are a dreamer. But we must all wake up and not depend on our new tech overlords to rescue us from our new tech overlords.

Well said, Mr. Manjoo. But note that when he says that Mr. Bezos should use his wealth to "push for policy changes that would create a more equal distribution of the winnings" most readers will think: distribution of wealth. How about thinking instead of distribution of education? In a democracy, education should be a collective responsibility. Public schools should be so good everywhere that they put private schools out of business. You should be able to pick up a 6-year-old from Greenwich, Connecticut and parachute him into Louisiana without a loss in the quality of schooling he will receive. To get from here to there, a lot of policy-making minds will have to be changed or simply awakened. Some money would help move things along.

"Why does he have so much money in the first place?" Bezos doesn't have nearly as much "money" as you think. He owns shares in the business he started, which if liquidated by him, would quickly be worth pennies on the dollar because the markets would completely freak out over it. It is a mistake to confuse paper equity with cash. Certainly he is incredibly rich, but there is no way he could actually convert his equity into $162 billion in spendable cash.

The story of Amazon goes back many years and I well remember the beginning of it.First Jeff Bezos used to advertise himself on the radio that he had the biggest book store in the country.He said that any book could be purchased.It did sound nutty to have some guy bragging that he had a big book store.Later I remember the time that Jeff Bezos was on CNBC and he was being teased that his stock was only trading at twenty dollars a share.He laughed his distinctive guffaw and said he still believed in it.This was all his vision from the beginning and he had a vision and a lot of energy.Most people did not believe in his big book store early on.He has done spectacularly well, partly because of the economics of employment, but I give him credit.I hope he has the same insight into philanthropy and is as successful with it as he was with his big book store!

Anyone could have chosen to invest along with Bezos - an initial outlay of $10,000 in 2008 would be worth more than $200,000 today - no redistributive justice required. And the driver for the drastic reduction in worldwide poverty over that past two decades has clearly been identified by the Economist Magazine: "Towards the end of poverty - Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years. The world should aim to do the same again" How did 'we' do it - not through Farhad's Robin Hood redistribution but rather from two simple ideas - unfettered capitalism within and external to countries and global free markets - so yes in many cases - greed is good - still and the one billion people no longer living in poverty would agree.

Is the idea of Mr. Bezos giving away some of his vast wealth to others a laudable effort? Maybe. Will it make a difference? Probably not. It’s the modern version of “let them eat cake,” not addressing the actual causes of homelessness and childhood poverty. There are homeless because they are addicts, alcoholics and mentally ill. Many more are working poor, budgeting their small wages so that they can afford rent and food. Those preschool kids need a healthy meal or two daily more than preschool on an empty stomach and a poorly functioning brain due to hunger. As Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos and others have found, there is a tipping point where wealth grows faster than it can be divested. The nature of capitalism is money is power, power gives priority to itself, money continues to accrue to those with the most money. They decide who gets what in our society. If they really cared, they would be putting their efforts into pushing more money downwards so all working parents could afford to feed their kids and still pay rent. They should be leading the race to get a universal health care system in place. They should be asking Jimmy Carter how to build ten million homes a year for the working poor. The rich should be screaming for an increase in overall wages so that people would be better off working than not working. Until then, it is all just window-dressing, just rich people trying to pretend they care about their fellow Americans.

Despite all the hoopla, the vast majority of Bezos and many others wealth is entirely incumbent upon the value of the shares they hold. While none of the 10% can claim poverty even in a severe downturn, there is nothing to stop any wealthy person from being only half as wealthy in a short time. Second, why shouldn’t a Jeff Bezos, whom you acknowledge has run with an uncommon idea, be vastly richer than say Charles Koch who gained his wealth expanding the family business from a successful standard to one of great wealth who then should be wealthier than Alice Walton who has not greatly influenced the success of the company started by her father?

At my age I've culled a handful of precious and powerful insights about life -- among them that, outside a tort case of law, "should" has vanishingly small utility as a guide to our expectations. I agree completely with the sentiment that vanity philanthropy has a piddling impact on the world's problems. My context is that individually taking on the world's problems is a fool's errand, no matter how rich you are. I'm also an advocate for ever greater diversity among people as the best environment for evolution to do its work. Yes, evolution, the master creator. But increasing population variance increases the spread in population outcomes, including black swan outcomes of good and bad from otherwise beneficial systems. There's nothing here that more aggressive taxation, better financial regulations and truly consensual social, educational, medical and infrastructure programs wouldn't cure. But that puts the focus on the poor, and their actual needs, instead of on the rich and their impudent good fortune. It also clarifies that our problems likely arise from a confusion of political will, the partisan delusions of the electorate, and a selfie centric lack of understanding of how other people must get by. But go ahead. If you think knocking the rich is a good way to get to higher taxes and better social policy, then have it. At least Bezos is voting with his cash; the rest of us only have to wager a ballot, which costs us nothing.

America has been always and continues to be a capitalist based system. Smart, creative, hardworking types get ahead, some more then others, but so what, something to look up to. All these other systems around the world that constantly get "romantically" presented to us....they all are dysfunctional, whether due to failures(like communism), or socialism..... A very colorful representation of communism started back post world War II when we did not want to insult some European allies with their belief systems....so closely related to communism. The reason everyone wants to come to America is precisely because of our belief system and amazing potential and success stories. We are the ultimate aspirational story. I hope we have many Bezos, Gates, Jobs, Buffets etc types. They are the poster children for this country.

The problem is that no one is really worth billions of dollars a year. It is impossible for a single person to account for that much productivity. It is an artificially created inflation of a person’s actual worth. Of course a CEO who starts a successful company or turns around a company is valuable and worth a lot of money. But not billions. They don’t do it alone. There are thousands and thousands of workers who directly contribute to the success of the company. Yet they rarely see the actual monetary reward because investors think it’s all because of the CEO. That’s ridiculous and unrealistic and yet that is how our system works.

What Mr. Bezos should do is give away 99.99% of his wealth, and he'd still live quite well. There is something toxically wrong and perverted about our capitalist system that anyone should have billions, or even hundreds of millions. It's repulsive and reveals a rot in the soul of our society. Talk about taking what you need. The rich will continue to be parasites living off the poor they exploit.

Amazon employees could get paid wages that support a family, and strong benefits as well as safety measures, as a starter. Sharing the wealth doesn't get any simpler than that.

I am glad billionaire Bezos is serious about how to use his wealth to help the poor and the disenfranchised. As a sobering account, he should read the parable of " the Rich man and Lazarus" Gospel of Luke 16:19-31. There is eternity ahead; does he know how much of his wealth he will carry with him, to the grave ?

Here in Switzerland they have a wealth tax. Nobody complains about it and it is a good way to keep things from getting out of hand. One individual being able to hoard that much money is a glaring warning sign of a 'society' spinning out of control.

Jeff Bezos' wealth is also about power and domination. ------------------------------------------------------------------ In a democracy, why should one man have so much power to dominate, and control, without any input from we, the people? Trump has power, but he is limited by Congress and elections. Perhaps, Jeff Bezos and Amazon can find ways to limit his power.

He built it. No one else did. We benefit from what he did. On top of this, his company- and many other tech companies- have enabled families with savings in the market- over half a all Americans- to generate much wealth in Union pensions, 401(k)'s, etc. And of course, those college savings plans. To claim only the evil "billionaires" benefits is silly and reductive. They EXPANDED the pie- wealth is not fixed. Remember, if you gave everyone a million dollars, even the poorest would be rich. Yet "inequality" would be the exact same. And no one would care.

Uh...Isn't this what 'taxation' is for?

Why should we appeal to the generosity of the super wealthy to solve inequality? We do still live in a democracy. The Senate will always be unrepresentative. However, the vast majority of American have the ability to redistribute Jeff Bezos' fortune on his behalf. It's called a ballot box. We don't need to take our queues from ultra-rich tech barons and oligarchic aristocrats. We simply need to organize and mobilize. That means refusing to settle for lesser evils. That means demanding the greater good and settling for nothing less. I'm not grateful when a modern tycoon disdains to ask my opinion how he should spend his wealth. I'm encouraged to take it from him.

When I was born the U.S President was Harry Truman. The top marginal tax rates peaked in 1952 and 1953 at 92 percent for income over $300,000. Then when JFK introduced the "tax cuts" in 1963: The Revenue Act reduced top marginal rate (on income over $100,000, roughly $770,000 in 2015 dollars, for individuals; and over $180,000; roughly $1,380,000 in 2015 dollars, for heads of households) from 91% to 70% and also reduced corporate tax rate from 52% to 48%. In 1964/5 we finally got Medicare, SS Disability, etc. Guess what. There were still rich people having a very nice life. Have Mr. Bezos give me a call so I can tell him that "charity" is not the answer. It is a return to paying your fair share to society.

Mr. Bezos and his company are the owners of a critical piece of infrastructure, as important to modern commerce as the railroads were during the gilded age. It's the same phenomenon: a savvy operator sees the future and both creates and manipulates his way to sole ownership of something that virtually everyone uses and needs. Mr. Bezos should be richly rewarded for what he has done, but he should not be allowed to continue the stranglehold he enjoys over the nation's online commerce. Take away his money? No. Change the tax law? That's a legitimate discussion. Keep discussing it. Do something, anything, to remove his ability to control and profit from nearly every online sale in the United States? Yes. How? I don't know. But like the robber barons of the gilded age, he has too much power and influence over what is not critical infrastructure, even if he created it. Great job Mr. Bezos. Really, it's amazing. You've created an extremely useful octopus. Now we need to make sure that it operates in the public interest.

Why do several of the billionaires of today desire rocket ships to Mars or where ever? We haven't even mapped the ocean floors or discovered vast amounts of it. Heavily investing into their boyhood dreams are egotistical and wasteful follies. Surely they can do whatever with their billions but concentrating more upon our spaceship earth would be prudent right now. I am guessing they just want to get off of it and leave the rest of humanity behind. So stuff yourselves (& your millions of 100 dollar bills) into a rocket and blast off. Bye.

Well this is a no-brainer. Pay your employees a living wage for a 32 hour week with gold plated benefits. Lead the way in acknowledging who really creates your fortune.

Jeff Bezos has provided the USA with many high paying jobs. I know, my daughter is an engineer at Amazon. She gets stock, a higher wage than myself ( a college teacher) and full benefits. She is just one of the many high skilled workers living and working in this country. Amazon offers free training to become truck drivers, nurses etc. to its warehouse workers. Look for a bogeyman somewhere else. Income inequality is rooted in lack of education and opportunity. Amazon has given thousands of Americans an opportunity here in the USA to improve their skills.

Anand gave an insightful interview with Ezra Klein questioning the sincerity of billionaire philanthropists. His point is that the scant good they do is often overshadowed by the harm done by their corporations, and that their real goal with philanthropy is positive PR.

I completely agree with Mr. Bezos' plan to use his wealth to develop mature and routine (and I'm certain, profitable) space travel and development, especially in low earth orbit, the moon, and Mars. Even though I and the majority will never travel to space, the downstream benefits are world-changing. This is a frontier that might just solve a LOT of current problems. Solar power satellites, anyone? Near-earth asteroid mining? Geo-engineering Lagrange point sunshades to combat global warming? All these ideas (and more) save environmental degradation on earth. And that's just with current thinking. But more importantly, frontiers provide actual visions for the future that don't involve some sort of radically- downscaled "learn to make do with lowered expectations and diminished resources" approach. We need a vision for the future...to quote author Jerry Pournelle, we don't need to just survive; we need to "survive with style!"

Jaff Bezos, like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others have created wealth with great ideas, hard work, and persistence. While it’s nice to dream about a world where wealth is evenly distributed, we know from experience with communistic societies that it comes at the expense of advancement of those societies’ economies and standard of living. In truth, we need more like Jeff Bezos, not fewer, and we need them to channel their efforts to the general good of society. It’s obvious that even our egalitarian political system is incapable of distributing the wealth of taxes it collects fairly, in part because politicians didn’t earn it themselves. Spending other people’s money is easy, but spending it responsibly is hard. The wealth of entrepreneurs is directly in their control and outside the political system. Hence, entrepreneurs are in a much better position to address important societal problems quickly. Also, since they rely on human labor to make their fortunes, they make it possible for many people to enjoy a comfortable life without putting in the efforts required of the benefactors. Dream on, if you will, but consider where we would be without such motivated and determined people.

I would feel better about Mr. Bezos' unfamothable wealth if Amazon wasn't known as such an abusive and Darwinian place to work. He is the beneficiary of one of the world's largest sweatshops. That said, no one should be allowed to accrue the level of wealth he has. An 80% tax on income over $10 million seems reasonable to me. And while we're at it, taxing capital gains the same as ordinary income would do more for income inequality and general fairness than almost anything else.

First, I applaud him for his vision, his wealth, and his willingness to give some of his wealth back to the masses. Unfortunately, extreme wealth tends to be corrosive on an individual and an institutional level. The endless pursuit of wealth can lead to incessant greed, focus on short term results, and concentration of wealth. Our current society and economic system is rigged to benefit those at the top from favorable tax laws that allow the 2% to shield majority of their wealth from the tax man. Yes, other wealthy folks from Bill Gates to Oprah give considerable amounts of their wealth to charitable causes. What if everyone from the wealthiest 2% to the middle class gave 10% of their income to charitable causes that address income equality here and abroad? Finally, do we as a nation[the wealthiest nation on earth] really want to solve systemic poverty within our borders with every available tool from Tech to faith based organizations?

I am old enough to remember the 1960's when the wealthy paid top marginal tax rates over 70% and corporations provided over 20% of all our federal tax revenues. And, labor unions were powerful enough to demand a fair wage for a fair days work. Way back then, it would take two or three generations of successful entrepreneurship to become the richest man in the world. Not that there were not first generation success stories, it was just that the rising tides in those days lifted all the boats, not just the yachts.

We have enough problems on this planet that Mr. Bezos should consider space travel to be fairly far down on the list. How many children can be saved with clean drinking water for every rocket we send to an unmanned planet? While it is admirable that he wishes to give so much, Mr. Bezos should read Practical Ethics and then re-assess his giving priorities.

This is a classic chicken and egg problem. If Jeff Bezos never lived, how much of his billions would be in the pockets of his employees? Not one nickel of Bezos money would exist if not for his vision and extremely hard work (if it were easy we would all be billionaires). Not one nickel would be available for his employees or society at large. And yes, Amazon has benefited society at large as well as Mr. Bezos by providing competition and services that make life cheaper and easier for all of us and promoting all of the smaller business and their employees that sell through Amazon. Having created this enormous pile of money, he, in my opinion, has every right to decide how to use it to benefit society, whether through charitable causes or rocketry, and in light of his track record of success I would trust him to do that rather than any committee of worthies or governmental entity.

My only quibble - and it is just a quibble - with this argument is the idea that this inequality is somehow new, and unique to the technology enterprises of today. As the author’s own example of Rockefeller shows, American capitalism, and the policies that largely define it, has promoted inequality for a very long time.

I'm tired of the idea that society should punt responsibility to solve its problems to a few rich men (whether Bezos or Trump or Buffet). That is not their job or role in society. That's the job of government and good governance. Case and point: "Among other policies, Amazon has capitalized on a weakened union movement and a low minimum wage". Maybe we should just all vote for people that support unions and a living minimum wage instead of the guys who tell you they will cut taxes. Skip appealing to or begging rich tech titans to do the right thing and tell them it's now the law. That would go a far way in changing the wealth concentration at the top. You could argue that Bezos can just do it anyways but why should he? In all of human history, have any kind, jolly and generous people ever become the richest person in the world? Probably not.

How about if Mr. Bezos pays his workers a minimum of $100,000 per year plus full benefits. In addition he could pay for college tuition for his workers kids. Then his workers and their offspring could become part of the middle class. In other words, he could share the wealth that his workers create.

Wow, are you barking up the wrong tree. Jeff Bezos was a classmate at Princeton and a staunch Libertarian at the age of 21. He argued volubly against redistribution of wealth on any level, disputed the rights of the democratic majority, progressive taxation, socialized medicine... at one point we debated whether public libraries were a good idea (the future richest man in the world didn’t think so). Jeff is interested in Jeff. Always was.

I'm no economist, but riddle me this: If Bezos paid all his hourly workers, say, $20 per hour, he'd be slightly less ridiculously wealthy, and his workers' quality of life would improve exponentially? No pass-through to product pricing, just a 'haircut' for Jeff...

The robber barons of the 19th century are rightfully decried for their greed, but whether it was one-upsmanship masquerading as civic pride or an actual philanthropic epiphany, we got things like a nationwide library system courtesy of Andrew Carnegie, the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum and the main building of the NY Public Library. Tech titans seem to believe that any act of philanthropy must also involve tech - heavily, because in their minds, it is tech and tech alone which has made our lives "lovelier and lovelier". Whatever project they undertake must end up as a celebration of themselves and their godlike vision rather than any true common good. l

Odd how progressive liberals aren't offended by the wealth of Bezos but then he opposes Trump so he can do no wrong. If Amazon were broken into two companies, the retail operation and Amazon Web Services (AWS), their taxes would immediately go up and much of Bezos's wealth would disappear. Most people don't know or believe that Amazon loses money on all of the stuff it sells. It is only a profitable company because of the huge profits of AWS. The stock price is not justified by profits but on future anticipated profits if ever the retail operations could become profitable. The truth is brick and mortar stores are more efficient and sell goods at less cost then Amazon but can't compete with a company which can sell goods at a loss. It is time for Amazon to be broken up for Antitrust reasons. I love Amazon but I don't like them predatorially attacking competition using subsidies from AWS.