
Ask HN: What should be the point of being rich? - dudul
It is clear to everyone that being wealthy is a great asset in our world.  Having money allows one to get good quality food, access to health care, good education, stimulating leisure, etc.<p>However, it is generally accepted that it is unfair for poor people to not have access to a lot of resources, like health care or education.  Therefore governments take measures and use part of tax money to make these resources accessible to low-income households.  Some examples:
- education with scholarships 
- health care with lower premium&#x2F;rates
- internet recently with a project to offer $9 plans to low-income households
- public transportation with lower fares
etc<p>The way I understand these measures is that the <i>goal</i> of making money should not be to provide a good education to your children, or keep them healthy for example - since society tries to support low-income households and helps them get access to these resources regardless of income.<p>Now, I <i>know</i> all these programs are not good substitutes for &quot;having a truckload of money&quot;, but imagine a world were they are 100% effective. What would be an acceptable goal to making money?  Since everyone, regardless of income, should have access to schools, leisure, health care, etc why should we try to make more money?  Philosophically, what resources should be accessible only to wealthy people?
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Someone1234
If everyone had access to healthcare, education, food, and so on then being
wealthy would continue to do what it does today: Give you access to premium
things which aren't the 101s of life and are a luxury.

For example, holidays (e.g. cruises, international travel, resort stays, etc),
fine foods (e.g. exotic ingredients, better chiefs, etc), nicer vehicles,
bigger TVs, larger homes, better quality clothing, and so on. Essentially
anything expressively not listed in your tiny list of core requirements is up
for grabs.

The things you're talking about really aren't motivators above middle class
anyway. Poor people lack them, the middle class have them, and the wealthy are
so beyond caring that those aren't even things on their radar.

Do you really think someone with over a million dollars wakes up in a cold
sweat because of a sub-10K healthcare bill?

> Philosophically, what resources should be accessible only to wealthy people?

None. They should only be accessible to people who can afford them regardless
of wealth. If a middle class person wants to spend $2K on a first class plane
ticket, let them.

~~~
dudul
Thanks for your answer. The thing I'm trying to understand is how do you
define the 101 in life? Is Internet a 101 in life? I believe so, but so is a
car some may say. So are vacations.

When I was asking what should only be accessible to rich people I wasn't
talking about forbidding access to others. I meant what resources should not
have incentives attached to them, what resources are considered pure luxury.

~~~
Someone1234
Have you seen Maslow's hierarchy of needs? It tries to address this topic:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

It is, of course, just one idea but it is fairly well fleshed out so at least
worth throwing in the pile when talking about things like this.

Essentially full middle class-ness stops at self-actualization. If you can
achieve that and all of the lower tiers, everything above and beyond is
unnecessary.

Wealth stops being about living when you tick all of those "boxes" and start
spending on things that aren't really characterised by any of them.

> I meant what resources should not have incentives attached to them, what
> resources are considered pure luxury.

It might be one of those cases where it is easier to define what ISN'T rather
than what is. Since everyone that isn't required is inherently a luxury, be it
a $1 soda or a $3K+ plane ticket.

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Mz
Well, if there were some kind of justice in the world, then we would all have
access to some basics like clean air and clean water. But, at the moment,
being rich helps you get things like that when they aren't universally
available.

This is a complex subject and not one you are going to sort out with a single
question on a public forum. For starters, the primary value of money is to
lubricate trade. It doesn't have inherent value. You can't, for example, eat
it. In order to really be rich, you have to understand what has real value,
not just how much money things cost. That's not an easy thing to grasp,
especially if you are blinded by the dollar signs we attach to just about
everything today.

------
insoluble
> ... the goal of making money ...

Personally, I feel that if one finds money itself as a _goal_ , then he or she
is missing the point of life, or at least that he or she has a pretty shallow
goal. It sounds more like your real question is, "What is the purpose of
life?". If you can find a purpose, then you can let money play a part in that
purpose when and if money should be needed. If money should not be needed for
a particular goal, then money has no place there. Money is a tool like other
tools, and it sounds like you are trying to find the purpose of the tool,
rather than letting the purpose find its place naturally.

> Philosophically, what resources should be accessible only to wealthy people?

If you were to ask what should be available only to those who work harder and
smarter for the better of humanity, I might say greater success and social
recognition. If you are speaking of monetary wealth on its own, then I say
nothing extra whatsoever should be available. Money is just a number, like the
value of a variable. Looking at the world as a whole, the value of this
variable has more to do with _fortune_ , _luck_ , and _morality_ than with
hard work. True, if these factors are the same between two persons, the one
who works harder and smarter will likely have more money, but these
prerequisite factors are never equal in reality.

~~~
dudul
"Personally, I feel that if one finds money itself as a goal, then he or she
is missing the point of life" And that is exactly the purpose of my question.

I don't see having money as a goal in itself but as a mean to acquire
resources/services. But some services/resources are considered
necessary/mandatory, I was wondering where we draw the line and what would be
the point of having money if all basic needs were satisfied.

~~~
NateDad
All my basic needs are met plus some.

That doesn't mean I don't still want a Tesla, a lakehouse, a new deck on my
house, landscapers to mow and pull weeds for me, etc.

I don't think you're asking what the point of having money is, I think what
you're really asking is, if everyone could live comfortably without working,
why would anyone work?

My reply would be twofold:

1.) Why is it a requirement that everyone work? 2.) There are plenty of people
that work a lot harder than they need to, because they love their job or they
love the pay, etc.

Teachers don't teach because they like the pay. Lawyers don't work 100 hour
weeks because they couldn't make ends meet if they only worked 40 hour weeks.

In theory I could probably get a job working 20 hours a week, make half what I
do now, and still live like a typical middle class household. But I'd have to
move to a crappier town and a smaller house and wouldn't be able to vacation
for a week at a cabin on a lake, wouldn't be able to buy new tech toys when I
wanted to, etc. So I don't do that. If the world suddenly had guaranteed
income to give everyone $40k/year per adult, would I just stop working?
Probably not.

------
AnimalMuppet
The point of making a lot of money is that you provided something that a lot
of people wanted. That is, you met a need (or at least want) for a lot of
people. (I'm presuming that the way you made money was legal and ethical.)

If you did a bit to raise the standard of living for others (by making
something that they couldn't get before, or making it affordable), that's a
pretty good motive for getting rich. In fact, if that's the motive, the
"getting rich" is more like an accident. You're just trying to do something
that will help a lot of other people, and you suddenly look around and wonder,
"Why do I have all this money?"

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hkiely
Why would anyone work a paying job if all of these necessities were provided
to us? Wouldn't an individual choose to peruse a passion or educational /
research goal full time, rather than possibly working a job he or she didn't
like but need to pay the bills?

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kkt262
Capitalism works because having money gives the people an incentive to work
harder and fit within the "system" of the government. This is why it's
generally seen as a more favorable system than communism/socialism.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Does that mean capitalism breaks down when everyone's basic needs are met?

~~~
lsiebert
Capitalism breaks down when wealth is allowed to substitute for merit or the
ability to produce, and where a lack of wealth impedes the ability of
individuals to succeed on merit.

It also breaks down on public goods. The idea of capitalism is based on
rational self interest, but rational self interest for individuals doesn't
inherently lead to rational self interest for larger groups. Wealth also
allows people to distort the political process away from representation of the
interests of the majority.

Society loses out, in terms of lower productivity, higher crime, increased
prison costs, pollution, etc.

------
shoo
here are a few arbitrary thoughts:

* superficially, being wealthy offers an advantage to the individual, at least in the short term. it isn't necessarily helpful to other people (e.g. how did that person become wealthy? did they do something useful that contributed to society? did they merely figure out a clever way to reallocate wealth from other people? is it at the cost of long-term environmental damage?)

* the world is not fair (not a justification for anything, just an obvious comment)

* supposing the government is socially progressive and provides everyone with basic welfare, where does the government get the money to do that from? e.g. in our capitalist society [the government's] income might come from income tax, company tax, sale of natural resources, etc. suppose no-one participated in any economic activity because the government's social programs met their basic needs. then it might be difficult for the government to maintain this [since who would be actually doing the work of growing crops, teaching children, fixing potholes, etc?]!

* some governments try to support low-income households to some degree. but there are huge advantages to growing up in a wealthy family. there is certainly no level playing field. there was something in the economist about this a few months ago.

* in itself, i do not think the goal of making money is morally defensible. sure, it can be a means to an end - but the end does not justify the means. there are many ways to make money, some of them have merit, many (most?) of them do not have any merit.

* philosophically, "philosophical" arguments are perhaps irrelevant, as we live in a very flawed society, as flawed individuals. only certain imaginable worlds are feasibly reachable from the one we find ourselves in.

* money can give you power, and status. these are useful, and you are likely to live a more comfortable life with them than without them.

For some reason now I'm reminded of something Chomsky wrote about "expanding
the floor of the cage" [1]. This is more relevant if you are in a position
where you do not have much opportunity or power, or if you care about those
people in such a position:

> Millions of workers have become organized into rural unions which are very
> rarely discussed. One of the slogans that they use which is relevant here,
> is that we should "expand the floor of the cage." We know we’re in a cage.
> We know we’re trapped. We’re going to expand the floor, meaning we will
> extend to the limits what the cage will allow. And we intend to destroy the
> cage. But not by attacking the cage when we’re vulnerable, so they’ll murder
> us.

[1]
[http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199704--.htm](http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199704--.htm)

edit: it is perhaps useless to think about money without thinking much more
broadly about the system that money forms a part of. which human activities
are encouraged and discouraged by the system? which individuals benefit? which
individuals suffer? is the human economy separate from the physical/natural
environment?

~~~
insoluble
> did they merely figure out a clever way to reallocate wealth from other
> people?

Although it seems that money was indeed created to help distribute the fruits
of work (a noble cause), one of the problems, as you have pointed out here, is
that the system can be hacked. The monetary system takes real-world resources
(including human labour, health, and dignity) and plays them like a board
game. Even worse, the rules of the game are barely known and inconsistently
enforced.

