I agree with your counter points above. However, I'd say that for the consumption purpose, at least, it's mostly true. No one really needs $100 million house or 5 personal cars.
If that $1 is invested, rather than consumed by the rich, then, it could potentially be more beneficial to the society.
I have no idea if this will show up now that this topic is dead, but:
In exactly the same way that no one needs 5 personal cars, no one needs 5 sets of clothes. I challenge you to come up with an argument for having 5 sets of clothes that isn't merely a wealth-displaced* version of the argument for 5 cars.
* Wealth-displaced meaning that the only difference is our collective wealth, so that the cars argument is the same as the clothes argument would have been 200 years ago.
> I agree with your counter points above. However, I'd say that for the consumption purpose, at least, it's mostly true. No one really needs $100 million house or 5 personal cars.
I'm pretty sure that the folks who built said house and cars appreciate the work.
And, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to like some of the technology used in that $100M house. It was nice of the rich guy to pay for the prototypes.
If that $1 is invested, rather than consumed by the rich, then, it could potentially be more beneficial to the society.