No one person contributes a fortune of that size, so it records capture rather than desert

The argument

A second argument addresses the acquisition rather than the retention. Proponents argue that a fortune of this size cannot correspond to any individual's contribution, because no person works that much harder, or thinks that much better, than the people around them. Whatever talent and effort a founder brings, the product they sell depends on workers they employ, on roads and ports and courts and currency they did not build, on research that was publicly funded, on an educated population they did not educate, and on an orderly market they did not establish. A fortune is therefore a claim on a collective product, and the size of the claim is set by bargaining position rather than by contribution. On this account the moral question is how such a bargaining position is obtained. Proponents point to features they argue are hard to describe as earning: owning an asset that appreciates while others work, structuring a business so that gains concentrate at the top, suppressing competition, pressing wages and conditions down, using political influence to shape the rules under which the firm operates, and arranging affairs so that little tax is paid on any of it. Each of these increases the holder's share without increasing the product, which is to say that it transfers rather than creates. Proponents conclude that the title in such a fortune is morally weaker than ordinary property claims, and that this is what makes retention a failing rather than merely unfortunate. If the money represents a contribution the person actually made, keeping it is at least arguable. If it represents a share extracted from a collective effort by advantages of position, then holding it is participation in that extraction, and continuing to hold it is a continuing choice to benefit from arrangements proponents argue could not be defended to the people they take from.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics argue that the premise about contribution confuses effort with value: a decision taken once can be worth enormously more than a lifetime of labour, and someone whose judgement directs resources well creates value far beyond the hours they work. They argue that reliance on public infrastructure is universal, so it cannot distinguish a fortune from any other income, and that it is in any case paid for through taxation. On extraction, critics argue that the claim must be shown case by case rather than assumed, since fortunes have been built by selling things people chose to buy at prices they chose to pay, and that the conclusion follows only where capture is actually established rather than inferred from the size of the result.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Value is not proportional to effort: a single well-judged decision can be worth more than a lifetime of labour, so size does not imply disproportion. [Rejecting P2] Reliance on infrastructure and public research is universal and is paid for through taxation, so it cannot distinguish this income from any other. [Rejecting P3] Whether a particular fortune was extracted or created has to be shown case by case rather than inferred from its size. [Rejecting C] If the objection is to specific practices such as suppressing competition or lobbying, the remedy is to prohibit those practices rather than to condemn the holder.