There is no way to become rich except by robbing workers of their full value, renting out land and property made private by violence, and/or inheriting that wealth from someone who did, protecting it with violence.
Tech billionaires did not invent something new by crushing unions, exploiting (even creating) classes of workers with fewer labor protections, and renting products in perpetuity that were created collectively and kept from ever being personally owned, from software to cartoon characters.
No amount of charity could ever make up for the abuse and exploitation they’re responsible, and it’s just as true of Bill Gates or MacKenzie Scott as Andrew Carnegie.
But imagine for a moment someone did become rich in a way that hurt no one, as if by magic. Even then, it is still wrong for individuals to possess such reality-warping wealth and solely decide how they wish to shape society, for they alone to pick which lessers to reward and punish.
(You can say, “better Gandalf have the one ring than Sauron”, but there’s a reason Olórin turned it down.)
TST sued us from April 2020 to September 2024, and we are still here.