Should there be Billionaires?

Take a moment to think about how much money $1B is. If you earned $1B over an 80 year lifespan, that would be $1426 per hour, every hour from birth until death, even while you sleep. The average Canadian household has $852 in savings so if they spend $4 on a bag of potato chips, that percentage of their wealth is comparable to a billionaire spending $5M.

This question of money is really a question of values. Should a person be entitled to keep whatever money they earn, or do the wealthy have a responsibility to pay back into the society that facilitated their wealth? Should economics be viewed as a system for earning individual wealth or for generating collective wealth and building a productive society? Have we reached the point where the wealth gap threatens the health of our society?

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Should a person be entitled to keep whatever money they earn, or do the wealthy have a responsibility to pay back into the society that facilitated their wealth? Should economics be viewed as a system for earning individual wealth or for generating collective wealth and building a productive society? Have we reached the point where the wealth gap threatens the health of our society?

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