Just Be Rich (2021)

Reactions to the essay and its framing

• Several commenters see the essay as an ideological defense of capitalism/wealth, smuggling in opposition to wealth taxes and inequality concerns.
• Others argue it correctly notes that capital barriers to starting companies have fallen and that some “labor” (founders, early employees) have captured large gains.
• There is pushback on the claim that “labor has prevailed”: many note winner‑take‑all dynamics and that a tiny subset of workers become rich while most see little benefit.

Wealth inequality, merit, and luck

• One major thread debates how much extreme wealth is skill vs luck.
• Some argue outsized outcomes are mostly luck layered on competence; others say this overstates luck and becomes a way to deny agency and achievement.
• Intergenerational wealth is cited as clearly luck from the heirs’ perspective, with disagreement about whether ancestors’ actions can reasonably be called “luck.”
• Concern is raised that extreme inequality historically leads to instability; skeptics demand concrete examples and warn against equating inequality with systems like the USSR.

Wealth vs income; taxation debates

• Linked analysis arguing “there isn’t that much wealth to tax” gets mixed reception: some find it persuasive, others call it “transparently dumb,” noting control over assets matters even if leveraged or offset by debt.
• Multiple arguments over wealth taxes:
  • Pro: wealth is unelected power; caps or heavy progressive taxation (even approaching 100% at very high levels) are seen as socially stabilizing.
  • Con: wealth taxes are hard to administer, may hit upper‑middle more than billionaires, and risk capital flight and reduced entrepreneurship.
• Examples from Norway, France, New Zealand, and US estate tax are used to argue both that wealth taxes can work and that they drive the rich (or at least some of them) away.

Capital, labor, and moral responsibility

• Some frame shareholders and heirs as “parasitic,” extracting surplus from workers who create value.
• Others stress the role of capital and risk: without investors there is no firm, so returns to capital are justified.
• A moral critique: modern economies intentionally maintain some unemployment and tolerate poverty to stabilize prices and enable wealth accumulation; therefore, the rich owe something back.
• Externalities (pollution, health harms, broken‑window–style “growth”) are highlighted as missing from simplistic “just get rich” narratives.

Housing, startups, and access to opportunity

• Disagreement on whether “it’s never been easier” to start a company: some emphasize cheap computers and global markets; others note dwindling access to metaphorical “garages” (capital, space, attention) and AI compute costs.
• Housing is repeatedly cited as where inequality shows up most: median incomes have risen, but housing costs and zoning constraints make real living standards and mobility diverge from headline income stats.

Government competence and use of tax revenue

• One camp supports higher taxes and redistribution but worries about state capture by contractors and “boondoggles,” arguing new taxes often enrich different elites, not the poor.
• Another counters that government spending recirculates via salaries and taxes, and that the real question is designing institutions that channel both public and private capital toward broad social benefit, not abandoning taxation.