UPDATE: They changed the headline after massive backlash.
You simply can't make it up.
That's the title of an op-ed by professional jOuRNaLisT Chris Gay, who has worked at The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report, the Far Eastern Economic Review, Slate, and Forbes.
If you haven't heard, SpaceX is going public on Wall Street. Because of its satellite network, rocket launch platforms, and plans to build fleets of data centers in orbit, the company might be the most valuable on Planet Earth (and beyond).
Here's what Mr. Gay has to say about that:
The more compelling argument against billionaires has to do not with the ethical implications of the extreme inequality that they arguably promote, but with the adverse real-world consequences, which you don't have to be a fire-breathing Marxist to acknowledge. There is plenty of evidence that extreme inequality produces inferior and even perverse social outcomes.
Counterpoint:
SpaceX employees who stuck with the company are about to get RICH.
A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say.
None of basic innovations we now enjoy, like light bulbs and antibiotics and disease-resistant crops, let alone iPhones or commercial jets or 5G networks, would be possible without pioneers who took massive risks. These pioneers needed capital to make their dreams possible.
In the past century, disease, early mortality, and poverty have dropped off a freaking cliff. In 1870, over 75% of people lived in extreme poverty, even in developed cities like London and New York.
Today, it is under 10%.
This is directly due to people like Elon Musk. Why? Because government programs don't produce capital. People do.
The last century showed us plenty of examples where governments tried to control the "means of production." Those countries are now poor, backward shells.
But Gay knows all of this. π
...the plutocratic class can claim that most of the wealth it creates accrues to other people through the disbursed social benefits of capitalist innovation and philanthropy.
What Gay says about extreme human inequality does have wisdom, but only from a biblical perspective that acknowledges human sin in rebellion against a holy God.
The Bible warns about appointing kings who will tax you (Deuteronomy 17:14-20, 1 Samuel 8:4-22) and it speaks ad nauseam about the evils of human corruption. Elon, and other men of wealth, should pay careful attention to Jesus' words about the difficulties of the rich entering the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:23-24).
But Super-Duper Gay isn't arguing from that framework. He's arguing that rich people are evil because his vague standard of "social outcomes" isn't being reached.
Enter Elon. It was his wealth, not his political acumen or the strength of his ideas, that put him at the centre of government. No voter gave him political power; he simply bought it.
Counterpoint: MECHAZILLA.
I'll listen to you, Mr. Gay, when you figure out how to capture a rocket with chopsticks.
Whatever Mr. Musk's considerable accomplishments, it's hard to construct a price-of-genius argument that justifies his often-malignant influence.
Often-malignant?
Bro, I couldn't publish truth on social media before Elon bought Twitter. The White House and other governments were coordinating massive censorship schemes before one billionaire out of a few thousand decided to interrupt them.
You live in a bubble, Mr. Gay!
I shouldn't be too hard on the guy. After all, it was probably the woke editors at the Globe & Mail who picked that awful headline.
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