Straggler writes:
Previously you could see no problem at all even with the situation where 1% of the population owned 99% of the wealth. Do you still stand by this?
As of yet, yes. I am awaiting your argument to show me the problem.
Straggler writes:
How can effective monopoly of investment wealth possibly promote competition?
99% of the population is competing for 99% of the wealth as investment capital. Why would you consider that stifling competition?
Straggler writes:
How can investment decisions restricted to socially detached phenomenally wealthy old men and their heirs who need for nothing at all be the best recipe for innovation?
Most rich, detached, stuffy old men actually offload the responsibility of intelligently investing their money onto people who are experts in certain fields and are not detached. These companies sell varieties of expertly-chosen investment packages so these wealthy old men are not constantly personally choosing which stocks to buy and sell to grow their fortunes. Perhaps you have heard of some of these companies.
Straggler writes:
That the more concentrated the wealth in (for example) the top 1% at any given point in time the less resource there is at that point in time available to be invested by anyone else.
Actually there is more. Almost all of the wealth of the rich is invested, meaning it is available as investment capital. If everyone had the same amount of money and that wasn't more than they could invest in increasing their personal efficiency, then there would be essentially no investment capital available.
Concentrating the wealth in a smaller percentage of the population actually increases the amount of investment capital out there.
Straggler writes:
Including the
democratically elected government who are usually relied upon to invest in things like education, health, scientific research, national infrastructure etc. etc.
What are you talking about? Even a flat tax rate would leave governments completely unaffected by such a distribution. If you get taxed the same amount per dollar then its irrelevant who holds it. And they can always just raise taxes. Interestingly this is more attractive as the vast majority of the burden doesn't fall on the vast majority of voters...
Straggler writes:
Which means that rather than a democratically determined programme of investment we instead increasingly have a programme defined by the whims of a few old men and their heirs who are so stratospherically wealthy that they are effectively cut-off from the rest of society and who have little need to do anything other than pursue their pet projects.
I already addressed the government side of things, but even in the private sector this would only apply if the rich suddenly decided to stop going for the most profitable investments (determined by market forces of the people). Now I'm not going to complain about this "what if" scenario, but why exactly would they change up the game exactly? Couldn't this equally apply to others suddenly deciding to ignore profit motives and do whatever?
Straggler writes:
They might decide to invest in the next generation of particle accelerators. Or they might just plough their money into building a chain of creationist institutes.
These are the same choices have always existed. Personally I think its more likely for a person who lives in luxury with the benefit of access to superior education and advisors to be convinced to behave wisely. At the very least it seems conducive to altruism.
Is this concentration of wealth and associated unelected political power good for democracy? For society?
I haven't seen an argument that it isn't, why don't you try to come up with one?