Summary
Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot in a premeditated attack outside the New York Hilton Midtown before speaking at an investor conference.
The gunman, still at large, fired multiple times, leaving shell casings marked with the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose.”
Authorities suggest Thompson was targeted but remain unclear on the motive. His wife confirmed prior threats against him.
Analysts speculate a possible vendetta tied to his company. The case raises questions about executive security, as Thompson lacked personal protection despite known risks.
It just seems like people keep repeating this line “there is absolutely no such thing as an ethical billionaire” without giving it any thought. Who said this and what facts do they have to back up this statement?
Companies are worth money. The value of that company increases for a thousand different reasons and what that company does with that money varies.
Some companies, like Walmart, Amazon, UHC, squeeze profit from every place they’re legally (or not) allowed to to benefit the bottom line and executive pockets. Some companies are full of hard working people doing incredible things. Some companies just get lucky and they sell a shit load of stuff. \
Some billionaires are celebrities or athletes who’ve taken an already large sum of money and invested it for a small return. Some billionaires started with a few million, made some wise financial decisions, maybe bought real estate at the right place and time, and turned it into billions. Once you have a large amount of money, it’s not hard to make it bigger.
I mean, it seems like the argument against billionaires is that no company should ever see an increase in value; that no person should ever be worth more tomorrow than they were yesterday.
Not every company makes money doing the same thing. Not every CEO is a billionaire. Not every billionaire is evil.
You can throw out every example you want about the actions of particular companies but I’d argue there are just as many, if not more, doing things somewhat decently. Just because a company is worth billions doesn’t mean it’s bad; just as a company making a few hundred thousand isn’t necessarily good.
You’re all laser focused on certain people and certain industries. Just step outside the box and get some perspective.
Also… why are we talking about billionaires when this guy was only worth $43 million?
You cannot have that much wealth and operate in an ethical way, it’s not possible. Just like you cannot have non-consensual sex with somebody in an ethical way, there is no scenario where that is possible.
Just because a system allows you to do something doesn’t make it morally acceptable to do it. Right now, it’s trivial to scam people out of tens of thousands of dollars using meme crypto-currency. But just because you can do it doesn’t mean it’s morally acceptable.
That’s the classic, “don’t hate the player, hate the game.” incorrect, you can hate both the player, and the game, it’s not mutually exclusive.
Capitalism is a fundamentally evil system. It allows and creates incentives for people to make effectively unlimited amounts of money by exploiting others. Billionaires are the ultimate example of what happens when Capitalism is allowed to run rampant for centuries. No one person should be able to amass that amount of wealth and power, it’s wrong, and it indicates deep societal problems.
An ethical way to operate a company would be some kind of employee-owned structure, where everybody who works for the company has equal say in how it operates. They get to decide if they want a CEO, who it is, and what they get paid. They get to decide collectively what the company does with the profits. They might decide to equally distribute it to all employees. They might decide to reinvest some percentage in better workflows, better equipment, or nicer facilities. The point is it would actually be democratic.
Also, I know this guy wasn’t a Billionaire. There are other ways to be a bad person than being a billionaire.
You are starting your argument off with two entirely different concepts. Employees are paid for their work because they are employees. Non-consensual sex is the explicit lack of agreement to be in the situation.
Please, tell me WHY it is unethical to employ people? How is it exploitive to run a business? At what point does a company make so much money that it’s unethical for them to continue doing business?
I’m on board with a coop and democratically run operations. When in history has any company ever succeeded as such? To my knowledge, these are locally run organizations with no ability to scale up. So, how do we end up with big nation and world changing projects? Is it your belief that we shouldn’t have large scale projects? We shouldn’t have corporations like Google or Caterpillar or Visa? Is it your belief that we
shouldmust destroy everything we know and go back to village life? Are these real things that you think have to happen or is this in an idealistic world? How do you take what we have now and make it into your image?Do you think merely agreeing to something makes the arrangement acceptable? A mugger sticks a gun to my head and says, “give me your wallet or I’ll kill you.” I give him my wallet. Was that actually a real, consensual choice? Of course not, agreement is a necessary condition for a fair contract, but not a sufficient one.
If you’re doing the work, you’re entitled to the fruits of your labor. Slavery is the exact inverse of that, where you are entitled to none of the fruits of your labor.
Capitalism tries to split the difference, where depending on a complex set of contractual agreements of dubious legitimacy, you are entitled to some arbitrary amount of fruit for your labor.
There are degrees of severity of course, some relationships are far more exploitative than others.
There isn’t a magical number where a business becomes unethically profitable. The issue with Capitalism isn’t one of degree. It’s not like a bath that’s too hot, where the only issue is the temperature needs to be lowered.
If your business operates in a way that is undemocratic, it’s unethical. Doesn’t matter if all the employees agreed to it, doesn’t matter if they all signed contracts permitting it, doesn’t matter that the legal system allows the business to operate like that.
Now of course, as I said, there are degrees. A mom & pop flower shop that employs local high school kids as part time workers, pays them well, and treats them nicely, that’s not a huge issue. Unethical still, but not terrible. It’s like cheating on a middle school pop quiz, still wrong, but extremely minor.
You also brought up the issue of practicality. This requires a lot of depth to respond to, so would you prefer to pivot to that, or stay on the more theoretical questions about Capitalism and exploitation?