Rich people become rich by paying other people less than the value of their labour. Sometimes, that's to the net benefit of the community, since the value of the labour involved is increased by a superior process. Often, that is to the net detriment of the community: for example, a landlord.
The reality is, the impact of a wealthy person is almost always small, and usually negative-on-net. That's why, in the thousands of historical examples of titanic changes brought about by new ideas or state-level policies, we have so few examples of wealthy people changing things for the better.
There are entire industries behind people like Rowling - book publishing, movie production, etc., subject to all the same exploitation of surplus value.
It’s similar to how we benefit from cheap manufacturing labor in other countries, performed by people we don’t know. Who did we underpay to get our luxurious lifestyles? The fact that we can’t name them is part of the sleight of hand that allows us to ignore the exploitation, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Sure. It's just not the norm. JK Rowling is essentially one of a kind. The tech sector is an outlier too, in that it is normal for founders to be significant technical contributors. In most of the economy, rich people become rich through rent seeking.
If the problem is people gaining through rent seeking, then attack rent seeking itself, rather than rich people in general.
There are poor people who make money through rent seeking too, by playing zero sum games. These zero summers should be targeted rather than the entrepreneurs, artists, writers, and musicians who play positive sum games.
> Rich people become rich by paying other people less than the value of their labour
This is actually completely wrong. Believe it or not, many of the richest people get rich because they pay their employees more than they think they are worth.
Value is subjective, you can't point to x worker and calculate exactly how much "value they create" to the company, because many things a company does are not possible or nearly impossible by individuals. If you calculated how much value each employee brings in by subtracting what the company would have made in their absence, that would often result in being more than the company makes for most high skilled jobs.
That's why I said worth not value. You can define what a person thinks they are worth by asking them.
The reality is, the impact of a wealthy person is almost always small, and usually negative-on-net. That's why, in the thousands of historical examples of titanic changes brought about by new ideas or state-level policies, we have so few examples of wealthy people changing things for the better.