> As long as the poorest people are doing better, it's irrelevant that Bill Gates is a Billionaire.
But the human psyche doesn't seem to work that way. There's a fair amount of research suggesting that we tend to measure our well-being not in absolute terms, but relative to those around us or who are otherwise on our mental radar. [ADDED:] No matter how well someone is doing, if he perceives that others "around" him are doing better, he's likely to feel bad about himself.
[ADDED:] Feeling bad about doing worse than those around us probably has an evolutionary advantage as a motivator. There may even be a dollop of sexual-preference selection at work, too: We probably recognize, perhaps unconsciously, that potential mates judge us in part in comparison to other available candidates.
(Tl;dr: Envy is a powerful force, which may have been built into us in part by natural selection.)
> If most people are envious of Bill Gates, does it follow that they have the right to take away his money and redistribute it?
You're presupposing that there's such a thing as a "right" outside of a given social framework. (Cf. @rayiner's various comments on that subject.) If people are envious by nature, that's like the weather; to paraphrase Robert A. Heinlein, attempting to argue with the weather is seldom a profitable enterprise.
In any case, Bill Gates's success was not due solely to his own efforts; he built his achievements on a foundation provided by his fellow citizens, of America and the world. So it's not a moral axiom that Gates should keep some particular share of the money that happens to come into his hands. Cf. Elizabeth Warren's famous talk during her campaign for the Senate, where on the subject of fair taxation she accurately pointed out that:
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. [1]
>> You're presupposing that there's such a thing as a "right" outside of a given social framework.
I absolutely am. I'm with the framers of the US Constitution in saying that government and society do not create rights, they merely recognize them. I have a right not to be murdered, for example, even if I happen to live in a society where murdering people like me is allowed.
But I base that statement on my theology, not my economics.
>> You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for.
It's equally true that "the rest of us" drive around on roads that the factory owner paid for - possibly more true, assuming he/she pays proportionally. Why does this matter?
> I have a right not to be murdered .... But I base that statement on my theology, not my economics ....
Glad you recognize that. Pragmatically, a "right" exists only to the extent that others accept it, voluntarily or otherwise. I can also claim the right not to be murdered. But if I, an American, were to find myself in the hands of certain factions of the Taliban, then that so-called right might be of little efficacy.
There's a legal maxim -- OK, technically it's an equitable maxim -- ubi jus ibi remedium: Where there is a right, there must be a remedy. That is, once the courts recognize that a right exists, they will somehow fashion a remedy to vindicate a breach of that right. But there's a corollary: If there simply is no remedy that can be enforced, then neither is there a right.
If you accept that small groups of people and individuals can control ridiculously disproportionate amounts of value in an economy, you also must accept that small groups of people and individuals can control disproportionate amounts of resources to the detriment of everyone else.
(See, for example, "too big to fail" banks.)
Society has a vested interest in preventing this from happening.
Really? What if society consisted of 10 people on an island, and only one of them was great at catching fish. Would the others have the right to take his fish and redistribute them?
You're leaving out what the other 9 castaways do. You don't mention the fact that 3 of these people are staying up at night guarding the camp from predators, ensuring the fish catcher gets a full nights rest.
You are ignoring the person who knows how to properly filter and provide fresh water for drinking.
You forget that someone else is always manning the fire, ensuring it's always going. He can easily set it again if it happens to go out for some reason. It also helps that his wife is injured so he can stay close to her.
The fisher can't fish if he's not out in the water, so he has two people helping him. One to mend the nets or other materials needed to fish, and the second to bring the fish onto shore. They both also prepare the fish for cooking.
And the final person the cook, doesn't just cook the fish. He prepare the fish, align with other food he is able to scrounge with whatever person has some free time, ensuring people get a better diet.
So do they have the right to take his fish? Considering without them, he would have died that first night, I'm pretty sure their is some level of obligation.
I'm not ignoring those people. I'm just assuming they trade net mending, fire, water, etc for fish, rather than taking them by force. Indeed, what's the point of catching lots of fish unless he can trade some for other things? He can't eat them all.
"We'll mend your nets for 5 fish" is far different from "you have fish and we want them, so hand them over."
The modern poverty line is renting a cheap urban apartment and eating 3 decent meals a day. We're pretty far from shanty towns and starvation.
The poverty line for a 3 person home (mom, dad, kid) is 23k. That is far from wonderful, but in many markets that's a fair bit of cash, especially if you consider food stamps, section 8, state aid, tax breaks, socialized schooling, federal lunches, etc.
Still relevant because Gate's billions buys him a bigger megaphone. Even if the poor do better, Gate's money can buy power, and in a democracy, it's dangerous when so few people concentrate so much power.
Also - inequality is a red herring. As long as the poorest people are doing better, it's irrelevant that Bill Gates is a Billionaire.