RE: fruits of Bill Gates labor worth $50 billion

From: Peter C. McCluskey (pcm@rahul.net)
Date: Fri Nov 22 2002 - 22:52:50 MST


 nhorton@ectropic.org (Noah Horton) writes:
>I believe that Bill Gates efforts are worth the $50B or so by definition.
>Value and worth are traditionally calculated based upon what people are
>willing to pay in a free market, and therefore that must be the value
>since virtually all of his money has come through the free market system.

 Do you claim that none of his wealth is due to luck? Or that if he
had gotten rich by getting lucky on a really big lottery ticket, his
efforts would be worth the value of the lottery ticket?
 Gates has property worth $50 billion or so, but as far I know if we had
measured how many dollars Microsoft shareholders would have paid at any
given time to keep him working, they wouldn't add up to billions. Isn't
luck a plausible explanation of the differences between the two measures
of what his labor is worth?

-- 
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Peter McCluskey          | Free Jon Johansen!
http://www.rahul.net/pcm | 


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