Debunking the Myth of Wealth as Moral Worth

The allure of Musk and his billionaire peers isn't about merit—it's about money. Here's why we should question their influence on politics and society.

My Take:

I was at an event over the weekend when I got tangled in a curious conversation. “I don’t necessarily agree with everything Musk says,” my dinner companion shared, “BUT you have to take him seriously.” 

Aw, that old chestnut.

Musk and his ilk are working hard to elevate politicians and policies that line their coffers. Only the superrich can afford to build a network of self-reinforcing institutions and political candidates devoted to spreading and defending their ideological preferences. In light of the Supreme Court's misguided Citizens v. United decision -- which essentially equates money with free speech -- that’s their right. My problem is when they or their followers insist that their political and social perspectives are somehow more valuable than anybody else’s. 

In this country, we love to make assumptions about moral worth based on wealth, beauty, or your ability to shoot a basketball.

We’re shocked when somebody with killer athleticism is then convicted of domestic abuse. We’re appalled when a successful filmmaker turns out to have abused his kid. On the other side of that curve, we mythologize NBA players and models and celebrate them in ways that are obviously disproportionate to their shooting skill or beauty. 

Knowing how to throw a ball or frame a shot has nothing to do with moral character. Neither does maximizing profits. Making a lot of money indicates that the market values your contribution highly — and nothing else.

Friedrich von Hayek and Adam Smith are often cited by techno-libertarians in defense of their free-market principles. If they were alive, they'd argue that economic success doesn’t bestow one with political or moral insight. Hayek explicitly rejected the idea that economic rewards reflect people’s merits or moral desert. He warned against the "fatal conceit" — the idea that a single person or group has enough knowledge to shape society as they see fit.  Adam Smith, the hero of libertarians, the father of free-market economics, and the creator of the Invisible Hand, emphasized the importance of empathy in his less-cited work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. He also advocated for regulation of banks, adequate wages for workers, and taxation for public goods like roads and bridges.

Friedrich August von Hayek, 27th January 1981, courtesy: WikiMedia Commons

Both Hayek and Smith came to a similar conclusion: markets are efficient, but they’re not moral. Declaring that the market is moral, or that rich people's bank accounts reflect their moral merit, is as preposterous as declaring that a toaster is just. The two have nothing to do with each other.

So, next time someone tells you that you have to take these techno-libertarian perspectives seriously, ask them why. Is it because the ideas themselves hold merit, or because they’re backed by deep pockets and flashy personas?

Only the former should matter. 

What I’m Reading:

Google scraps plan to remove cookies from Chrome via Reuters 🍪 🍪 🍪

The major reversal follows concerns from advertisers - the company's biggest source of income - saying the loss of cookies in the world's most popular browser will limit their ability to collect information for personalizing ads, making them dependent on Google's user databases.

Schumer to bring kids’ online safety bills to vote this week via The Hill 👶🏻 👦🏻 👧🏻

KOSA, led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), would put in place regulations for how social media companies operate for minors online, aimed at mitigating risks the apps have for making children addicted and impacting their mental health. In part, it would add a duty of care standard to mitigate the promotion of harmful content and addictive features.  

A.I. Can Write Poetry, but It Struggles With Math via NYTimes 🪶 < 🔢

The world’s smartest computer scientists, it seems, have created artificial intelligence that is more liberal arts major than numbers whiz. Traditionally, computers have been programmed to follow step-by-step rules and retrieve information in structured databases. They were powerful but brittle. So past efforts at A.I. hit a wall. Yet more than a decade ago, a different approach broke through and began to deliver striking gains. The underlying technology, called a neural network, is loosely modeled on the human brain.

Elon Musk Backs Away From Reports He’s Donating Huge Sums to Trump via The Daily Beast 💸 ❌ 💸

He added: “I am not donating $45 million a month to Trump.” The billionaire did tell right-wing podcast host Jordan Peterson that he recently created a political action committee, called America PAC, which has attracted donations from a plethora of Silicon Valley power brokers. Musk was quick to separate his personal politics, which he described as “Make America Greater” from those of Trump, while adding: “I don’t prescribe to a cult of personality.”

CrowdStrike’s ubiquity under fire as Congress calls for CEO to testify VIA arsTECHNICA 🛡️ 🛡️

CrowdStrike may not be widely known to everyday consumers, but as The New York Times noted, it is the second largest American cybersecurity company, used by more than half of Fortune 500 companies. Responding quickly to fix the software defect, CrowdStrike has rushed to reassure its global customer base, explaining how it's accelerating remediations and creating a continually updated "guidance hub" where customers can keep up with the latest fixes and monitor emerging security risks. But even supposedly "easy" fixes have caused major lags, requiring customers to reboot systems repeatedly or manually delete defective files from computers one by one. The House committee worried labor shortages might cause more repair delays and asked Kurtz to fully explain the next steps for CrowdStrike and warning that any further delays "could seriously affect Americans."

From the Hive:

I’ve made my feelings on Big Tech pretty clear. Extreme concentration of power in the hands of a few monoliths stifles innovation, limits consumer choice, and suppresses free, fair markets. And yet, here we are: a handful of corporations with the market cap of small nations, dictating the rules of the game while they run the table.

Following my conversation earlier this month with Senator Richard Blumenthal, I’ve been thinking a lot about what a freer, fairer, more democratic internet might look like. It requires less black science in the hands of a few techies, more democratization of the mechanisms for choice and control in the hands of consumers and businesses. In essence, it requires clicks, not code.

Which is why I'm excited to share Ketch’s newest product: No-Code Rights Automation has arrived.

Modern privacy laws empower consumers -- “data subjects” in the language of privacy lawyers and legislators -- to request personal data access and deletion from companies. For data-driven brands, fulfilling these requests is a time-consuming, manual data collection problem -- $1500 per consumer, according to Gartner. Ketch No-Code Rights Automation collapses these costs for businesses struggling to respond to the rising onslaught of customers' privacy rights requests.

We’re putting clicks-not-code controls in the hands of stakeholders, reducing reliance on high-cost developers and engineers for tasks that can now be streamlined.

That’s good news all around, not just for privacy but for the democratization of technology everywhere.