How do most rich people get rich?

[Forrest]

Just curious.

[Zanthorus]

1. Inheritance
2. What Thorstein Veblen called "sabotage". Because they own private property they can impose their own interests onto the process of social production and reap a profit.

[Catillina]

1. Inheritance


-Luck
-Not realy legal activities
-"Robbing" others
-cold-blodded

-Some made it with hard, legal work

[Argument]

Many inherited their wealth. Others have started companies and gotten rich that way. To do this, it is more or less necessary to have the state aid them, through subsidies, regulation of the market, privileges, state given monopolies (such as the land monopoly and patents and copyright), etc. Most rich people didn't "deserve" it.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Most of the wealthiest people are entrepreneurs. They found their own niche in the market and exploited it.

There are exceptions (like hedge-fund managers), but for the most part the general rule is that, if you're under the employ of someone else, you're not going to become extremely wealthy.

[synthesis]

"Rich" is a relative term. It is often a confluence of factors.

[Forrest]

Aside from inheritance and illegitimate jobs, what are some specific careers that rake in the most money?

[syndicat]

Lester Thurow estimated that 50 to 70 percent of wealth is inherited. United for a Fair Economy did a study of the Forbes 400 list and found that 42 percent were born with enough money to put them on the list and another 27 percent were born with lesser amounts of wealth or got startup capital from family members. Once they own capital, they can of course participate in the general exploitation of the working class along with other capitalists. Also, sometimes people get wealthy thru windfall profits. For example, a person buys a shabby property somewhere. but then the neighborhood goes through some gentrification boom and now it's worth a fortune.

so it's a combination of inheritance, luck and participation in exploitation of others. Some people who start out in relatively humble beginnings due end up among the wealthy and sometimes they have entrepreneurial skills, or some expertise in some key technical area. but they can then use these skills in a context where working class people can be exploited. and it very often requires being ruthless. think of someone like Larry Ellison, who was at one time a programmer, and is now a multi-billionaire. Ruthless is his middle name. "We're carnivores here" he once said of his company.

[RadioRaheem84]

They definitely get rich through shady activities. No one who starts his own company and ends up on Forbes can literally say they did not cook books here, paid off a senator here, got breaks from the state, etc. It involves a lot of selling out. Not to mention that the most of the money is in finance now, so that says it ALL.

But yes, most wealth is inheritance or people getting start up cash from a person they know. Most upper middle class people work for the richer schmucks and think of themselves as big ballers.

Most of the wealth though is due to monopoly capitalists using the state as a major subsidiary. For instance, a company like Lockheed Martin wins dozens of contracts from the government, subsidizing over 90% of its business and they in turn they help the local economy by contracting out smaller firms in the local area where they set up shop. That is where all of the biggest sectors of the economy get their dough, from state, federal and local subsidies. Smaller businesses leach off of them. The small business construction firm I used to work for gets a lot of contracts from not only schools, libraries and other public buildings but also from major players in defense, and huge firms that receive subsidies.

[#FF0000]

Aside from inheritance and illegitimate jobs, what are some specific careers that rake in the most money?

Moving a lot of other people's money pays pretty well for some reason.

[The Red Next Door]

1. take all the money from others labor

2. corporate welfare

3. gambling with the stock market.

4. JUST FUCKING OVER EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING FOR THE MIGHTY EURO OR DOLLAR.

[Nolan]

"The Role of Intergenerational Transfers in Aggregate Capital Accumulation."
(http://people.bu.edu/kotlikoff/New%20Kotlikoff%20Web%20Page/The%20Role%20of%20Intergenerational%20Transfers%20 in%20Aggregate%20Capital%20Formation.pdf)

The evidence presented indicates that intergenerational transfers account for the vast majority of aggregate U.S. capital formation.

[AK]

"The Role of Intergenerational Transfers in Aggregate Capital Accumulation."
(http://people.bu.edu/kotlikoff/New%20Kotlikoff%20Web%20Page/The%20Role%20of%20Intergenerational%20Transfers%20 in%20Aggregate%20Capital%20Formation.pdf)
Next time, just say inheritance. K?

[RadioRaheem84]

"The Role of Intergenerational Transfers in Aggregate Capital Accumulation."
(http://people.bu.edu/kotlikoff/New%20Kotlikoff%20Web%20Page/The%20Role%20of%20Intergenerational%20Transfers%20 in%20Aggregate%20Capital%20Formation.pdf)

Wow. Larry Summers? The Wall Street mogul helped pen this? Apparently, even he does not negate the most wealth is inherited!

[black magick hustla]

i dont remember where i read this but apparently the richest of the richest billioniares built their empires more or less from scratch. however the lesser rich people did probably inherit it.

[mikelepore]

As for the portion of the capitalists who get their wealth by starting new companies, note that their wealth tends to grow fast only after they have a lot of employees to rob. For example, when Microsoft was still so small that the owners had to do a considerable amount of the work, growth was slow. Only after the company added many workers to expropriate profits from, so that the owners wouldn't have to do the work, then the growth was rapid. Just what we would expect from the fact that the source of profits is unpaid labor.

[[email protected]]

inheritance .. drug dealing .. and rarely by their mind and personal effort

[Foldered]

Inhereitance is a big one. Inhereting a CEO position, or even slightly lower position, in a multinational corporation means you're pretty well really rich for the rest of your life. It's sort of like a Private Monarchy.

[Nolan]

Inhereting a CEO position, or even slightly lower position, in a multinational corporation means you're pretty well really rich for the rest of your life. It's sort of like a Private Monarchy.

Yeah I'm pretty sure no major company does that.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

O.P. seeks bourgeois adventurism, jus' sayin'

[AK]

Yeah I'm pretty sure no major company does that.
Sarcasm?

[Warboy99]

The only way a rich person can be rich is if another person is poor. Does that help?

[AK]

Does that help?
Very much so.