Elon Musk Confirms Ancient Concerns About the Superrich

[ancianita]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/opinion/elon-musk-trillionaire-wealth-plato.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sFA.SwhD.nHfWL-ZPwyh4&smid=url-share

... Mr. Musk’s net worth is five million times as large as that of the average American family.... As a historian of political thought, I immediately thought of Plato, the first Western philosopher to really grapple with economic inequality. In his “Laws,” through the character of the Athenian Stranger, Plato contended that in a thriving republic, if anyone acquired more than four times the wealth of the poorest citizens, he should donate the surplus to the city. Not five million times the wealth of the typical family — four times the wealth of the poorest...

...Plato grew up in Athens, a city that once was nearly torn apart, as Plutarch wrote, by the “disparity between the rich and the poor.” It was saved by a heroic lawgiver, Solon, who canceled all the debts of the poor, to the great chagrin of the rich. And in Plato’s youth, as the city fought the Peloponnesian War, it suffered three successive class-based civil wars — an oligarchic revolution of the rich against the poor, followed by a democratic revolution of the poor against the rich, followed by yet another oligarchic revolution...

For Plato, the source of inequality was a disease of the soul that the Greeks called pleonexia — a kind of insatiable greed. In Plato’s “Gorgias,” ... Someone consumed with his unquenchable desires comes to love himself far beyond what he can feel for the rest of humanity. He was, for Plato, “a poor judge of what is just and good and noble,” because he would always treat his desires as more valuable even than the truth. As a consequence, Plato wrote, “it is impossible that those who become very rich also become good.”

Plato’s fears about insatiable greed have been vindicated by Mr. Musk, who has already set his sights on $10 trillion.
He has confirmed Plato’s concerns about the moral failures of the superrich by characterizing empathy as “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization.” With his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, he put the U.S. Agency for International Development program “into the wood chipper,” as he gleefully put it, contributing to the deaths of an estimated 600,000 people. Such carnage is a predictable outcome of a society that has chosen to place no upper limits on wealth...."

[irisblue]

1. Thank you for sharing the article

[ancianita]

3. Most welcome! Thanks for reading.

The ancients knew a thing or two about wealth disparity and oligarchy.

[PatSeg]

2. Money becomes rather worthless

if you have ALL of it. Greed certainly is a disease.

[ananda]

4. Great article.

I have always wondered about the value of money.

It strikes me that cooperacy would work much better
than capitalism.

[ancianita]

7. It is. As an aside,

I've also heard my daughter say that economies that run well for everyone should be called "enoughanomics."
(Maybe awkward phrasing here, but I'm sure folks get the gist.)

[eppur_se_muova]

13. Sounds good enough as it is. nt

[brakester]

14. You and your daughter

share a capacity for wisdom, compassion and literary creativity!

Excellent post! Thanks!
This subject might inspire a future letter to the editor for my local paper!

[Seinan Sensei]

5. Solon "canceled all the debts of the poor, to the great chagrin of the rich"

Sounds familiar.
Jesus endorsed the same.
Jesus’s first sermon was Luke 4:18-19.
In that sermon, Jesus referenced “Year of Jubilee” - which included (among other things) cancellation of all debt.
Jesus was looking at Leviticus 25 and Isaiah 61.
Jesus wanted to prevent inter-generational poverty vs. trying to develop inter-generational wealth.

[ancianita]

8. Thanks for your post. To your point,

recall that Jesus was also homeless.

[1WorldHope]

6. We need to keep the focus on Musk's pleonexia.

I just learned a new word that I will forget before I leave my chair. 🥺
But isn't it interesting how long it has been clear that Greed can not be satisfied and is, therefore, a disease that harms others who are around the sick person.
This is an American lesson that nobody will learn, sadly. Not only that obscene wealth is a disease, but also that we should not allow them to run the government. Our Government. 🤬

[ancianita]

9. Absolutely!

Greed is an ancient sickness. It's about time humanity dealt with it.

The Apostle Paul -- a former pharisee who was turned missionary by Jesus and sent to the Gentile world -- writes to one of his church founders, Timothy, when he says in 1 Timothy chap. 6, verse 10: "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil..."

What Paul says is often misquoted to say that money itself is the root of all evil.
Money is just a tool -- money can be used like a knife that helps produce and distribute food, or misused too often as a weapon. Love of money is a form of idolatry, and an outgrowth of narcissism.

[Gordcanuck]

16. If we are faced with "sickness" we need

a remedy. And that is a chosen way of inculcating the obligation to “do as you would be done by” in how we act toward others.
If we incentivize good actions by sharing success in business, it encourages all those who contributed. Slave ships get rammed or hit a rock while a contented crew brings the vessel home prosperously.
So I say, make money, but share with the ones who get you there. Don’t be a tightwad, it’ll come back and bite you.

[3825-87867]

10. Excellent 5 minute slam on musk by Brit comedian Jonathan Pie

[ancianita]

11. Good one! Thanks!

He uses imagery to show what the greed sickness today actually looks like.

[electric_blue68]

12. TY interesting re Plato, Athens class struggles, and pleonexia

[Seinan Sensei]

15. Elon is a hoarder

I just wish he’d been hoarding newspapers or magazines or cats.

Instead of money.