Wealth, Power and Evil

There is nothing inherently wrong with having wealth and power.
It’s dangerous, but it can’t be avoided, and it can be done well. The people who deserve our lasting despite, and perhaps bloody execution at the hands of a lynching mob, are those who get it by improper means.
If you go out and do things with your talents, particularly your hands and other direct outputs, which cause people to want to give you lots of money and power, it’s probably a good thing. For example, entertainment is a good thing. If you gain your power and wealth simply because you have a talent for manipulating people, you should be shot. Okay, we’ll give you ten minutes after the first warning to start doing the right thing before we execute your evil butt.
Say we have some guy who is really intelligent, and he sees things other miss. He notices if he can insert himself as the middleman into a normal commerce, making things simpler for those on either side of the exchange, he can make a little profit. That’s a useful service, and a little profit is just. If he corners the market on something he’s handling, he deserves to die. That desire and inclination to corner the market is inherently evil. If he colludes with others, kill them all.
The problem is not having power and wealth, but people wanting it. Not just desiring it in some kind of fantasy, but willing to harm others in order to get it. If everyone agrees to compete, that’s fine; let them battle it out on terms to which they agree. Let them not cheat on those terms. But the same bright minds crafting a wider system of marketing controls and regulation which achieves the same results as direct manipulation also deserve to die. If they lie to everyone about the purpose of their plans, they deserve to die.
It’s not so much what you do directly with your own hands, as it is what you are willing to cause, a willingness to see others suffer for your comfort.
The reason I am so bombastic about killing them is based on human history. It won’t take long for you to read how people have acted in the past to realize this stuff gets out of hand really quickly. You have to watch them like a hawk, and cut them off the instant you realize what they are up to, and if they don’t learn better, it’s because they have rejected the very notion of common welfare. It’s not so much we have to all love each other; I know better than that. Nor can we avoid people hating each other. What we can do is develop a cultural sense which threatens anyone who will manipulate any part of the system in order to harm others. Not so much because they actively wish to hurt, but that they don’t think it matters.
Clinical literature indicates precious few psychopaths ever get better. Regardless of your theoretical basis for how we get those psychopaths, we do know certain social conditions can cause a given population to produce more than their share of them. There are some fields of humanity more fertile for evil than others. Whether you want to move from correlation to cause isn’t the point; let’s go for a nicer correlation.
By no means do I propose a change in laws. Laws should always arise after the fact. Legal policy is another matter; that has to come first. Getting people to adapt is hard, but it’s been done to varying degrees of effectiveness. Unless they are crushed and humbled, there is no chance they’ll show any motivation. They may still resist, but that’s another matter. On a micro-scale, I offer the example of Apostle Paul, on the road to Damascus. After it was clear to him something far above his level was on his case, his being meaner than a snake was suddenly subject to modification. Paul didn’t even argue, simply asking his new Master what he should call Him. The question implied, “Whom do I now serve and what does He want?”
No, all I’m asking for is a consideration, a thoughtfulness. The more people who think about such things, the better the world as a whole will be. I’m quite willing to consider my muttering successful if all I get is an incremental improvement with just a few folks here and there.
People who want power and wealth are suspect. People willing to hurt others to get it should not be tolerated wasting oxygen.