Why we should say "thank you" to those billionaires

The old ones are the golden ones:

“We conclude that only a minuscule fraction of the social returns from technological advances over the 1948-2001 period was captured by producers, indicating that most of the benefits of technological change are passed on to consumers rather than captured by producers”

And there's no reason to suppose that social returns to technological advances have stopped happening since 2001 or that William Nordhaus's estimation of how those returns are shared has changed. Which means that, if that 2.2% return is right and Zuckerberg is worth $100 billion, then the total social value of Facebook is £4.5 trillion. Even if Facebook's value to society is only half that, it still demonstrates why we need billionaires - their wealth gives us a tiny glimpse of the value created by their innovations.

Taken down to a slightly less elevated level, this still applies - the social value created by entrepreneurs vastly exceeds the returns they get personally. Far from enviously eyeing up that wealth we should, as a society, be looking those billionaires in the eye and saying "thanks for helping make society so much better". The biggest lie in politics is that these billionaires - mere millionaires too - are somehow rich because others are poor. Mostly the opposite is true - billionaires got rich because their ideas and innovation made society - all of us - richer.

Instead of attacking the rich simply for being rich or businesses for delivering great value to consumers, maybe we should be a little more specific. There are some people and businesses who get rich from rent-seeking, from persuading politicians to grant exclusivity or protection, and from farming the largess of public sector grants. By all means have a go at this, at those cashing in on a housing shortage created by government planning rules, at those sitting in stately piles funded by cash from agricultural subsidies and those pulling in millions offering consultancy to the NHS. But most rich people are rich because what they've done benefited all of us in society and we should celebrate them.

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