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What, exactly, is the morally indefensible thing that they have definitely done? If it's definitely there, you should be able to point out what it is.
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Apple, for example, steals 30% of the money of anything you buy on your phone.
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Charging someone money that they voluntarily pay in return for getting something of value themselves is not stealing.
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For example, the highwayman, who who provides the valuable service of 'not getting murdered' to travelers, in return for the payment they voluntarily make.

Or perhaps you would prefer the example of the extortionist, who provides insurance against the risk of "something" happening to the nice business you have?

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What's morally indefensible about that?
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Once they define it as stealing, then it's morally indefensible, by definition.

The question is, is it actually stealing, or is that just their overheated rhetoric? From where I sit, it's hot air.

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> Once they define it as stealing, then it's morally indefensible, by definition.

Right, similar to the equivocation around the meaning of earn in this thread. I've started to wonder whether it's possible to push by accepting that framing and then asking for a justification rather than quibbling about what "stealing" is.

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I doubt it. "Stealing" functions as a thought-terminating cliche; I suspect that very few people will think past it.
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I fear you are right, but I feel like trying it anyway.
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As a first pass, you’ve accumulated all that money, thus you’ve actively or passively, knowingly or unknowingly, taken advantage of a perverse systemic bug that allows that sort of money to accumulate in any one person’s hands to begin with.

But point me at any given billionaire and I can provide more context-specific examples, sure.

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Start further back. You need to defend that allowing that much money to accumulate in any person's hands is indeed a "perverse systemic bug".

The default framework is one of private property. If you make it, it's yours, and (modulo taxation), nobody has the right to take it from you. In that framework, it's not a bug that, if someone makes a billion dollars, they can accumulate a billion dollars.

So, do you reject that framework? If so, on what authority? Given that it's the default framework, "I reject it" doesn't cut it. "I think it's immoral" is slightly better, but you need to demonstrate that someone accumulating that much money is more immoral than taking it from them would be.

Or are you claiming that it's immoral for any one person to receive that much money? In a free economy, if others voluntarily exchange that much money for what the person supplies, why is it immoral? What is your moral authority for claiming that voluntary transactions are morally wrong, just because too many of them go to one person?

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