[Borodog]

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"I gain the benefit of literally hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars of capital every day, without having to own any of it."

I don't think anyone's arguing with the fact that we all can and do benefit from the economic productiveness of other members of society.

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Of course that's what they're arguing, they just don't know it.

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Your phrase "having to own any of it" implies (to me) that you're saying that consumers of the oil rigs, etc. have burdens that at least counterbalance the greater economic benefits of ownership as opposed to just usage. Am I correct in this assumption?

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I have no idea, since I don't even know what this means.

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I know people who own oil rigs and they live much better lives than most of the people I know who don't.

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So what? What is the problem with someone selling units for a low cost to millions of people who want those units, and thus becoming wealthy? Why would anyone bother to try to increase the supply of goods to their fellow men if they couldn't personally benefit from their efforts?

I think if the people who owned the oil rigs stopped providing oil, hundreds of millions of people, if not billions, would be dead in a few weeks. The popular of the planet can only be sustained because of industrialized agriculture, which runs on oil. Who are you to measure how much better oil tycoons make anyone's life?

My life would be disastrously shittier without oil. I pay the oil tycoon a paltry sum that doesn't affect his lifestyle at all for something that dramatically improves mine. Who is receiving more "economi benefit' now?