[Arun2009]

> Rich are "freer" but they definitely don't work fewer hours than poor on average. In USA the Rich became rich mostly by working.

> But that also does not mean that billionaires have more free time. It's usually not the case, simply because they are more invested in their ventures.

There is a difference between working because you want to, vs working because you have to. The rich have the choice to quit working if they want to and still pay no significant price - the poor don't have this choice. The rich also don't have to put up with disagreeable work, whereas the poor often do.

This is a question of human freedom and dignity - not just of material wealth.

I'd also challenge the notion that the poor don't "work hard". The food delivery guy who works 8 hours a day often in disagreeable weather is arguably working much harder than many rich people.

> I agree but this is a caveat against the fact that the rich and the poor consume equally.

If you consider purchase of political influence as consumption, then your statement doesn't hold. You are only counting the basic necessities of life as consumption - but there are many services that you can purchase as a rich person that poor people cannot.

> This buys into zero sum ideology of wealth.

I'd say that it’s a mistake to treat wealth as either purely zero-sum or purely positive-sum - a false dichotomy. It has both these natures, depending on the level of analysis and the time horizon.

Wealth can grow collectively over time through productivity gains, technological improvement, and better organization of labor. That is the positive-sum aspect, and I don't deny that.

However, at any given moment, wealth is only meaningful as long as it can be exchanged for real goods and services. At the bottom of all such goods and services lie two fundamental inputs: human labor and natural resources. Both are finite as a matter of physics and biology.

Hence while we do see the amount of goods and services ballooning (and hence total "wealth" growing) primarily due to better utilization of human labor and better extraction of natural resources, there is also a sense in which wealth has a zero-sum nature especially in the short term (i.e., several decades, which is relevant for humans).