I think that’s simply wrong. It would be right if the only difference between you and a publishing house were that the publishing house has more money, but of course that’s not so. To a rough approximation, a publishing house is made up of lots of individuals. Much of your $20 will be distributed amongst them, and if they’re on average about as well off as you are then this is roughly utility-neutral. Some of the rest will go into whatever larger-scale projects the publishing house is engaged in, which make use of economies of scale to get increasing returns in utility per dollar. (That’s why there are corporations.)
And, of course, some of it will go to line the pockets of already-wealthy investors and executives. I agree that that bit is likely to show diminishing returns. But I see no reason to think that a transfer of $20 from you to the publishing house is a net utility loss, and just saying “diminishing returns” certainly doesn’t suffice.
You forget about the diminishing returns, though. An extra $20 would give much more utility to me than to a publishing house.
I think that’s simply wrong. It would be right if the only difference between you and a publishing house were that the publishing house has more money, but of course that’s not so. To a rough approximation, a publishing house is made up of lots of individuals. Much of your $20 will be distributed amongst them, and if they’re on average about as well off as you are then this is roughly utility-neutral. Some of the rest will go into whatever larger-scale projects the publishing house is engaged in, which make use of economies of scale to get increasing returns in utility per dollar. (That’s why there are corporations.)
And, of course, some of it will go to line the pockets of already-wealthy investors and executives. I agree that that bit is likely to show diminishing returns. But I see no reason to think that a transfer of $20 from you to the publishing house is a net utility loss, and just saying “diminishing returns” certainly doesn’t suffice.