I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago, responding to a challenge* to write about the economic aspects of Taylor Swift. Not long after that, the world lost the marvellous Dolly Parton. Parton’s lifetime income almost certainly exceeded a billion dollars, but she gave huge amounts away.

Her biggest philanthropic endeavour was the Imagination Library, which sends free books to children every month from birth to age five. There are currently 3 million children enrolled, and the program has given away over 300 million books.

That didn’t leave Parton poor. Her estate was estimated at $400 million, mostly tied up in property rights of the kind discussed below — copyrights and her theme park, Dollywood. She lived well, in a substantial house on 60-odd acres of land just outside Nashville. But lots of people have substantial houses and, at least for an Australian, 60 acres doesn’t sound like much. More notable was her ostentatious, but deliberately cheap, self-presentation — rhinestones rather than diamonds.

Now for a repeat of the Taylor Swift analysis.

The claim “Every billionaire is a policy failure” is pretty widely accepted these days, formulated most clearly in Ingrid Robeyns’ case for limitarianism (a hard cap on the maximum wealth anyone can have). Looking at the Forbes list of the richest people in the world (one woman in the top 20), it’s hard to disagree. Most are thoroughly objectionable, and even those who aren’t personally appalling mostly made their money from monopoly (for example, Warren Buffett) or inheritance (members of the Walton family).

But what about the good billionaires, a category for which Taylor Swift (ranked about 2000 in the list) seems like the ideal example? Before her, there was J. K. Rowling, but look how that turned out. Swift seems to tick all the boxes. Apparently a nice person (if you ignore the promotional feuds with other celebrities), generous with her money, treats her employees well, politically progressive without being obnoxious about it, and a philanthropist, though nothing like Dolly Parton.

And she’s made her money honestly, selling records and concert tickets to people who want to buy them. Revealed preference arguments need to be treated with care (Tom Slee’s No One Makes You Shop at Walmart is the classic here), but Swifties have plenty of alternatives on offer. At the margin, a dollar spent on Swift is a dollar less for other entertainers, but that’s not a consideration we usually regard as relevant in our current system.

So, if there’s a problem with Swift’s wealth, it’s not a problem with her, but with the system that makes such massive wealth possible. For Swift, that comes about in several ways.

First, the money she makes from selling records and merchandise depends on the system of “intellectual property” (in this case, mostly copyrights and trademarks). Unlike many entertainers, she’s been highly successful in capturing this for herself rather than letting record companies grab it.

Second, her returns from ticket sales to her concerts depend on the availability of stadiums. These are sometimes explicitly subsidised by the public and always dependent on land-use regulation.

Finally, the returns she gets when she invests her wealth are higher than those available to ordinary households. This is at the core of the r > g point made by Piketty a while back.

These compounding effects would be greatly reduced by a more progressive income tax system (a top marginal rate of 70 per cent) and by wealth taxes, capturing the excess returns to high wealth. In combination, these would make it very difficult to become a billionaire by entertaining people. Other measures would be needed to deal with the massive accumulations of corporate wealth represented by the multibillionaires.

Given her dependence on the society that made her wealth possible, Swift can have no legitimate moral objection to a tax system that shares it out more evenly. But is there an economic cost here? The standard story is one about incentives and effort. But it’s hard to believe that Swift would write fewer songs, or perform fewer concerts, if the return were in the hundreds of thousands rather than millions or billions. And, as I already observed, most of the ultra-rich have made their money in actively harmful ways. Even where there is an actually useful product involved, the super-profits have come mostly from monopoly or speculation.

In summary, in a society which produces billionaires, there’s no reason to object to Taylor Swift becoming one. But we could have all the music we need or want in a society without billionaires. Indeed, with policies like a participation income or livable income guarantee, we could see a lot more people making music, some of which might turn out better than what the industry currently gives us.

* In support of my fundraising for the Brisbane to Gold Coast ride against cancer, which was hugely successful. Thanks, everyone!