Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion column by Marian Tupy, a CATO Institute fellow and founder of its Human Progress program, which is apparently an expanded version of his book Superabundance: the Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing.

CATO is a libertarian think tank that promotes deregulation and markets free of any government constraints, so it's no surprise that they support the idea that a single person could "earn," and deserve to spend a quarter-billion dollar fortune.

What's interesting is his argument. He suggests that Amazon online retail services did two things to improve lives: saved each of us an average of four minutes a day by saving us trips to stores, and by forcing other retailers to improve their service.

What he ignores are the social costs that came with the ...