So you're saying that all wealth is necessarily stealing?
No, but if you read my original comment, much of it is stolen. How much and by whom, would probably fill histories, and lets leave for now. I think it was Balzac who said
behind every great fortune there is a crime
but there are lottery winners and people like Markus Person, who AFAIK is ordinary. Not everyone garnered their wealth largely illegally from trusts like Rockefeller with Standard Oil, and Carnegie with Us Steel. A modern example like Gates isn't very different, if anyone takes the time to examine the business practices in any detail.
If not, the OP's entire caveat was that you need to distinguish between legit and dishonest acquisition of wealth.
Not exactly. Their statement was
There is also a sentiment ... that thinks being rich is itself a crime, or proof positive of crimes committed.
Mine is to deny wealth 'ab ovo' as a crime, just merely a moderate rephrasing of Balzacs remark, 'behind most fortunes etc', and thus often circumstantial evidence not 'proof positive'.
They go further however
This is the sort of persona responsible for the murder of the Romanov children because they were born royal and also the sort that would go around nominating anyone not showing sufficient Leftness for the Guillotine after the French Revolution.
Which is a popular non sequitor, to discourage any discussion of wealth, class in general and their origins.
It's an obvious hasty generalization combined with ad hominems. Something like 'anyone who thinks wealth is a crime is a dirty red, or blood thirsty revolutionary'. A rather neat and tidy false dichotomy.
They go further still
This is the sort of persona that, if given half a chance, would steal from all of us just as quickly.
Hysterically claiming those who point out past crimes, with exaggerated cynicism, would commit the same. As though the interests of justice are so quickly and cheaply perverted (sadly they often are). Maybe there's crystal balls in their hoards, but I doubt it.
Not done with the slander
These are the potential Stalins, Mao's and Hitlers of the world. Please, let us distance ourselves from the idea that wealth itself is a crime.
They have to link even the 'the idea that wealth itself is a crime' to mass genocide, about the worst crimes imaginable. Also it somewhat ingenuously suggest that mass murders only arise from lower classes, as did Mao and Stalin (Hitler was probalby what many might consider middle class), whereas it's usually the opposite; wealth and political power tend to conspire.
This is textbook anxiety of the upper class, which is usually doctrinaire for those aspiring to it, which is to say the middle class.
This is all quite a bit more than 'wealth is not a crime', and that 'you need to distinguish between legit and dishonest acquisition of wealth'.
Those are virtual truisms that should hardly need to be reasserted.