US billionaires:
“Wait, you mean to say that we can keep our current quality of life, dabble in our little space projects, and that those we employ won’t suffer???”
“Lol naw fuck that.”
Exactly. The cruelty is the point. They enjoy making people suffer.
I feel like it’s a means of creating a further distance between the rich and poor when conventional means have reached their limit, though i imagine there is likely at least some sadistic pleasure they derive from it (and there are very likely some that get a lot)
Here’s a comparison that came to mind for me: when i make dinner, i like to make my wife and i a salad but I’ll go out of my way to make a very nice presentation of the various ingredients on my wife’s salad. I will have the exact same ingredients for mine, but intentionally slop them onto the plate with hasty abandon and even take measures to try to make it look even worse. I like to argue that my wife’s salad is the better of the 2, that there is a hierarchy that’s immediately distinguishable–even though it’s the exact same stuff. That her salad is actually even better than if they both had been presented the same way–that i can make that basic salad even better than previously thought possible by creating a severe inequality in its presentation to the other one. Of course, that’s a very harmless comparison but i think there’s something in it.
I mean, it’s like the rich can only be so pleased with their riches and the luxuries it affords them. Not to mention a lot of that stuff probably becomes trite/commonplace even if it’s a giant yacht or fancy food or living space or whatever. They can only be so happy, and sustaining that happiness is probably not easy when you’ve burned through the conventional happiness-granting activities. It would seem that they find more nuanced, and perhaps even perverted means of pressing the happiness button. I suppose Epstein’s Island really kinda drives home that whole disgusting “someone has to suffer in order for me to be happy” kinda dynamic.
It’s disgusting to think people derive pleasure from making others suffer like this, but it’s not the least surprising to discover. 🫠
I notice a lot of wealthy people spiral out with drugs or plastic surgery, they’re just desperately grasping to get the magic back.
Yeah… It’s like the mobile f2p games. The paying players need the f2p players so they can stomp on them.
Eh, no reason to discard the idea of putting a ceiling on the rich. Even if you took away all of the money people had that was over 1 billion dollars, that wouldn’t cause any of those people to suffer.
1000x the median household income. That should be the cap. It’s a nice round number; people can understand it. And it indexes automatically with inflation.
Moreover, this is about the maximum lifetime fortune achievable by someone who actually works for a living. In a US context, 1000x median household income is about $80 million USD. That’s still an incredible amount of money, though just barely achievable by actually working for wages. It’s the kind of fortune two neurosurgeons could amass if they both worked long careers, lived extremely frugally, and invested everything they made. 1000x median household income is what I consider the largest possible ‘honest’ fortune. In order to earn beyond that level, you have to earn your money not through your labor, but the labor of others. You have to start a business and start sponging off the surplus of your employees. 1000x median income is about as large a pile as you can get without relying on exploiting someone else’s labor. And that seems like a reasonable place to set a cap. Still high enough to provide people plenty of incentive to work hard, get an education, better themselves, etc. But no so high that people amass fortunes that are threats to national security.
Indeed, whilst it’s more difficult to raise a floor, it’s certainly a good idea to have a roof close enough to it to keep the heat where the people exist
What if we just burn the rich as firewood instead?
It would probably be environmentally friendly even
no reason to discard the idea of putting a ceiling on the rich.
There is a very good reason to discard the idea of assigning an arbitrary ‘maximum wealth’, two actually:
- it’s effectively impossible to actually enforce
- it will cost us more to try to enforce it, than we will gain in revenue
It would be tremendously expensive resource-wise, logistically, to even reliably determine if one has reached that ceiling (net worth figures for individuals that you see in the media are guesses, not the result of actual auditing), much less calculate with any degree of certainty how far over the ceiling someone is, and that ‘research/enforcement cost’ is practically certain to completely cancel out (and then some) any potential added revenue, especially because it’s also trivially easy to circumvent by creating debt, etc.
- it will cost us more to try to enforce it, than we will gain in revenue
That sounds to me like an assertion that has no basis in reality.
That would most likely be because you are ignorant of when it has already literally happened in the past, in other nations.
On multiple occasions in multiple countries, wealth taxes primarily aimed at the wealthiest demographic have been tried, and then repealed because overall tax revenue literally decreased as a result. There is a reason the vast majority of countries that have implemented such taxes have either since repealed them, or ‘loosened’ them such that they’re no longer primarily aimed at said demographic, and have become a much more ‘typical’ tax that the middle class pays.
This is why the Zucmann taxation model is so hyped tbh. I doubt you haven’t heard of it?
I honestly don’t think the problem is that Capitalist’s don’t understand that concept; they very much do.
They also understand that the money for raising that floor would likely come from taxes on them; and so keeping the floor low means that they can keep even more profit.
It’s not a lack of understanding. It’s pure unadulterated evil.
The rich capitalists sure, but there are plenty of poor capitalists being fed misinformation, in order to maintain the status quo. And when it is the many vs the powerful few, then the more we have on our side the better
Capitalist generally refers to people who own and control capital, not to fans of the system. One cannot be a poor capitalist, it’s a contradiction.
I used to use the term the same way as you, but I think using it the way it’s meant is better.
That seems an odd definition to me, to my knowledge all other definitions of ideologies depend only on ones own beliefs or values, not upon ones physical possessions or life situation. What else would you call a poor person who fervently believes that capitalism is the best system for the world? If Bezos suffered some catastrophic business collapse and went broke, would he suddenly no longer be a capitalist?
Edit: also I thought the traditional name for those who own capital is “bourgeoisie”?
If Bezos suffered some catastrophic business collapse and went broke, would he suddenly no longer be a capitalist?
Depends, if that collapse meant that he can’t live from his ownership of capital anymore, he would not be a capitalist.
Of course you can be a poor capitalist.
I think its more than that, they already have all the money, but wealth is relative so if they can make everyone else twice as poor then their wealth relative to everyone else just doubled.
There are definitely bad actors out there trying to convince people of misconceptions, and I’m sure they have a non-zero amount of success. I recall being told some overly simplifying misconceptions of socialism when I was young.
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The reason social democracy doesn’t work is because it doesn’t change the power structure. It’s treating a symptom and not the root cause. By leaving the root cause untouched, the symptoms will always come back.
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Depends. I actually fully support putting a ceiling on wealth.
The analogy I always come back to is nuclear weapons. We don’t let private individuals own them. We don’t make you get an atomic bomb license. We don’t tax nukes heavily. We don’t make sure that only the kindest and most ethical people are allowed to own nukes. We simply say, this is too much power to be trusted to one individual. No one should have that level of power.
And yet, would anyone doubt that someone like Bezos, all on his own, can cause an amount of damage comparable to a nuclear bomb? If Bezos had it in for an entire city, could he not destroy it? Could he not buy up the major employers and shut them down? Could he not buy up all the housing and force the citizens into penury? Could he not buy up and shut down the hospitals? I have no doubt that, if he wanted to, Bezos could single handedly destroy a city. And how many lives would that take? How many would drink themselves to death or die by their own hand after Bezos came in and destroyed their entire lives? How many would die from lack of resources and medical care, etc?
Bezos could absolutely, if he wanted to, single-handedly cause a level of destruction and human misery comparable to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
And that is a power no one should have. The only way anyone should have that level of power is through democratic elections.
This is why I support wealth caps. I would personally set the maximum allowable wealth at 1000x the median household income. In the US, this would be about $80 million USD. That’s about the maximum fortune a person that actually works for wages can amass in a lifetime, if they’re a very high earner, live very frugally, and marry someone of similar status. 1000x median household income is the limit of what I consider to be an honest fortune - one made primarily through your own work, rather than sponging off the labor of others.
To be more succinct, the way I always describe it is wealth is not just money, money is too abstract. Wealth is power and that degree of power should not be so concentrated in so few private individuals.
Bezos could single handedly destroy a city And Musk actually did this with Boca Chica.
Also the power to launch a nuclear strike is shockingly consolidated. The president can if they decide to, and they’d likely get positive support from military command.
Anyways, I’m in full agreement even if I’m poking at your examples and metaphors.
Norwegian here: the floor is getting more and faulty and it is dependent on the imperial mode of living generally and oil and arms exports specifically
Didint you guys just find one of the biggest rare earth minerals deposit in the world?
Yes, we did. But with the current political climate I’m less and less sure that we’ll be able to handle it as well as we did with the oil.
If you want an example of an industry where we didn’t do a great job of spreading the wealth, you can look at our other major export: Salmon.
Salmon seems like a very different resource than oil or rare earth metals. My understanding is that with the oil, it was a resource that largely came out of nowhere. One day Norway had little oil. Suddenly you find this vast field of immense unclaimed resources. It’s a huge resource that no one has a claim to. Thus, it’s reasonably easy to divide it in an equitable way. But salmon? People have been harvesting that resource since the dawn of time. There must be centuries of various rules, laws, ancient royal decrees, relating to who can harvest how much salmon. And there’s going to be people that if you tell them how much salmon they can catch, they’ll point out that their family has been harvesting salmon for generations, and it’s not fair to…And on an on.
Oil seems like a much easier resource to divide equitably, simply because there’s not such a cultural and legal history behind the management of the resource.
I’m of the opinion that that doesn’t go far enough
We need to put hard limits on personal wealth (and the wealth of companies too). After 10 million networth in wealth, all your income should go to taxes 100% until you’re below that limit… something similar should exist for companies
Same goes for power and fame. I don’t want or need a president, or a CEO that directs billions of dollars
Keep everything small, keep everyone small. Mega projects can still be done by multiple companies together, for example
End the rich!
You can’t just tax wealth, you need to tax net controllable assets and cap that.
After 10 million networth in wealth, all your income should go to taxes 100% until you’re below that limit…
This would be trivially easy to circumvent if it was put into place, just so you know.
“doesn’t put a ceiling on wealth”
eeeeehh. maybe we fucking should?
increased privatisation is happening all over the Nordics. I don’t know how much in Norway compared to here in Finland, but being in my fourth decade I can definitely see it happening and intensely. I can’t get a fucking public dentist anymore. Hell, children aren’t given free dental care anymore.
If no one were living in poverty I would be more accepting of the ultra-rich’s existence.
3 people in America each have several times as much wealth as the entire bottom half of America. It’s ok to have a ceiling nobody contributes 400B to society. For reference that is more than every teach and every doctor make in America. Does anyone believe that Elon is individually more valuable than the either profession?
social democracy is the best form of capitalism but it’s still capitalism
exactly, it’s still exploitative, especially towards the people who can’t benefit from the social democracy (i.e. people living in the global south, who are victims of the north’s imperialism)
colonialism made the metropoles and its people rich, all made possible by the merciless exploitation and genocide of everyone on earth who wasn’t european. anyone talking about the benefits of colonialism in leftist spaces today would rightly be expelled for being a ghoul. but social democracy is just more of the same, you’re not eliminating the exploitation, you’re just moving it.
look at how labor laws in the global north fueled delocalization. companies couldn’t exploit people in their home countries as well anymore, what did they do? exploit other people elsewhere instead.
That last line nails it: it doesn’t cap success, it just makes sure failure isn’t catastrophic.
But that’s one of the primary tenants of conservatism! What will conservatives do if people are allowed to continue living after they fail?
It does cap the wildest, antisocial forms of success that are insane excess.
Progressive taxation should mean you can never gain enough power, which capital is, to warp your society with power beyond your single vote, whether that power is expressed through direct bribery, lobbying, or mass media propaganda to try to trick your fellow citizens into voting and advocating against their own interests with your booming, capital powered voice that drowns out those you disagree with merely because you’ve exploited more capital into your private account than others.
I don’t see any shame, horror, or problem with putting a hard cap on how much an individual can accumulate, as other people live here too.
Despite what Elon Musk believes, this whole planet shouldn’t be his personal playground, but that’s what it means to become a trillionaire, entire governments will bow at your feet. That’s perverse. No unelected, unaccountable individual should hold so much power, unless humanity wants to live in a hell of its own making.
lobbying is direct bribery, isn’t it?
Shhh, that’s a secret, those are “campaign contributions” and nothing is expected in return! Mercy me, I have the vapors…
To be fair, it helps that Norway suddenly got rich by selling ecologically disasterous products to the rest of the world while avoiding them itself.
are you serious?
Yes, Norway’s oil production is state owned, so every Norwegian benefits from it rather than a select few.
I think a ceiling would actually be healthy. I don’t love that we’re still pandering to the rich even with this summary. Still, it’s good to push any healthy message. I’m just saying it could be better. No one in the entire world needs more than 20 million dollars. No one. That should be the highest we allow, and even lower would be better.
Great. Now do both.
Norway has a very high gini coefficient, i.e. high inequality. It’s just that the people at the bottom still get a decent standard of living.
You know, I don’t think most people care about the inequality so much as the abject misery of being at the bottom of that equation. I kinda wouldn’t care how many yachts a rich buffoon has if there weren’t so many starving desperate people, it’s just the optics are wholly awful for these ghouls in the world where cruelty and greed are so rampant that it’s inevitable even the crumbs are sucked from those who need them the most.
I agree. I’d much rather be poor in Norway than in the US.
The only thing that I think really needs to change is that it should be harder to get more wealthy past the point where the average person would say that you’re wealthy.
That difficulty spike should be caused by an increase in taxes that you have to pay in order to accrue more wealth so that those taxes can be redirected to the less wealthy.
You can sail as high as you want to go, but you have to raise the tide along with you.
Then your wealthiness would match my ideal of what it means to be wealthy.
