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I hate to break it to you but the whole "tax the rich" thing is what the rich want you debating... why? Cause you can tax them all you want, but when our budget is 60% military they will still get rich and we will go in debt no matter how much you tax them.
Ya know what the rich really dont want? You fighting to get the military budget slashed in half leaving more than enough money to cut taxes for everyone (including the rich)... but noooo, any solution that saves everyone money, including the rich, is one that will never be supported.
So many people just get spoon fed a narrative and then its law.
taxing the rich is about reducing their political power, not the government revenue. we must also slash military spending. and provide universal health care.
@wjmaggos I am all for making sure money isnt able to influence political power... but going about that by taking away people with money is a really self-destructive tactic.
I also want to decentralize all media and get rid of advertising and pass political reforms, but a person with a $1b is going to have a lot of power when most don't have $1m. I'm for taking the money away, not the people. I'd rather we have such a competitive market that no company or person ever has such unfair advantages imo. how is it self-destructive?
Taking the money away from wealth produces like billionairs is probably the most destructive thing a society can do. There is a very good reason why over the last hundred plus years that the number of people in poverty dropped as the number of billionairs increased.
Money has absolutely no power as long as the people dont let it and the elections are fair. The only reason people with money have power is because people dont turn off their tvs when the lobbying ads come on. Money can only buy you votes when the general population is willing to sell their vote to the highest (figurative) bidder.
what's the very good reason? places with massive poverty have also had an exploitative wealthy class. you don't take all their money eliminating incentives. the billionaire didn't work harder than the multi millionaire. it was luck.
money can be used in more ways than that, and nobody is 100% immune to propaganda nor will we ever achieve near immunity to it in most of society. I agree about educating the public interest this direction, it's essential. but it will never be enough.
@wjmaggos the "very good reason" is simple... money is not a fixed quantity where in order to have mroe others must have less. Wealth is **generated** not taken.
Billionaires are the most successful wealth generators in a society. So having them means a lot of wealth is likely being generated (not always, but usually). Destroying the wealth generators and distributing what money they created therefore might temporarily feed a few people but plunge society into poverty long term.
The reason poverty levels plummet as billionairs become more numerous is because a society that has a lot of well performing wealth generators makes all of society wealthier and has been shown to significantly reduce poverty levels.
I agree that a well functioning market creates a lot of wealth for everyone and reduces poverty. There's innovation. There's cheaper and better stuff and services. I strongly support a mixed economy.
IDK why you keep saying it this way, but I am not for destroying wealth generators. Successful businesses who don't create billionaires also generate wealth. Billionaires don't prove the economy is good, but they are most easily able to use that wealth to thwart competition.
The point your missing is the existance of billionairs is in no way something to avoid... why would you want to, their existance takes from no one, and contributes **hugely** to the economy, in such a way that if they didnt exist we would all be worse off.
No billionairs dont "prove" the economy is good, but a good economy will have few poor people and many rich people, the more so the better.
do you think a gazillionaire would be something to avoid? do you think they might be able to use that money to garner power in a way that even the smart democracies might have a problem dealing with if his interests went against those of the public? maybe buying all our telecommunications infrastructure and politicians and military industries? maybe just confusing people about the threat of climate change?
> do you think a gazillionaire would be something to avoid?
No it isnt a good thing, because someone owning a fictional amount of money would make no sense and I dont like things not making sense.
in all seriousness though, in and of itself, no. But not all super-wealthy are good just as not all are bad. People who have wealth may generate it (provide services we want) or may get it through exploitation (literally stealing or inciting wars). So long as the wealthy person is one who largely made their money generating that wealth then yes its a good thing no matter how much they have (because it didnt reduce the amount anyone else had). However if they got that wealth through the destruction of wealth (for example literally robbing a bank) then no it isnt a good thing.
> do you think they might be able to use that money to garner power in a way that even the smart democracies might have a problem dealing with if his interests went against those of the public?
That depends largely on the society. While I am opposed to just taking a persons money simply for having money I am all for making sure money can not buy influence in a society when it comes to our policies and governance. A persons money only has as much power as we let it as a society. If we all had integrity then that money couldnt buy anyone or anything that wasnt something we as a society are ok with. So if you find things are being bought with money that money shouldnt be able to buy (such as votes for politicians) then that is a problem.
Remember people can pool their resources into a common organization. So I dont care any more or less about 1 super rich evil dude than I care about 100,000 evil middle class dudes.
> maybe buying all our telecommunications infrastructure and politicians and military industries?
They would be unable to do this if those non-billionairs simply refused to sell to them. Or if the government prevented it through anti-trust laws (I am against monopolies but all for the rich).
we do not have the perfect society where massive wealth cannot influence lots of people in lots of different ways. I'd be for ancapistan or communism if I thought people were interested or able to thrive in those situations too etc.
you should care whether it's a billionaire or 100k middle class dudes. because wanting to do evil is rarely the problem. it's not understanding other perspectives and not having to compromise. that's the danger of billionaires in a democracy.
@volkris @freemo
my argument actually dispels conspiracy theory from a logical perspective imo. they think one evil group agrees on everything and is running shit and that's why society sucks. I'm saying people do pursue their interests but they don't think they are doing evil and they constantly disagree. concentrated wealth will unbalance democracy in that people don't have to find compromises, and that will make society suck for most people who can't push as hard as the wealthiest few.