The proportional difference is the same, i.e. the same number of orders of magnitude separate them, but in absolute terms, someone with $10B is closer in wealth to your or I than to Bezos (which, to be clear, does not mean we shouldn't take it, merely that the height Bezos is at is unfathomable)
Most of their billions is ownership in companies they grew into what they are today. It's not like they have billions to spend, it's that their ownership is worth billions according to the market.
They could go to any bank and leverage that asset for a loan for more than everyone who posts on this platform will make in their lifetimes no problem. That is a nonsense talking point
Employees are allowed to buy company stock and vote using it just like anyone else. Many companies even have employee stock purchase programs. What's the problem ?
Mostly it was about fooling you into thinking that, as a worker, you have even an iota of power within that company.
You: "The owners deserve all the value that results from owning the company and not the workers because the owners own the company, duh." Reread what you said and note the ridiculous circular logic.
The company would continue to function perfectly fine without the owner(s), yet would immediately cease to function or even exist without the workers. The only role the owner plays in the company (that the workers operate), is to siphon the value away from the workers who made it and unto themselves.
The workers get paid, they get value out of it, they aren't slaves.
The company wouldn't exist without owners, someone created it, someone started it, someone owns it. The owners are also the ones usually making the big decisions, they have a lot of skin in the game when it comes to the future of the company.
Look at a company like Blockbuster. With a better owner they could have changed their position to stay around as a company, but the owner made bad choices. If there was no owner what would have happened? It probably would have failed even quicker because there is nobody making decisions and most employees probably didn't see the wiring on the wall until it was too late.
A good owner would have seen the direction the market was going and changed the company to prepare. Netflix has been fighting this fight for a while now, switching from streaming other's content to making their own content. Without an owner they would have died a long time ago.
The company wouldn't exist without owners, someone created it, someone started it, someone owns it. The owners are also the ones usually making the big decisions, they have a lot of skin in the game when it comes to the future of the company.
The kingdom wouldn't exist without monarchs, someone created it, someone started it, someone rules it. The monarchs are also the ones usually making the big decisions, they have a lot of skin in the game when it comes to the future of the kingdom.
Americans are so pro-democracy, but they'll bust out the most self-defeating, thoughtless, begging-the-question-ass logic to argue against having democracy in the workplace. Sad.
I hope you can realize this is a false equivalency, but maybe you can't?
If you believe so little in democracy in the workplace, why do you bother with democracy at all? Should other institutions that govern our lives also function as oligarchies, dictatorships, autocracies?
Employees are allowed to buy company stock and vote using it just like anyone else.
And vote with what money? Income inequality is arguably as worse as it has ever been. More and more workers are forced to live on wages that can't even cover their basic needs, let alone buying power, while the capitalist/owning class is hoarding unbelievable wealth.
How can workers vote with their money to overturn a system designed by wealthy employers to make themselves as wealthy as possible (a system that involves keeping employee wages as low as possible, btw)? That's the fucking problem, lmao.
While that may be technically true, is running defense for these people who would happily see you and everone you care about die if it would make them another buck really something you want to be doing?
also assets count as wealth if you tried to explain to king Solomon that he wasn't actually rich because his money was tied up in land and cattle he would call you and idiot and explain that land and cattle are his wealth
I don't mind defending what I see as theft, even if it's from people I don't like. Is it crazy to defend something you see as wrong even if you don't like the person? I don't think right and wrong changes based on if the act is being done to someone I like vs don't like
You have no idea what you are talking about... profits aren't theft, paying people less than the money you make from their work also isn't theft. Being worth billions because the stock market values your ownership in a big company as worth billions also isn't theft.
What you are worth is less than the profit you make. If a company paid you exactly the money they made from you, they would make no money and cease to exist. It's really not that complicated.
It's like asking why do stores sell products for more than it costs them to buy. It's such a simple question that even you should know the right answer.
So we should just sell items for what they cost? Doesn't matter if you spent all day working, you get nothing because you just sold everything for what it costs? That's a better society?
Businesses first need to pay employees, that's an obvious one, nobody is going to work for free. Then they need to pay for all the raw materials they buy, and the electricity, etc. If they can't make a profit they aren't paying any of those.
Explain where I am debasing myself? If you are referring to a company paying me less than they make from me, how do you expect them to make any money, or even break even, if they don't do that?
If you are referring to a company paying me less than they make from me, how do you expect them to make any money, or even break even, if they don't do that?
You're pointing out the fundamental contradiction of capitalism - bosses make a profit by paying workers less than their value - that is the basis of Marxism. We are all extremely aware that your boss needs to underpay you to "make any money, or even break even". It is literally the reason we oppose capitalism.
So you propose they pay you exactly the amount you make them, and the company goes broke in the process, so now you also make nothing since you don't have a job?
No, we propose that there not be a group of people (capitalists) who own the business just so they can extract profit from the worker's labor. The workers should collectively own the firm. We recognize that there are two primary classes in society: those who work for a wage that is less than the value they generate (the working class) and those who own a business and extract profit by underpaying their workers (the capitalist class). These classes are inherently in conflict, and the only resolution to that is socialism, which removes the capitalist class from the equation entirely.
So the people who put in the most risk and started the company get nothing more than someone who joined 20 years later? How do you expect companies to get created if the owner constantly loses more and more of their company the bigger it gets? Why risk any of this money in the company when it isn't even his anymore?
Since they run the business I assume they will be making a lot more than the rest of the employees, right?
State and worker directed capital funds that vet and invest in new firms.
Do you really think that can work? I think you will have a very hard time getting people to agree to put their money into stuff like this.
We will structure access to capital such that we don't depend on profit-sucking capitalists to grant it to us.
Ah, yeah, let's just restructure the whole system into some untested idea, that's going to go over great with everyone. How would you even start making this change?
Since they run the business I assume they will be making a lot more than the rest of the employees, right?
It's important to note that in many cases, owners do not run the business - they hire someone else to do it for them. Now, if the founder (not an owner in this context) remains in a prominent and valuable leadership position, they will probably be one of the highest paid people in the firm. But we're talking a difference of 3x-10x the lowest paid worker at the most, not the 400x you see in CEOs today. Ultimately pay decisions are made by the board, which is elected by workers (and potentially union leadership, community members, government regulators, etc, as befits the particular firm).
Do you really think that can work? I think you will have a very hard time getting people to agree to put their money into stuff like this.
I mean, co-ops and governments all over the world already do it, so yes, I don't see why it would suddenly stop working.
Ah, yeah, let's just restructure the whole system into some untested idea, that's going to go over great with everyone. How would you even start making this change?
Again, you're speaking to a bunch of revolutionary Marxists. We do, in fact, want to restructure the whole system. That's what I'm telling you. We want to fundamentally change the way property ownership works. The only way it would happen is if there's a mass popular movement to make it happen, so those of us in capitalist countries spend our time organizing around this, creating parties and other groups that can hopefully bring about this change. These ideas not untested, however - many countries implement some component of worker ownership and state planning into their economy at all kinds of different scales. Some countries operate under Marxist governments that work to implement these on a society-wide scale, often with a great deal of success. We can learn from that success and from the mistakes those governments made/make. Not untested at all.
The owner at the very least risked a lot of time and money to get the business going, and it would have been a while before they hired someone else to do the job. It's not like they just sat back and did nothing.
The owner took on 100x+ the risk any employee is, should they not get rewarded for taking that risk?
I mean, co-ops and governments all over the world already do it, so yes, I don't see why it would suddenly stop working.
On a very small scale they sometimes work, when they get larger scale they usually have a CEO and upper management like any other business. In the end it's really not that different. Look at REI for example, it's a co-op, has a CEO, and at least in my area has pretty average pay and benefits. They have laid off people recently due to profit concerns, and have ok ratings on job sites. What is the advantage to these exactly?
These ideas not untested, however - many countries implement some component of worker ownership and state planning into their economy at all kinds of different scales
Can you give me the best example of a current city, country, or whatever that is closest to what you think is best for the US to change to?
The owner at the very least risked a lot of time and money to get the business going, and it would have been a while before they hired someone else to do the job. It's not like they just sat back and did nothing.
This is absolutely not always the case. Many businesses (most, I'd bet) predate their current owner. And what is the risk? I don't get why this obsession with undefined "risk" is so important. What's the absolute worst case scenario? Their business shuts down and they have to go work for a wage like everyone else?
On a very small scale they sometimes work, when they get larger scale they usually have a CEO and upper management like any other business. In the end it's really not that different. Look at REI for example, it's a co-op, has a CEO, and at least in my area has pretty average pay and benefits. They have laid off people recently due to profit concerns, and have ok ratings on job sites. What is the advantage to these exactly?
REI is a consumer co-op, not a worker co-op, and that's mostly just a marketing gimmick. If you go to the store, you can pay $20 to become a "Co-op Member" for life and get discounts. I'm talking about worker co-ops, where the ownership and operation of the firm is shared among its employees. There are shitloads of these at small scales, but there are a few big ones - Mondragon and others in Spain, Uralungal in India, Huawei in China, etc. In my city, the largest industrial laundry operation is a worker co-op, and they have a practice of providing capital and expertise to other local businesses to convert into co-ops. However, it should be noted that the conditions for a worker co-op in capitalism are very different than they would be under socialism. In capitalism, they are at a competitive disadvantage on the market, because they will pay their workers more and thus have tighter margins. In socialism, that's not an issue.
Can you give me the best example of a current city, country, or whatever that is closest to what you think is best for the US to change to?
Economically, China, Cuba, and Vietnam operate under Marxist governments using different approaches to planned economies that place a large emphasis on worker power within businesses. It's been enormously successful for all of their development and quality of life. You could look at a number of Latin American countries where socialist parties contest with liberal/capitalist parties in electoral politics and see the success they tend to have under the more left wing governments. Here, Bolivia is an excellent example. They've had a socialist party (MAS) in power for over a decade and quality of life, life expectancy, poverty levels, literacy, public health, and education have all improved dramatically. But they are not truly a socialist country (even in the restricted sense of the explicitly Marxist states I mentioned above) because they still operate in a mixed economy where the capitalist class wields massive economic and political power, and the socialist parties in power work to restrain the capitalists and build alternative models. Nowhere on earth aiming for socialism isn't in a process of active struggle against the global capitalist powers-that-be, and that struggle looks very different under different circumstances. I don't just want the US to change to the Chinese model or something, but I do want an economic model much closer to the examples I've given here, though substantially adjusted to the conditions of the US (and the need for the US to make reparations for imperialism).
I don't get why this obsession with undefined "risk" is so important. What's the absolute worst case scenario? Their business shuts down and they have to go work for a wage like everyone else?
The risk is losing their life savings or having debt the likes of which makes your student debt look like nothing. If the risk means nothing to you, you should try it, make a great business that follows your ideals, and if you fail no big deal, right?
Economically, China, Cuba, and Vietnam operate under Marxist governments using different approaches to planned economies that place a large emphasis on worker power within businesses
As I suspected, your examples are of countries that are not exactly great places to live, and where US companies go to get the cheapest labor they can. They have worse workers rights than the US
Nowhere on earth aiming for socialism isn't in a process of active struggle against the global capitalist powers-that-be, and that struggle looks very different under different circumstances
It sounds like we really shouldn't be trying for that if it only works when everyone does it. It's one thing to try and change a country, but to change the whole world? Might as well be impossible.
I don't just want the US to change to the Chinese model or something, but I do want an economic model much closer to the examples I've given here, though substantially adjusted to the conditions of the US (and the need for the US to make reparations for imperialism).
I just can't picture how that would look though, which is why I asked for the examples. It sounds like there really isn't a great example of where you think the US should go?
Why is theft inhereintly wrong? Would you see Robin Hood as the villain of his story? It's not a matter of whether you like them or not, their exorbitant wealth is a bad thing in of itself. Why should they sit on so much wealth when most have so little?
The difference is between private property and personal property. Private property is the means of production that produce wealth by extracting a profit margin from the labor of the workers that operate that means. Seizing private property is just democratizing the ownership of it between all the workers that use it, because you can't really steal a corporation or a factory, just change ownership. Seizing personal property is taking someone's toothbrush or car or books.
Stealing ownership is still stealing though. You are suggesting we steal personal ownership in a company, ownership which is only worth a certain amount because the stock market says it is.
It's not like they're going to just give it up. Do you think that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people is a good thing? Is it a good thing that billionaires get to waste money shooting off rockets while so many people go without a roof over their head?
Wealth in this case is ownership in companies that have a massive worldwide presence. If wealth is ownership in the companies you own, then yes, I don't think they should be forced to give that up. What they decide to spend their wealth on is up to them.
What they decide to spend their wealth on is up to them
The only acceptable way to use that much money is to reinvest it in the society that enabled you to become a billionaire.
It would cost around 20 billion dollars to end homelessness in the US, why should people be allowed to have net worths of 100 billion+ when it would only cost 1/5th of that to provide everyone with a home? Is stealing from one man to house hundreds of thousands of people a bad thing to do? Is personal ownership of wealth worth more than human life to you?
The only acceptable way to use that much money is to reinvest it in the society that enabled you to become a billionaire.
Bill Gates seems to be doing a decent job of that, I'm glad he made the choices he has to redistribute his wealth, and I'm also glad it's his choice.
It would cost around 20 billion dollars to end homelessness in the US, why should people be allowed to have net worths of 100 billion+ when it would only cost 1/5th of that to provide everyone with a home?
I really doubt it's that simple. Where are these houses being built, in the middle of nowhere I suspect? How many homeless people want to move there? Will there be jobs out there? What about electricity, gas, and Internet?
Why would they need to be built in the middle of nowhere? We can build high density apartments if we need to, a roof over your head in a small apartment is better than the sidewalk.
Because the price you quoted wouldn't be nearly enough if we built in expensive cities, it has to be built in cheap to build areas for that number to make sense.
ownership which is only worth a certain amount because the stock market says it is.
Market value and use value are not the same thing. Cases like Musk obviously display wild overvaluing, but the practical use a repatriated asset can provide is not the same as its price tag unless your only use for it is to sell it.
So how do we calculate wealth if it isn't based on what the market says it's worth? If we are going to tax Musk on his wealth, most of which is stock, how do you figure out the "real" wealth to tax?
In the case of stock, when we say it is "overvalued", that is implicitly based on the idea that there is a better evaluation that we can at least estimate, wherein (using more Marxist terms) the use value and market value are more correlated.
How a wealth tax should be implemented depends a lot on the society in which it is implemented. If we are assuming it is just the US but with a wealth tax, then I think ignoring what I said and taxing people more when their stock is higher makes sense, because market-dictated wealth represents really the ultimate ability to direct society within the US. In other countries with more checks against the wealthy, another approach may be more justified.
Really, I don't like wealth taxes compared to other models like a higher capital gains tax, but anything that takes money disproportionately from all billionaires is probably going to have my support merely for that fact, because anything that mainly hurts them is likely to be a good thing relative to the nothing we have.
What about the middle class that relies on stocks to retire? If you aren't aware, retirement accounts are usually mostly stocks, do we tax the middle class retirement money?
I think your last paragraph is pretty telling, just blindly supporting anything that hurts billionaires simply because they are billionaires, no matter how unfair or unjust it is, or even his bad the consequences would be for the country.
I think there is a reason the most successful companies are from the US, you would have them move their bushes elsewhere that's more supportive of their size?
Obviously I don't want to fuck over retirees, so it should be a progressive tax, since those retirement accounts don't reach 8 figures, let alone 10 to 12.
I was pretty careful in my phrasing about it hurting billionaires specifically rather than hurting a larger swath of the population that included billionaires. Given that, I don't think it would hurt "the country" very much at all, and indeed benefit the country because billionaires are a perpetual malus on us.
I think there is a reason the most successful companies are from the US,
There are several reasons, and I think you probably aren't adequately accounting for the US being the global hegemon and engaging in brutal imperial exploitation as being chief among them. The US literally goes to war using the most over-funded military in the world for the sake of oil companies. It backs juntas to get cheap deals on lithium. It authors puppet governments for fucking bananas.
Regarding capital flight: It's awesome if billionaires want to flee. If they try, seize everything from them. They play ball or fuck off, no need to accommodate them playing God.
Even a progressive tax is going to fuck over retirees, unless you are suggesting 0% below like $10M. Even then they are still paying taxes either when they put the money in or when they take it out, so taxing on the value is just double tax dipping.
So you are actually suggesting if billionaires want to move we steal everything from them? How is that even remotely ok?
Even a progressive tax is going to fuck over retirees, unless you are suggesting 0% below like $10M. Even then they are still paying taxes either when they put the money in or when they take it out, so taxing on the value is just double tax dipping.
Retirement funds are still not going to exceed like 5 million in the vast majority of cases, but sure! Let's have it be marginal below 10M, that's fine with me. The petite bourgeois should mainly be targeted with things like higher taxes on housing they rent out, and that's really a secondary concern in most places.
So you are actually suggesting if billionaires want to move we steal everything from them? How is that even remotely ok?
Yes, I am. It's as easy as "don't engage in capital flight" to not get hit by it. We can even be generous enough to leave them just a tiny bit, say 1% if they have exactly 1B, since 10M is quite a lot for a human.
Why should they be entitled to gut factories where they used the labor supply and infrastructure to make their money, destroying the local economy and putting many people out of work? "Property rights"? This is going to blow your mind: human welfare is more important than the property rights of people who are richer than God and could get by in insane comfort while never working a day for the rest of their lives anyway.
If I had to weigh the wholesale destruction of communities against John Locke feeling disappointed, I'll gladly accept the latter and travel to England to piss on his grave.
Yes, I am. It's as easy as "don't engage in capital flight" to not get hit by it. We can even be generous enough to leave them just a tiny bit, say 1% if they have exactly 1B, since 10M is quite a lot for a human.
You are suggesting the most immoral thing I've heard yet. To just take everything from someone and leave them with nothing just because they want to leave the area that is hostile to them. Oh wait, nevermind, this sounds exactly like someone as communist would say, and something communist countries have done in the past.
lmao 10M is "nothing". I hope one day you realize that you can do better things than lick boots. If you've got a problem with immorality and robbery, take it up with the billionaires who are actually doing just that and not leaving people with piss, let alone 10M for picking the forewarned bad option. Where I'm from, trying to move something across borders when it is against the law is called "smuggling" and it's normal to seize all of what is smuggled rather than 99% (unless it's, like, people or something).
10M is nothing to someone who owns billions, it's all a matter of perspective. I have a problem with people who use or suggest immoral actions, and that includes you. Stealing from anyone is immoral, I don't care how much they have or how big of a company it is.
What is against the law here? It's not illegal to move your business outside the country, it's not illegal to leave the country, what you are assuming is illegal is actually perfectly legal. It's not smuggling if you are just moving legal goods. Even you can leave a country like the US and transfer your money to wherever you go, it's not illegal at all.
10M is nothing to someone who owns billions, it's all a matter of perspective. I have a problem with people who use or suggest immoral actions, and that includes you. Stealing from anyone is immoral, I don't care how much they have or how big of a company it is.
I never said it wouldn't feel bad, but it objectively is a large amount of wealth for one person to have, enough to never work again. To view it as nothing indicates a disorder, so maybe .1% can go to rehabilitating them so they can understand their position, should they accept receiving such counseling.
Of course, your deontological view of a deeply exploitative class of people is untenable to do anything but limply defend the status quo, but I don't think I can teach you how to do philosophy coherently.
What is against the law here? It's not illegal to move your business outside the country, it's not illegal to leave the country, what you are assuming is illegal is actually perfectly legal. It's not smuggling if you are just moving legal goods. Even you can leave a country like the US and transfer your money to wherever you go, it's not illegal at all.
Remember that this hypothetical situation we are discussing is of a policy being implemented. That is to say, in this hypothetical, large-scale capital flight is illegal, and therefore to attempt it anyway is smuggling. The 1% left to them to do what they like with (even in whatever poor country they were leaving to exploit) is quite literally a significant mercy to them.
but it objectively is a large amount of wealth for one person to have, enough to never work again.
If they drastically reduced their lifestyle, don't get taxed heavily, and are able to invest it, then sure. However if you don't allow them to invest and they don't drastically reduce their standard of living, that's not nearly enough to retire on.
Even a fairly modest personal plane or small yacht will cost a million or more over years of use.
but I don't think I can teach you how to do philosophy coherently.
If your idea of philosophy involves theft, I don't think I want to learn it from you.
That is to say, in this hypothetical, large-scale capital flight is illegal,
Ah, this concept is so insane that I just can't imagine it ever happening. In reality the companies and rich would leave and there would be nothing you could do to stop it.
If they drastically reduced their lifestyle, don't get taxed heavily, and are able to invest it, then sure. However if you don't allow them to invest and they don't drastically reduce their standard of living, that's not nearly enough to retire on.
Remember that we already said 10M was below the cutoff of the wealth tax, so they aren't being taxed heavily. Furthermore, they should be able to live their whole life without investing it if they are already like 35.
Even a fairly modest personal plane or small yacht will cost a million or more over years of use.
Whoa, so they can't afford toys that should generally be banned for ecological reasons anyway? Again, if you can't figure out how to live a happy life without a personal plane, you probably need to go to rich guy rehab. Just fucking find some cozy spot and live in idle luxury.
If your idea of philosophy involves theft, I don't think I want to learn it from you.
People don't functionally own land, they nominally own it at the mercy of the state. Many things work this way. Your problem is that you can't see beyond a narrow paradigm of how society is organized, as though a particular version of liberalism was ordained by God as being the natural order. It is not.
Ah, this concept is so insane that I just can't imagine it ever happening. In reality the companies and rich would leave and there would be nothing you could do to stop it.
No, because they only have their power to move things around at the mercy of the state, a state which is generally nice to them because their class controls the state. Many countries have various types of laws opposing capital flight. One excellent example is various manifestations of "right of first refusal" being used to prevent the gutting of factories. There is also the matter of simple history of the mass-repatriation of properties for reasons much less severe than the kind of opportunism we've been discussing, everywhere from Germany to China, along with the complicated legal histories of capital flight in various countries (example). Turns out money laundering can actually be stopped and assets can and have actually been seized for various reasons.
Remember that we already said 10M was below the cutoff of the wealth tax, so they aren't being taxed heavily. Furthermore, they should be able to live their whole life without investing it if they are already like 35.
I think you underestimate how fast $10M can be spent. There is a reason why most lottery winners go broke.
Whoa, so they can't afford toys that should generally be banned for ecological reasons anyway? Again, if you can't figure out how to live a happy life without a personal plane, you probably need to go to rich guy rehab. Just fucking find some cozy spot and live in idle luxury.
So basically you want them to just live like you do, without any extra luxuries? I'm guessing they also can only afford a modest house since even a normal house is $500k+ and then triple that if they have a mortgage.
I don't think it's a problem if people own a private plane as a hobby (you know, like a private pilot) or a big boat for enjoyment. I'm not talking about crazy expensive stuff here, even middle class people are owning private planes.
People don't functionally own land, they nominally own it at the mercy of the state. Many things work this way. Your problem is that you can't see beyond a narrow paradigm of how society is organized, as though a particular version of liberalism was ordained by God as being the natural order. It is not.
You and others here have explained your version of liberalism, I believe you call it Marxism, right? I don't believe it's the answer for anyone but communist countries like China, and I don't think that's the answer for the US or most other countries. Do you have another version you are proposing?
Turns out money laundering can actually be stopped and assets can and have actually been seized for various reasons.
We aren't talking about money laundering or anything illegal, we are talking about people wanting to move for a better life. Only the worst of the worst countries will punish you by stealing everything from you simply for leaving.
I'm not against giving people a chance, and helping them get that chance, but that doesn't include taking away houses from rightful owners and giving them away to homeless people. It's no coincidence that the homeless tend to destroy wherever they set up, so they need to set up in government run shelters that can handle it.
So in the moral system you're proposing, it would be an offense to use those buildings without their owner's permission. The fact that people denied access to those buildings will die as a result, though, is just a part of nature
So, why would you expect a perspective which values property more than people to stir anyone's moral feeling? If you don't expect that, then why are you bothering to frame it in terms of right and wrong?
So in the moral system you're proposing, it would be an offense to use those buildings without their owner's permission. The fact that people denied access to those buildings will die as a result, though, is just a part of nature
Well, yes. Do you donate every least penny you have to the homeless, since it would save lives? Or do you instead spend your money on luxuries for yourself? There are right and wrong ways to go about helping people like the homeless, stealing and ruining property isn't one of those ways.
So, why would you expect a perspective which values property more than people to stir anyone's moral feeling? If you don't expect that, then why are you bothering to frame it in terms of right and wrong?
I assume you have some property, right? If you are an adult you are probably at least renting an apartment and have some basic stuff like a TV. Why don't you let a homeless person sleep on your couch every night? If you don't have your own place yet, would you allow some random homeless person access to your couch for free every night?
It's much easier when it isn't your property in question, but when it's your place you might start to care about random people living rent free in your place.
I couldn't imagine spending $1 billion in my entire life, let alone 3-4.
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A million seconds is about 12 days. A billion seconds is about 32 years.
The proportional difference is the same, i.e. the same number of orders of magnitude separate them, but in absolute terms, someone with $10B is closer in wealth to your or I than to Bezos (which, to be clear, does not mean we shouldn't take it, merely that the height Bezos is at is unfathomable)
Most of their billions is ownership in companies they grew into what they are today. It's not like they have billions to spend, it's that their ownership is worth billions according to the market.
They could go to any bank and leverage that asset for a loan for more than everyone who posts on this platform will make in their lifetimes no problem. That is a nonsense talking point
What's your point? So because they can leverage their ownership of their own company we need to take away that ownership?
Yes, if you can control more wealth than a mid size city earns in ten lifetimes, you should not be allowed to do that
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Why do those employees get the bare minimum? Why are the working majority excluded from ownership and decision-making in the companies they run?
Employees are allowed to buy company stock and vote using it just like anyone else. Many companies even have employee stock purchase programs. What's the problem ?
those shares don't give you voting rights
those shares amount to a tiny fraction of the total value of the company
without the employees there would be no company
you try to square those three facts
So all those times I've gotten mail about using my shares to vote, what was that about exactly?
Of course they do, I don't expect a given employee who isn't the owner or high level exec to have a larger fraction of ownership.
So what? What's your point?
Mostly it was about fooling you into thinking that, as a worker, you have even an iota of power within that company.
You: "The owners deserve all the value that results from owning the company and not the workers because the owners own the company, duh." Reread what you said and note the ridiculous circular logic.
The company would continue to function perfectly fine without the owner(s), yet would immediately cease to function or even exist without the workers. The only role the owner plays in the company (that the workers operate), is to siphon the value away from the workers who made it and unto themselves.
The workers get paid, they get value out of it, they aren't slaves.
The company wouldn't exist without owners, someone created it, someone started it, someone owns it. The owners are also the ones usually making the big decisions, they have a lot of skin in the game when it comes to the future of the company.
Look at a company like Blockbuster. With a better owner they could have changed their position to stay around as a company, but the owner made bad choices. If there was no owner what would have happened? It probably would have failed even quicker because there is nobody making decisions and most employees probably didn't see the wiring on the wall until it was too late.
A good owner would have seen the direction the market was going and changed the company to prepare. Netflix has been fighting this fight for a while now, switching from streaming other's content to making their own content. Without an owner they would have died a long time ago.
Americans are so pro-democracy, but they'll bust out the most self-defeating, thoughtless, begging-the-question-ass logic to argue against having democracy in the workplace. Sad.
I hope you can realize this is a false equivalency, but maybe you can't?
If you believe so little in democracy in the workplace, why do you bother with democracy at all? Should other institutions that govern our lives also function as oligarchies, dictatorships, autocracies?
Maybe a workplace and a government are different and shouldn't be run the same way? Just a thought.
Why don't the underpaid employees simply buy enough stock to sway company policy
And vote with what money? Income inequality is arguably as worse as it has ever been. More and more workers are forced to live on wages that can't even cover their basic needs, let alone buying power, while the capitalist/owning class is hoarding unbelievable wealth.
How can workers vote with their money to overturn a system designed by wealthy employers to make themselves as wealthy as possible (a system that involves keeping employee wages as low as possible, btw)? That's the fucking problem, lmao.
Consider this: Wealth inequality in America today is worse than it was in ancient Egypt. Your "solution" is like asking asking what's the problem with the slaves of ancient Egypt not buying their way into power.
Lol.
Why would you expect a different opinion from a bunch of communists?
i'd expect a debate between taking away ownership from them, and taking away ownership from their estate.
While that may be technically true, is running defense for these people who would happily see you and everone you care about die if it would make them another buck really something you want to be doing?
also assets count as wealth if you tried to explain to king Solomon that he wasn't actually rich because his money was tied up in land and cattle he would call you and idiot and explain that land and cattle are his wealth
I don't mind defending what I see as theft, even if it's from people I don't like. Is it crazy to defend something you see as wrong even if you don't like the person? I don't think right and wrong changes based on if the act is being done to someone I like vs don't like
If you were actually against theft you would be against Bezos Musk and Gates stealing billions in profits from the people who are working for them.
You have no idea what you are talking about... profits aren't theft, paying people less than the money you make from their work also isn't theft. Being worth billions because the stock market values your ownership in a big company as worth billions also isn't theft.
Why would someone agree to sell their labor for less than it's worth
What you are worth is less than the profit you make. If a company paid you exactly the money they made from you, they would make no money and cease to exist. It's really not that complicated.
It's like asking why do stores sell products for more than it costs them to buy. It's such a simple question that even you should know the right answer.
Why organize society this way?
Because that's the only way it will work? How do you expect businesses to exist and pay bills when they make zero money?
Yeah thats why everything is working so well lmao.
Who must the business pay bills to, and why?
So we should just sell items for what they cost? Doesn't matter if you spent all day working, you get nothing because you just sold everything for what it costs? That's a better society?
Businesses first need to pay employees, that's an obvious one, nobody is going to work for free. Then they need to pay for all the raw materials they buy, and the electricity, etc. If they can't make a profit they aren't paying any of those.
The fact that you willingly debase yourself like this says everything that is needed to know about the system we live under.
You are better than this.
they should be but they aren't
Explain where I am debasing myself? If you are referring to a company paying me less than they make from me, how do you expect them to make any money, or even break even, if they don't do that?
Care to elaborate about whatever point you are making?
You're pointing out the fundamental contradiction of capitalism - bosses make a profit by paying workers less than their value - that is the basis of Marxism. We are all extremely aware that your boss needs to underpay you to "make any money, or even break even". It is literally the reason we oppose capitalism.
So you propose they pay you exactly the amount you make them, and the company goes broke in the process, so now you also make nothing since you don't have a job?
No, we propose that there not be a group of people (capitalists) who own the business just so they can extract profit from the worker's labor. The workers should collectively own the firm. We recognize that there are two primary classes in society: those who work for a wage that is less than the value they generate (the working class) and those who own a business and extract profit by underpaying their workers (the capitalist class). These classes are inherently in conflict, and the only resolution to that is socialism, which removes the capitalist class from the equation entirely.
So the people who put in the most risk and started the company get nothing more than someone who joined 20 years later? How do you expect companies to get created if the owner constantly loses more and more of their company the bigger it gets? Why risk any of this money in the company when it isn't even his anymore?
What's the risk they take? Will they be killed if their business fails to turn a profit?
Oh no, they'll might have to work for a wage like the people they were exploiting.
It's a huge financial risk to start a business, most require a lot of upfront costs.
They'll get as much as they continue to put in.
State and worker directed capital funds that vet and invest in new firms.
We will structure access to capital such that we don't depend on profit-sucking capitalists to grant it to us.
Since they run the business I assume they will be making a lot more than the rest of the employees, right?
Do you really think that can work? I think you will have a very hard time getting people to agree to put their money into stuff like this.
Ah, yeah, let's just restructure the whole system into some untested idea, that's going to go over great with everyone. How would you even start making this change?
It's important to note that in many cases, owners do not run the business - they hire someone else to do it for them. Now, if the founder (not an owner in this context) remains in a prominent and valuable leadership position, they will probably be one of the highest paid people in the firm. But we're talking a difference of 3x-10x the lowest paid worker at the most, not the 400x you see in CEOs today. Ultimately pay decisions are made by the board, which is elected by workers (and potentially union leadership, community members, government regulators, etc, as befits the particular firm).
I mean, co-ops and governments all over the world already do it, so yes, I don't see why it would suddenly stop working.
Again, you're speaking to a bunch of revolutionary Marxists. We do, in fact, want to restructure the whole system. That's what I'm telling you. We want to fundamentally change the way property ownership works. The only way it would happen is if there's a mass popular movement to make it happen, so those of us in capitalist countries spend our time organizing around this, creating parties and other groups that can hopefully bring about this change. These ideas not untested, however - many countries implement some component of worker ownership and state planning into their economy at all kinds of different scales. Some countries operate under Marxist governments that work to implement these on a society-wide scale, often with a great deal of success. We can learn from that success and from the mistakes those governments made/make. Not untested at all.
The owner at the very least risked a lot of time and money to get the business going, and it would have been a while before they hired someone else to do the job. It's not like they just sat back and did nothing.
The owner took on 100x+ the risk any employee is, should they not get rewarded for taking that risk?
On a very small scale they sometimes work, when they get larger scale they usually have a CEO and upper management like any other business. In the end it's really not that different. Look at REI for example, it's a co-op, has a CEO, and at least in my area has pretty average pay and benefits. They have laid off people recently due to profit concerns, and have ok ratings on job sites. What is the advantage to these exactly?
Can you give me the best example of a current city, country, or whatever that is closest to what you think is best for the US to change to?
This is absolutely not always the case. Many businesses (most, I'd bet) predate their current owner. And what is the risk? I don't get why this obsession with undefined "risk" is so important. What's the absolute worst case scenario? Their business shuts down and they have to go work for a wage like everyone else?
REI is a consumer co-op, not a worker co-op, and that's mostly just a marketing gimmick. If you go to the store, you can pay $20 to become a "Co-op Member" for life and get discounts. I'm talking about worker co-ops, where the ownership and operation of the firm is shared among its employees. There are shitloads of these at small scales, but there are a few big ones - Mondragon and others in Spain, Uralungal in India, Huawei in China, etc. In my city, the largest industrial laundry operation is a worker co-op, and they have a practice of providing capital and expertise to other local businesses to convert into co-ops. However, it should be noted that the conditions for a worker co-op in capitalism are very different than they would be under socialism. In capitalism, they are at a competitive disadvantage on the market, because they will pay their workers more and thus have tighter margins. In socialism, that's not an issue.
Economically, China, Cuba, and Vietnam operate under Marxist governments using different approaches to planned economies that place a large emphasis on worker power within businesses. It's been enormously successful for all of their development and quality of life. You could look at a number of Latin American countries where socialist parties contest with liberal/capitalist parties in electoral politics and see the success they tend to have under the more left wing governments. Here, Bolivia is an excellent example. They've had a socialist party (MAS) in power for over a decade and quality of life, life expectancy, poverty levels, literacy, public health, and education have all improved dramatically. But they are not truly a socialist country (even in the restricted sense of the explicitly Marxist states I mentioned above) because they still operate in a mixed economy where the capitalist class wields massive economic and political power, and the socialist parties in power work to restrain the capitalists and build alternative models. Nowhere on earth aiming for socialism isn't in a process of active struggle against the global capitalist powers-that-be, and that struggle looks very different under different circumstances. I don't just want the US to change to the Chinese model or something, but I do want an economic model much closer to the examples I've given here, though substantially adjusted to the conditions of the US (and the need for the US to make reparations for imperialism).
The risk is losing their life savings or having debt the likes of which makes your student debt look like nothing. If the risk means nothing to you, you should try it, make a great business that follows your ideals, and if you fail no big deal, right?
As I suspected, your examples are of countries that are not exactly great places to live, and where US companies go to get the cheapest labor they can. They have worse workers rights than the US
It sounds like we really shouldn't be trying for that if it only works when everyone does it. It's one thing to try and change a country, but to change the whole world? Might as well be impossible.
I just can't picture how that would look though, which is why I asked for the examples. It sounds like there really isn't a great example of where you think the US should go?
Fundamentals of Marx: Surplus Labor and Value. (video is only 10 min long)
E: This one goes into more depth, is a bit more polished of a production, and is 17min: Marx's Law of Value: Intro to Marxist Economics | Socialism 101
You are better than this.
Why is theft inhereintly wrong? Would you see Robin Hood as the villain of his story? It's not a matter of whether you like them or not, their exorbitant wealth is a bad thing in of itself. Why should they sit on so much wealth when most have so little?
Do you mind if I steal your property? Would that be wrong? Or is it fine as long as I'm poorer than you?
The difference is between private property and personal property. Private property is the means of production that produce wealth by extracting a profit margin from the labor of the workers that operate that means. Seizing private property is just democratizing the ownership of it between all the workers that use it, because you can't really steal a corporation or a factory, just change ownership. Seizing personal property is taking someone's toothbrush or car or books.
Stealing ownership is still stealing though. You are suggesting we steal personal ownership in a company, ownership which is only worth a certain amount because the stock market says it is.
It's not like they're going to just give it up. Do you think that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people is a good thing? Is it a good thing that billionaires get to waste money shooting off rockets while so many people go without a roof over their head?
Wealth in this case is ownership in companies that have a massive worldwide presence. If wealth is ownership in the companies you own, then yes, I don't think they should be forced to give that up. What they decide to spend their wealth on is up to them.
The only acceptable way to use that much money is to reinvest it in the society that enabled you to become a billionaire.
It would cost around 20 billion dollars to end homelessness in the US, why should people be allowed to have net worths of 100 billion+ when it would only cost 1/5th of that to provide everyone with a home? Is stealing from one man to house hundreds of thousands of people a bad thing to do? Is personal ownership of wealth worth more than human life to you?
Bill Gates seems to be doing a decent job of that, I'm glad he made the choices he has to redistribute his wealth, and I'm also glad it's his choice.
I really doubt it's that simple. Where are these houses being built, in the middle of nowhere I suspect? How many homeless people want to move there? Will there be jobs out there? What about electricity, gas, and Internet?
Why would they need to be built in the middle of nowhere? We can build high density apartments if we need to, a roof over your head in a small apartment is better than the sidewalk.
Because the price you quoted wouldn't be nearly enough if we built in expensive cities, it has to be built in cheap to build areas for that number to make sense.
Market value and use value are not the same thing. Cases like Musk obviously display wild overvaluing, but the practical use a repatriated asset can provide is not the same as its price tag unless your only use for it is to sell it.
So how do we calculate wealth if it isn't based on what the market says it's worth? If we are going to tax Musk on his wealth, most of which is stock, how do you figure out the "real" wealth to tax?
In the case of stock, when we say it is "overvalued", that is implicitly based on the idea that there is a better evaluation that we can at least estimate, wherein (using more Marxist terms) the use value and market value are more correlated.
How a wealth tax should be implemented depends a lot on the society in which it is implemented. If we are assuming it is just the US but with a wealth tax, then I think ignoring what I said and taxing people more when their stock is higher makes sense, because market-dictated wealth represents really the ultimate ability to direct society within the US. In other countries with more checks against the wealthy, another approach may be more justified.
Really, I don't like wealth taxes compared to other models like a higher capital gains tax, but anything that takes money disproportionately from all billionaires is probably going to have my support merely for that fact, because anything that mainly hurts them is likely to be a good thing relative to the nothing we have.
What about the middle class that relies on stocks to retire? If you aren't aware, retirement accounts are usually mostly stocks, do we tax the middle class retirement money?
I think your last paragraph is pretty telling, just blindly supporting anything that hurts billionaires simply because they are billionaires, no matter how unfair or unjust it is, or even his bad the consequences would be for the country.
I think there is a reason the most successful companies are from the US, you would have them move their bushes elsewhere that's more supportive of their size?
Obviously I don't want to fuck over retirees, so it should be a progressive tax, since those retirement accounts don't reach 8 figures, let alone 10 to 12.
I was pretty careful in my phrasing about it hurting billionaires specifically rather than hurting a larger swath of the population that included billionaires. Given that, I don't think it would hurt "the country" very much at all, and indeed benefit the country because billionaires are a perpetual malus on us.
There are several reasons, and I think you probably aren't adequately accounting for the US being the global hegemon and engaging in brutal imperial exploitation as being chief among them. The US literally goes to war using the most over-funded military in the world for the sake of oil companies. It backs juntas to get cheap deals on lithium. It authors puppet governments for fucking bananas.
Regarding capital flight: It's awesome if billionaires want to flee. If they try, seize everything from them. They play ball or fuck off, no need to accommodate them playing God.
Even a progressive tax is going to fuck over retirees, unless you are suggesting 0% below like $10M. Even then they are still paying taxes either when they put the money in or when they take it out, so taxing on the value is just double tax dipping.
So you are actually suggesting if billionaires want to move we steal everything from them? How is that even remotely ok?
Retirement funds are still not going to exceed like 5 million in the vast majority of cases, but sure! Let's have it be marginal below 10M, that's fine with me. The petite bourgeois should mainly be targeted with things like higher taxes on housing they rent out, and that's really a secondary concern in most places.
Yes, I am. It's as easy as "don't engage in capital flight" to not get hit by it. We can even be generous enough to leave them just a tiny bit, say 1% if they have exactly 1B, since 10M is quite a lot for a human.
Why should they be entitled to gut factories where they used the labor supply and infrastructure to make their money, destroying the local economy and putting many people out of work? "Property rights"? This is going to blow your mind: human welfare is more important than the property rights of people who are richer than God and could get by in insane comfort while never working a day for the rest of their lives anyway.
If I had to weigh the wholesale destruction of communities against John Locke feeling disappointed, I'll gladly accept the latter and travel to England to piss on his grave.
You are suggesting the most immoral thing I've heard yet. To just take everything from someone and leave them with nothing just because they want to leave the area that is hostile to them. Oh wait, nevermind, this sounds exactly like someone as communist would say, and something communist countries have done in the past.
lmao 10M is "nothing". I hope one day you realize that you can do better things than lick boots. If you've got a problem with immorality and robbery, take it up with the billionaires who are actually doing just that and not leaving people with piss, let alone 10M for picking the forewarned bad option. Where I'm from, trying to move something across borders when it is against the law is called "smuggling" and it's normal to seize all of what is smuggled rather than 99% (unless it's, like, people or something).
10M is nothing to someone who owns billions, it's all a matter of perspective. I have a problem with people who use or suggest immoral actions, and that includes you. Stealing from anyone is immoral, I don't care how much they have or how big of a company it is.
What is against the law here? It's not illegal to move your business outside the country, it's not illegal to leave the country, what you are assuming is illegal is actually perfectly legal. It's not smuggling if you are just moving legal goods. Even you can leave a country like the US and transfer your money to wherever you go, it's not illegal at all.
I never said it wouldn't feel bad, but it objectively is a large amount of wealth for one person to have, enough to never work again. To view it as nothing indicates a disorder, so maybe .1% can go to rehabilitating them so they can understand their position, should they accept receiving such counseling.
Of course, your deontological view of a deeply exploitative class of people is untenable to do anything but limply defend the status quo, but I don't think I can teach you how to do philosophy coherently.
Remember that this hypothetical situation we are discussing is of a policy being implemented. That is to say, in this hypothetical, large-scale capital flight is illegal, and therefore to attempt it anyway is smuggling. The 1% left to them to do what they like with (even in whatever poor country they were leaving to exploit) is quite literally a significant mercy to them.
If they drastically reduced their lifestyle, don't get taxed heavily, and are able to invest it, then sure. However if you don't allow them to invest and they don't drastically reduce their standard of living, that's not nearly enough to retire on.
Even a fairly modest personal plane or small yacht will cost a million or more over years of use.
If your idea of philosophy involves theft, I don't think I want to learn it from you.
Ah, this concept is so insane that I just can't imagine it ever happening. In reality the companies and rich would leave and there would be nothing you could do to stop it.
Remember that we already said 10M was below the cutoff of the wealth tax, so they aren't being taxed heavily. Furthermore, they should be able to live their whole life without investing it if they are already like 35.
Whoa, so they can't afford toys that should generally be banned for ecological reasons anyway? Again, if you can't figure out how to live a happy life without a personal plane, you probably need to go to rich guy rehab. Just fucking find some cozy spot and live in idle luxury.
People don't functionally own land, they nominally own it at the mercy of the state. Many things work this way. Your problem is that you can't see beyond a narrow paradigm of how society is organized, as though a particular version of liberalism was ordained by God as being the natural order. It is not.
No, because they only have their power to move things around at the mercy of the state, a state which is generally nice to them because their class controls the state. Many countries have various types of laws opposing capital flight. One excellent example is various manifestations of "right of first refusal" being used to prevent the gutting of factories. There is also the matter of simple history of the mass-repatriation of properties for reasons much less severe than the kind of opportunism we've been discussing, everywhere from Germany to China, along with the complicated legal histories of capital flight in various countries (example). Turns out money laundering can actually be stopped and assets can and have actually been seized for various reasons.
I think you underestimate how fast $10M can be spent. There is a reason why most lottery winners go broke.
So basically you want them to just live like you do, without any extra luxuries? I'm guessing they also can only afford a modest house since even a normal house is $500k+ and then triple that if they have a mortgage.
I don't think it's a problem if people own a private plane as a hobby (you know, like a private pilot) or a big boat for enjoyment. I'm not talking about crazy expensive stuff here, even middle class people are owning private planes.
You and others here have explained your version of liberalism, I believe you call it Marxism, right? I don't believe it's the answer for anyone but communist countries like China, and I don't think that's the answer for the US or most other countries. Do you have another version you are proposing?
We aren't talking about money laundering or anything illegal, we are talking about people wanting to move for a better life. Only the worst of the worst countries will punish you by stealing everything from you simply for leaving.
Just to compare, what's your moral read on all the people we deny housing to, who regularly die of exposure while empty housing units outnumber them?
I'm not against giving people a chance, and helping them get that chance, but that doesn't include taking away houses from rightful owners and giving them away to homeless people. It's no coincidence that the homeless tend to destroy wherever they set up, so they need to set up in government run shelters that can handle it.
So in the moral system you're proposing, it would be an offense to use those buildings without their owner's permission. The fact that people denied access to those buildings will die as a result, though, is just a part of nature
So, why would you expect a perspective which values property more than people to stir anyone's moral feeling? If you don't expect that, then why are you bothering to frame it in terms of right and wrong?
Well, yes. Do you donate every least penny you have to the homeless, since it would save lives? Or do you instead spend your money on luxuries for yourself? There are right and wrong ways to go about helping people like the homeless, stealing and ruining property isn't one of those ways.
I assume you have some property, right? If you are an adult you are probably at least renting an apartment and have some basic stuff like a TV. Why don't you let a homeless person sleep on your couch every night? If you don't have your own place yet, would you allow some random homeless person access to your couch for free every night?
It's much easier when it isn't your property in question, but when it's your place you might start to care about random people living rent free in your place.
Do you understand the difference between an unused housing unit and an in-use one?
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Is it someone you knew or just a random person off the street?
the theft was them getting that rich in the first place you blinkered clown.
Maybe check a dictionary before you talk more nonsense.
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yes this is true but they have so much money available to spend that it makes amounts practically meaningless