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The argument is, why do we as a society allow people to amass wealth on the scale of nations. Instead, perhaps that wealth should be democratically owned, and t

The argument is, why do we as a society allow people to amass wealth on the scale of nations. Instead, perhaps that wealth should be democratically owned, and then put towards what the society needs, rather than what one person decides.

qaq 9y ago
What is "democratically owned"? State owned companies? That has being tried did not work out too well.
- sgift 9y ago
  That works very well and is used in many countries. What didn't work well is a state-owned economy. Two different things.
  - qaq 9y ago
    OK give a single example that is not related to raw material extraction or power generation. (A company receiving massive government subsidies to not go bankrupt would not be considered a good example at least in my opinion.)
    - Daishiman 9y ago
      Most European public transportation companies have a majority stake by the government, and they work exceptionally well in executing their mission. A huge amount of banks are government-owned and they're as profitable as their private counterparts. There's a huge number of examples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government-owned_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government-owned_compa...).
      - qaq 9y ago
        Most public transportation companies are subsidized. I never dealt with gov. bank that was run well but there are might be some that are. I def never heard of gov. owned software company that was doing well though.
        BerislavLopac 9y ago
        That is the whole point. State-owned companies make total sense when their goal is to ensure some common benefit (like mass transport, public utilities, health care etc), as opposed to making profit. With that in mind, subsidies are logical, because the alternative is to have a purely state-owned system (like police or military) which has no income except for government subsidies. Essentially, if you think of government subsidies to private companies as assistance in making profit (which happens often when a government wants to promote a certain industry, even if it's only in form of a tax cut), having commercial companies to take care of common utilities is a way to assist the government paying for those utilities.
  - TomMarius 9y ago
    Can you post some examples where it works well?
    - allendoerfer 9y ago
      VW, the largest car company in the world, is partly state-owned. Same for Deutsche Bahn, KfW bank and a few others. They don't always work perfectly, but they sure can compete or are even market leaders.
      - qaq 9y ago
        VW is not run by government appointed managers and gorvernment does not have control of the votes. Now even if it did I doubt we want to use VW as an example of good corp. citizen.
        allendoerfer 9y ago
        VW basically does what everybody else is doing (see news about Daimler and BMW). The state-owned aspect changes nothing, it just says that 30% of VWs profits go into the pockets of the German state of Niedersachsen instead of the pockets of a private investor. That was the key point of the original discussion about Gates' money and rising inequality, so the example is very valid.
        qaq 9y ago
        It's valid in a sense that if government does not control voting rights and plays no role in day to day operations sure there is no difference. If you start taxing the stock and transferring stock to government eventually government will have control of all entities though.
      - TomMarius 9y ago
        >They don't always work perfectly, but they sure can compete or are even market leaders. Most of the time it's because these companies are government-approved monopoly (no other company can enter the market) or because they're heavily subsidised using taxes (no other company can enter the market practically because competing against someone who you fund at the same time is impossible and because the prices are below the actual expenses) and are actually losing huge amounts of money. Typically railways all around Europe are not profitable at all. Volkswagen is a very special case, but you're partially right. I'd say it's an exception to the rule though.
ianai 9y ago
Two things can happen. We can be a society that ensures social needs are met while allowing vast concentrations of wealth.
- leetcrew 9y ago
  > We can be a society that ensures social needs are met while allowing vast concentrations of wealth. I don't know exactly what you mean by "social needs" here. you could be referring to a specific level on the mazlow hierarchy, if so, I'd like to know why you pick this specific level as the benchmark. or you might be referring to some more vague concept of societal needs. the particular definition of "needs" is very important to the validity of the quoted claim. if basic or "social" needs are defined as some absolute standard of living, this will be increasingly easy to fulfill as society grows richer. I very rarely see anyone talking about needs this way though. instead, the definition of needs seems to move as people at the top grow more wealthy. it seems more likely to me that, as long as billionaires exist and live lavish lifestyles, people will never agree that their needs are being met.
- ryukafalz 9y ago
  Perhaps we could be. But that's not the society we live in today, and has that ever happened before?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- Daishiman 9y ago
  That is, historically, false. Concentration of wealth always ends up implying power, whether soft or hard. Having such amount of power outside of democratic institutions is a threat .
  - tatersolid 9y ago
    This is, historically, true: in communist countries with “equal sharing of misery”, power and wealth was 100% concentrated into the hands of a few elites or outright tyrants.
bmelton 9y ago
Because we, as a society, allow people to do things that we don't like. We aren't usually very good at it, but when you consider that it affords people the luxuries of doing things that others might not approve of, like having a relationship or marriage with a member of the same sex, or creating video games with unpopular themes, or creating rap music, or burning the American flag, etc. If we only allowed people to do the things that everyone approved of, we wouldn't actually allow people to do very much at all. Freedom, art, society, and speech would all suffer.
scarface74 9y ago
While you are thinking that "we" shouldn't allow "them" to amass that type of wealth, remember that the average household income in the United States is $60,0000 a year. If you are an average experienced developer in a major city in the US - especially if you are part of a dual income household -you are probably in the 85-90th percentile. Meaning when people start voting in policies that "tax the rich", you will probably be considered one of "them" by the average working class American. Look no further than the new tax code that basically hurt the "rich" in places like CA and NY.
- qaq 9y ago
  Very good point. People love to frame it in us vs them not realizing that most likely to majority of the world you are likely one of "them".

qaq 9y ago

What is "democratically owned"? State owned companies? That has being tried did not work out too well.

sgift 9y ago
That works very well and is used in many countries. What didn't work well is a state-owned economy. Two different things.
- qaq 9y ago
  OK give a single example that is not related to raw material extraction or power generation. (A company receiving massive government subsidies to not go bankrupt would not be considered a good example at least in my opinion.)
  - Daishiman 9y ago
    Most European public transportation companies have a majority stake by the government, and they work exceptionally well in executing their mission. A huge amount of banks are government-owned and they're as profitable as their private counterparts. There's a huge number of examples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government-owned_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government-owned_compa...).
    - qaq 9y ago
      Most public transportation companies are subsidized. I never dealt with gov. bank that was run well but there are might be some that are. I def never heard of gov. owned software company that was doing well though.
      - BerislavLopac 9y ago
        That is the whole point. State-owned companies make total sense when their goal is to ensure some common benefit (like mass transport, public utilities, health care etc), as opposed to making profit. With that in mind, subsidies are logical, because the alternative is to have a purely state-owned system (like police or military) which has no income except for government subsidies. Essentially, if you think of government subsidies to private companies as assistance in making profit (which happens often when a government wants to promote a certain industry, even if it's only in form of a tax cut), having commercial companies to take care of common utilities is a way to assist the government paying for those utilities.
- TomMarius 9y ago
  Can you post some examples where it works well?
  - allendoerfer 9y ago
    VW, the largest car company in the world, is partly state-owned. Same for Deutsche Bahn, KfW bank and a few others. They don't always work perfectly, but they sure can compete or are even market leaders.
    - qaq 9y ago
      VW is not run by government appointed managers and gorvernment does not have control of the votes. Now even if it did I doubt we want to use VW as an example of good corp. citizen.
      - allendoerfer 9y ago
        VW basically does what everybody else is doing (see news about Daimler and BMW). The state-owned aspect changes nothing, it just says that 30% of VWs profits go into the pockets of the German state of Niedersachsen instead of the pockets of a private investor. That was the key point of the original discussion about Gates' money and rising inequality, so the example is very valid.
        qaq 9y ago
        It's valid in a sense that if government does not control voting rights and plays no role in day to day operations sure there is no difference. If you start taxing the stock and transferring stock to government eventually government will have control of all entities though.
    - TomMarius 9y ago
      >They don't always work perfectly, but they sure can compete or are even market leaders. Most of the time it's because these companies are government-approved monopoly (no other company can enter the market) or because they're heavily subsidised using taxes (no other company can enter the market practically because competing against someone who you fund at the same time is impossible and because the prices are below the actual expenses) and are actually losing huge amounts of money. Typically railways all around Europe are not profitable at all. Volkswagen is a very special case, but you're partially right. I'd say it's an exception to the rule though.

ianai 9y ago

Two things can happen. We can be a society that ensures social needs are met while allowing vast concentrations of wealth.

leetcrew 9y ago
> We can be a society that ensures social needs are met while allowing vast concentrations of wealth. I don't know exactly what you mean by "social needs" here. you could be referring to a specific level on the mazlow hierarchy, if so, I'd like to know why you pick this specific level as the benchmark. or you might be referring to some more vague concept of societal needs. the particular definition of "needs" is very important to the validity of the quoted claim. if basic or "social" needs are defined as some absolute standard of living, this will be increasingly easy to fulfill as society grows richer. I very rarely see anyone talking about needs this way though. instead, the definition of needs seems to move as people at the top grow more wealthy. it seems more likely to me that, as long as billionaires exist and live lavish lifestyles, people will never agree that their needs are being met.
ryukafalz 9y ago
Perhaps we could be. But that's not the society we live in today, and has that ever happened before?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Daishiman 9y ago
That is, historically, false. Concentration of wealth always ends up implying power, whether soft or hard. Having such amount of power outside of democratic institutions is a threat .
- tatersolid 9y ago
  This is, historically, true: in communist countries with “equal sharing of misery”, power and wealth was 100% concentrated into the hands of a few elites or outright tyrants.

bmelton 9y ago

Because we, as a society, allow people to do things that we don't like. We aren't usually very good at it, but when you consider that it affords people the luxuries of doing things that others might not approve of, like having a relationship or marriage with a member of the same sex, or creating video games with unpopular themes, or creating rap music, or burning the American flag, etc. If we only allowed people to do the things that everyone approved of, we wouldn't actually allow people to do very much at all. Freedom, art, society, and speech would all suffer.

scarface74 9y ago

While you are thinking that "we" shouldn't allow "them" to amass that type of wealth, remember that the average household income in the United States is $60,0000 a year. If you are an average experienced developer in a major city in the US - especially if you are part of a dual income household -you are probably in the 85-90th percentile. Meaning when people start voting in policies that "tax the rich", you will probably be considered one of "them" by the average working class American. Look no further than the new tax code that basically hurt the "rich" in places like CA and NY.

qaq 9y ago
Very good point. People love to frame it in us vs them not realizing that most likely to majority of the world you are likely one of "them".