4 ms·

I disagree with the premise that some unelected individuals should control such a disproportionate amount of ressources, and therefore power, yes.

beaconstudios 8y ago
OK, but the primary reason billionaires are so rich is from running or founding companies that produce much more value than the billionaires extract. Take away the idea that a successful founder can keep maybe 1% (at most, probably a vast overestimate) of the value they generate, and you'll have vastly fewer founders unless you find another way to motivate them. In terms of power, ideally there would be a clean separation between money and political power. Some countries are better at this than others. Extremely wealthy people can wield a lot of power internationally, and that's bad. But them having more resources is not a bad thing in my mind unless they can use those resources to hurt people. As far as I'm aware, most don't.
- cyborgx7 8y ago
  > OK, but the primary reason billionaires are so rich is from running or founding companies that produce much more value than the billionaires extract. Take away the idea that a successful founder can keep maybe 1% (at most, probably a vast overestimate) of the value they generate, and you'll have vastly fewer founders unless you find another way to motivate them. You are contradicting yourself. The value is generated by the company, i.e. the workers. Not the founder. The founder just extracts this value and makes themselves more powerful. There can be no clean separation between money and political power. Politics is the struggle for the power to allocate ressources. Money is ressources.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    > You are contradicting yourself. The value is generated by the company, i.e. the workers. Not the founder. The founder just extracts this value and makes themselves more powerful. This is just ideological rubbish. It's not either-or. Workers perform the manual labour and such, but management plans, organises and directs. Labour can't exist without management beyond a trivial level, and the founders (or more realistically, the executives) design and direct the whole company's strategy. If you look around you can see plenty of examples where incompetent direction can kill a company and strong direction can build an extremely valuable one. Founders also accept the risk of failure, and are expected (in any sane workplace) to make more sacrifices than the employees while the company is still small. In essence, the company is the vehicle for the founders' will. Labour is fairly interchangeable compared to that. > There can be no clean separation between money and political power. Politics is the struggle for the power to allocate ressources. Money is ressources. You know what I mean. Elections should be won on the strength of the platform, not the size of the budget won from super PACs or wealthy single donors. Of course politicians, when in power, shuffle money around.
    - cyborgx7 8y ago
      > It's not either-or. Workers perform the manual labour and such, but management plans, organises and directs. Both of these things are work, yes. But one is not thousands of times more valuable than the other. The income of the owners is derived from their ownership of the company. Not from the work. >You know what I mean. Yes, I know what I mean. But what you mean doesn't actually make sense. Money in politics is a problem, because it gives some people more power over the politics, i.e. how ressources are allocated. Billionaires who control a similar amount of ressources as a government through ownership aren't any better though. They have just as much power, and they don't even have to go through the trouble of fixing an election for it.
      - beaconstudios 8y ago
        > The income of the owners is derived from their ownership of the company. Not from the work. The company isn't going to be worth anything unless the founders turn it into something valuable. In that way, the income of the founders is derived from their ability to create value. That's an alignment of incentives if ever I've heard one. Investors derive their income from their ability to gauge risk and value, and allocate resources to founders who will create the most value with them. > Yes, I know what I mean. But what you mean doesn't actually make sense. Money in politics is a problem, because it gives some people more power over the politics, i.e. how ressources are allocated. To be honest my preferred solution is to minimise the ties between money and politics in general - the state shouldn't be given free reign to dick around in the economy, but only regulate and redistribute when it can be shown that a specific industry is broken in a specific way (negative externalities, natural monopolies, etc). I don't have a solution to this problem, but I think it would work better than what we have right now. When the state can basically do what it pleases there's a lot more room for backroom deals and loopholes. > Billionaires who control a similar amount of ressources as a government through ownership aren't any better though. But they are, because they don't have a military or police force to wield as a weapon against people they don't like. They can still be dicks but they are limited in their ability to harm others. Governments have no such restrictions, and have shown their propensity to use violence over reason on plenty of occasions.

beaconstudios 8y ago

OK, but the primary reason billionaires are so rich is from running or founding companies that produce much more value than the billionaires extract. Take away the idea that a successful founder can keep maybe 1% (at most, probably a vast overestimate) of the value they generate, and you'll have vastly fewer founders unless you find another way to motivate them. In terms of power, ideally there would be a clean separation between money and political power. Some countries are better at this than others. Extremely wealthy people can wield a lot of power internationally, and that's bad. But them having more resources is not a bad thing in my mind unless they can use those resources to hurt people. As far as I'm aware, most don't.

cyborgx7 8y ago
> OK, but the primary reason billionaires are so rich is from running or founding companies that produce much more value than the billionaires extract. Take away the idea that a successful founder can keep maybe 1% (at most, probably a vast overestimate) of the value they generate, and you'll have vastly fewer founders unless you find another way to motivate them. You are contradicting yourself. The value is generated by the company, i.e. the workers. Not the founder. The founder just extracts this value and makes themselves more powerful. There can be no clean separation between money and political power. Politics is the struggle for the power to allocate ressources. Money is ressources.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  > You are contradicting yourself. The value is generated by the company, i.e. the workers. Not the founder. The founder just extracts this value and makes themselves more powerful. This is just ideological rubbish. It's not either-or. Workers perform the manual labour and such, but management plans, organises and directs. Labour can't exist without management beyond a trivial level, and the founders (or more realistically, the executives) design and direct the whole company's strategy. If you look around you can see plenty of examples where incompetent direction can kill a company and strong direction can build an extremely valuable one. Founders also accept the risk of failure, and are expected (in any sane workplace) to make more sacrifices than the employees while the company is still small. In essence, the company is the vehicle for the founders' will. Labour is fairly interchangeable compared to that. > There can be no clean separation between money and political power. Politics is the struggle for the power to allocate ressources. Money is ressources. You know what I mean. Elections should be won on the strength of the platform, not the size of the budget won from super PACs or wealthy single donors. Of course politicians, when in power, shuffle money around.
  - cyborgx7 8y ago
    > It's not either-or. Workers perform the manual labour and such, but management plans, organises and directs. Both of these things are work, yes. But one is not thousands of times more valuable than the other. The income of the owners is derived from their ownership of the company. Not from the work. >You know what I mean. Yes, I know what I mean. But what you mean doesn't actually make sense. Money in politics is a problem, because it gives some people more power over the politics, i.e. how ressources are allocated. Billionaires who control a similar amount of ressources as a government through ownership aren't any better though. They have just as much power, and they don't even have to go through the trouble of fixing an election for it.
    - beaconstudios 8y ago
      > The income of the owners is derived from their ownership of the company. Not from the work. The company isn't going to be worth anything unless the founders turn it into something valuable. In that way, the income of the founders is derived from their ability to create value. That's an alignment of incentives if ever I've heard one. Investors derive their income from their ability to gauge risk and value, and allocate resources to founders who will create the most value with them. > Yes, I know what I mean. But what you mean doesn't actually make sense. Money in politics is a problem, because it gives some people more power over the politics, i.e. how ressources are allocated. To be honest my preferred solution is to minimise the ties between money and politics in general - the state shouldn't be given free reign to dick around in the economy, but only regulate and redistribute when it can be shown that a specific industry is broken in a specific way (negative externalities, natural monopolies, etc). I don't have a solution to this problem, but I think it would work better than what we have right now. When the state can basically do what it pleases there's a lot more room for backroom deals and loopholes. > Billionaires who control a similar amount of ressources as a government through ownership aren't any better though. But they are, because they don't have a military or police force to wield as a weapon against people they don't like. They can still be dicks but they are limited in their ability to harm others. Governments have no such restrictions, and have shown their propensity to use violence over reason on plenty of occasions.