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I hear this argument a lot, and I'm confused. What's the alternative here? The billions these people have literally wouldn't exist if it weren't for them. iPhon

I hear this argument a lot, and I'm confused. What's the alternative here? The billions these people have literally wouldn't exist if it weren't for them. iPhones and social networks and electric cars don't spontaneously materialize themselves. So, if "neo feudalism" isn't your cup of tea, what would be? Actual feudalism?

newsclues 6y ago
Rich people bought politicians and owned the government (along with everything else). Actual democracy would be a nice start.
- bmmayer1 6y ago
  Agreed, but sounds like the issue is the politicians and the government, not rich people.
  - dualthro 6y ago
    Well all these 'neo-feudalists' don't seem to be waging lobbying campaigns to get the money out of politics, right? That would be paying to reduce their own power.
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    > Agreed, but sounds like the issue is the politicians and the government, not rich people. Are we going to pretend that a nation-state's intelligence agency(ies) aren't some of FB's biggest clients? Are you not aware how the 5-Eyes program works at all? FB gladly hand over the details of those Q-anon imbeciles on their platform with no resistance, they then proceeded to censor and de-platform anyone who didn't follow the narrative and even went after people who had nothing to do with politics in the last wave of bans. And you don't think these 'rich people' aren't beholden to the State and its surveillance economy, of which they are just one part of the apparatus? Corruption begets corruption: and many of these rich people (specifically CEOs of FAANG) are not without blood on their hands, playing 'whose worse' is like saying the one to actually kill Ceaser was the last to deliver the final blow on the Senate floor as he laid in a pool of his own blood. (Ceaser was a tyrant and deserved to die, just so its clear.) I would argue the very Nation-State model is to blame, its a total cesspool; and this type of cronyism is prevalent in this model which rewarded a few (like, but limited, to Zuck) who acquiesced when they State showed up with bags of money for them to play along for these exact events.
  - andrepd 6y ago
    They are one and the same.
- AdsluEJbxt 6y ago
  Here's a quote from George Carlin that's perhaps applicable here - “Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.”
shafyy 6y ago
What about a stronger social and welfare state, like in some progressive European countries? But as soon as Americans hear "social" they think of communist Russia and North Korea, so you can't even have that conversation.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  It’s unclear to me how having a welfare state makes wealth and political power less centralized. I think you’d just need massive decentralization of finance and political power, full stop.
- COGlory 6y ago
  That's just feudalism with extra steps, because that person on welfare is not given the same representation as a multi-billionaire with lobbying power.
stuaxo 6y ago
Money needs to go back into the system from the bottom. The current system is as if you only allowed blood to circulate to the head and not back. Those things probably could still exist if there was a cap on earnings, would there really be none of those things if you couldn't earn more than 100 million. Obviously I am talking about net assets and money, not just "salary".
cool_dude85 6y ago
>The billions these people have literally wouldn't exist if it weren't for them. Says who? To me it seems far more likely that if Zuckerberg's Facebook never struck it big, that Myspace Tom or some other social media company owner would be worth a similar amount instead.
mytherin 6y ago
> I hear this argument a lot, and I'm confused. What's the alternative here? The billions these people have literally wouldn't exist if it weren't for them. iPhones and social networks and electric cars don't spontaneously materialize themselves. These things indeed don't spontaneously materialize themselves out of thin air. They materialize themselves because of the work of millions of people. The researchers and laborers that build the foundations (internet, roads) that made the innovation possible in the first place. The researchers and other companies that build the phones, social networks, electric cars, etc that these people iterated upon. The hundreds of thousands of people that work for these companies, that actually build the phones and the cars, etc. These people created a good iteration on an existing idea and got lucky by doing it at the right place and at the right time. Surely they worked hard, and they had some positive contribution, but they did not fundamentally change the world or create billions by themselves. If Bezos hadn't build Amazon, we would have other online shops. If Zuckerberg hadn't build Facebook, we would have other social networks. If Apple hadn't made the iPhone, we would be using other smartphones. None of these were particularly innovative - they were all iterations on existing technology that happened to capture the market mostly by luck. Society would likely not have been significantly different if any of these had not been created, we would just be using something slightly different but very similar. Why reward individuals with such tremendous power for (essentially) winning the lottery?
andrepd 6y ago
> The billions these people have literally wouldn't exist if it weren't for them. iPhones and social networks and electric cars don't spontaneously materialize themselves. Why not? And more to the point: they also wouldn't have materialised without the workers who get paid less in 30 years than the CEO makes in a day. Why aren't they fairly compensated? And even more extensively: they wouldn't have materialised without the broader society, a simple word to hide "everyone that is alive or has lived before you". Amazon makes that money because it has roads to drive its deliveries on, a police to prevent theft, courts to settle disputes, and of course the power of the state is what lets them keep their private property, ultimately society provides them with relatively safe and well-fed people with money in their pockets to spend on their stuff. Without that they would have nothing. In other words, no person is "self-made", and everyone who has achieved financial success owes a debt to society. This is not even getting into Georgist ideas that people also owe a debt to society for using "commons" such as land or natural resources or polluting.
- bmmayer1 6y ago
  Something can be a necessary condition without being a sufficient condition.

newsclues 6y ago

Rich people bought politicians and owned the government (along with everything else). Actual democracy would be a nice start.

bmmayer1 6y ago
Agreed, but sounds like the issue is the politicians and the government, not rich people.
- dualthro 6y ago
  Well all these 'neo-feudalists' don't seem to be waging lobbying campaigns to get the money out of politics, right? That would be paying to reduce their own power.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > Agreed, but sounds like the issue is the politicians and the government, not rich people. Are we going to pretend that a nation-state's intelligence agency(ies) aren't some of FB's biggest clients? Are you not aware how the 5-Eyes program works at all? FB gladly hand over the details of those Q-anon imbeciles on their platform with no resistance, they then proceeded to censor and de-platform anyone who didn't follow the narrative and even went after people who had nothing to do with politics in the last wave of bans. And you don't think these 'rich people' aren't beholden to the State and its surveillance economy, of which they are just one part of the apparatus? Corruption begets corruption: and many of these rich people (specifically CEOs of FAANG) are not without blood on their hands, playing 'whose worse' is like saying the one to actually kill Ceaser was the last to deliver the final blow on the Senate floor as he laid in a pool of his own blood. (Ceaser was a tyrant and deserved to die, just so its clear.) I would argue the very Nation-State model is to blame, its a total cesspool; and this type of cronyism is prevalent in this model which rewarded a few (like, but limited, to Zuck) who acquiesced when they State showed up with bags of money for them to play along for these exact events.
- andrepd 6y ago
  They are one and the same.
AdsluEJbxt 6y ago
Here's a quote from George Carlin that's perhaps applicable here - “Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.”

shafyy 6y ago

What about a stronger social and welfare state, like in some progressive European countries? But as soon as Americans hear "social" they think of communist Russia and North Korea, so you can't even have that conversation.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
It’s unclear to me how having a welfare state makes wealth and political power less centralized. I think you’d just need massive decentralization of finance and political power, full stop.
COGlory 6y ago
That's just feudalism with extra steps, because that person on welfare is not given the same representation as a multi-billionaire with lobbying power.

stuaxo 6y ago

Money needs to go back into the system from the bottom. The current system is as if you only allowed blood to circulate to the head and not back. Those things probably could still exist if there was a cap on earnings, would there really be none of those things if you couldn't earn more than 100 million. Obviously I am talking about net assets and money, not just "salary".

cool_dude85 6y ago

>The billions these people have literally wouldn't exist if it weren't for them. Says who? To me it seems far more likely that if Zuckerberg's Facebook never struck it big, that Myspace Tom or some other social media company owner would be worth a similar amount instead.

mytherin 6y ago

> I hear this argument a lot, and I'm confused. What's the alternative here? The billions these people have literally wouldn't exist if it weren't for them. iPhones and social networks and electric cars don't spontaneously materialize themselves. These things indeed don't spontaneously materialize themselves out of thin air. They materialize themselves because of the work of millions of people. The researchers and laborers that build the foundations (internet, roads) that made the innovation possible in the first place. The researchers and other companies that build the phones, social networks, electric cars, etc that these people iterated upon. The hundreds of thousands of people that work for these companies, that actually build the phones and the cars, etc. These people created a good iteration on an existing idea and got lucky by doing it at the right place and at the right time. Surely they worked hard, and they had some positive contribution, but they did not fundamentally change the world or create billions by themselves. If Bezos hadn't build Amazon, we would have other online shops. If Zuckerberg hadn't build Facebook, we would have other social networks. If Apple hadn't made the iPhone, we would be using other smartphones. None of these were particularly innovative - they were all iterations on existing technology that happened to capture the market mostly by luck. Society would likely not have been significantly different if any of these had not been created, we would just be using something slightly different but very similar. Why reward individuals with such tremendous power for (essentially) winning the lottery?

andrepd 6y ago

> The billions these people have literally wouldn't exist if it weren't for them. iPhones and social networks and electric cars don't spontaneously materialize themselves. Why not? And more to the point: they also wouldn't have materialised without the workers who get paid less in 30 years than the CEO makes in a day. Why aren't they fairly compensated? And even more extensively: they wouldn't have materialised without the broader society, a simple word to hide "everyone that is alive or has lived before you". Amazon makes that money because it has roads to drive its deliveries on, a police to prevent theft, courts to settle disputes, and of course the power of the state is what lets them keep their private property, ultimately society provides them with relatively safe and well-fed people with money in their pockets to spend on their stuff. Without that they would have nothing. In other words, no person is "self-made", and everyone who has achieved financial success owes a debt to society. This is not even getting into Georgist ideas that people also owe a debt to society for using "commons" such as land or natural resources or polluting.

bmmayer1 6y ago
Something can be a necessary condition without being a sufficient condition.