4 ms·
The problem of inequality in general needs to be framed as one of power asymmetry. There are a handful of people that have managed to garner, through their weal
by brandonr49 6y ago
The problem of inequality in general needs to be framed as one of power asymmetry. There are a handful of people that have managed to garner, through their wealth, similar power to states with millions of people. The solutions to this involve either making money less able to purchase power, or taking some of this money away. I suspect the latter is more likely to happen but I'll happily support either method.
- the_gastropod 6y ago> ...making money less able to purchase power I'm not sure this is possible without breaking the entire concept of money. So long as money is a thing humans trade their time for to pay for living expenses and beyond, it can be used to bribe, coerce, etc.
- throwaway2245 6y ago> making money less able to purchase power you could achieve this by: giving everyone a basic amount of money, so they are on a more equal footing to benefit from opportunities.
- mattmaroon 6y agoWell it’s not possible to do it 100%, but I think the problem is less the illegal trade of money for power and more the legal one. Campaign finance laws (which at this point probably require an amendment to the constitution) could help a lot.
- r00fus 6y agoYou may be misinterpreting what brandonr is saying. It's about increasing transparency for influencing elections and restricting (overtly) how much influence money has in elections. Reducing the powers of money is tough (and kind of a game of whack a mole) but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
- ItsMonkk 6y agoThis is exactly how I take it. We thought it was Capitalism vs Communism, but what we learned is you can have Centralized Communism(Cold War Russia) and Decentralized Capitalism(Cold War USA) but it is just as much possible to have Decentralized Communism(Any examples?) and Centralized Capitalism(Current USA). As it turns out it's the Decentralized that's the important part. You need many people making decisions for productivity to flourish. Rich and powerful making few large decisions simply loses every time.
- lcc 6y ago> Decentralized Communism(Any examples?) Nordic countries? Canada/UK? Though they are socialist, not communist.
- Weebs 6y ago> Decentralized Communism There's not much to point to other than short lived revolutions and communes, or ongoing struggles, such as: * Aaragon/Catalonia in the Spanish Civil War * Ukrainian Free Territories in the Russian Civil War * The ongoing rebellion in the Chiapas, Mexico * Rojava * Paris Commune * Shinmin Prefecture in Korea And likely some others I am struggling to remember. All of these communities were/are attacked by competing states with enough force that it's hard to get a sense of what decentralized communism would look like outside of an active conflict scenario.
- nlbrown 6y agoIndeed! There are even Think Tanks and the like dedicated to understanding this paradigm. https://capitalaspower.com https://capitalaspower.com