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It's all about the potential of violence to repossess said wealth. Bezos and Musk are just dudes, if society decides that their net worth has to go to zero, th

by GDC7 5y ago

It's all about the potential of violence to repossess said wealth. Bezos and Musk are just dudes, if society decides that their net worth has to go to zero, then sure enough it will. Even if they wire money out of the country you can capture the person and just like that you managed to have their net worth in effect go to zero. That's because their 200B in Dubai have no material effect on their life in Florence penitentiary. Social groups which are both wealthy and cohese because of say traditions , language, religion etc. they are much harder to attack with violence

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
I disagree. It's much easier for the layperson to dehumanize and justify mistreatment and violence toward faceless groups than toward individuals.
- Leader2light 5y ago
  Yeah but it's so much easier to just kill one person. Even if 99% don't want to see it happen.
ashtonkem 5y ago
A quick perusal of American history shows that in fact it’s much easier to politically suppress the wealth of a group than it is to suppress the wealth of an individual. We have a long history of redlining, and basically no history of appropriating the wealth of our richest citizens. Heck, to this very day, having pictures of black people up in your home will suppress its assessed value. If anything turning off the mechanism by which minorities’ wealth is held down is really hard.
- GDC7 5y ago
  > than it is to suppress the wealth of an individual That's because it's not an immediate concern due to the fact that you always have the optionality to do so , if needed be.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Disagree. If anything else there are more roadblocks setup to protect wealthy individuals. Even talking about raising their taxes marginally causes what can be charitably described as an institutional freak out. At no point has “well, we can expropriate the wealth of billionaires if we need to” been an opinion anywhere other than the far left, and that group really doesn’t hold a lot of power here.
    - GDC7 5y ago
      > well, we can expropriate the wealth of billionaires if we need to” been an opinion The fact that it's not an opinion, doesn't mean it's not an option. People other than the far left don't want to do it, just like people don't want to treat a paper cut with cortisone off the bat. You always have the optionality to do it later, if needed be.
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        > The fact that it's not an opinion, doesn't mean it's not an option. Yes, and making me dictator for life is an option, but it isn't going to happen now is it? Lots of things are an option, but we must grapple with both the probability of them happening, and the historical incidence at which similar events occurred. In general if you're making the argument that A is easier than B, and B keeps happening at a much higher rate than A, then you're probably missing some very important detail to explain that difference. America, and the world really, has a long history of suppressing and extracting the wealth of large groups. Peasants, slaves, tenant farmers, sharecroppers, lower level laborers, and demographic minorities today have all had their wealth suppressed and extracted for the sake of someone else. Meanwhile the wealth of those elites being expropriated and given to the masses are extremely rare events[0]; much more common is elites overthrowing other elites to expropriate their wealth personally. For my part, I think you're overly focused on the mechanical aspects of confiscation rather than the political ones. Yes, if you get the political systems in alignment it is mechanically very easy to take Bezo's wealth; just take his bank accounts or hit him with a wrench until he authorizes a foreign transfer. But actually getting that political system in alignment to do that is extremely difficult; often even getting people like Bezos to pay the same tax rate as the rest of us is too big a political lift. As an analogy, it was pretty easy mechanically for the French to get rid of their kings. Paris was a city 650,000 strong, overwhelming the ~1,000 Swiss Guard protecting the king at the Tuileries palace and (eventually) executing the king was mechanically simple. After all, how hard can a battle be if you can muster a 16:1 advantage[1]? But while winning that battle was easy, getting to the point where the King was forced back into Paris and the mob was ready to literally kill him took a long long time to happen. The will to do things matters more than anything else. 0 - Not that you'd know that based on the amount of material produced on such events. I would argue that we're still living through the elite panic in reaction to the October Revolution, even the USSR was hardly an "expropriate the wealth of the rich in order to feed the masses" kinda place after Stalin took over. 1 - Actual order of battle for the storming of the Tuileries in 1792 was 20,000 republicans vs. 1,200 royalist guards. Generally military theorists hold up 4:1 as the tipping point where numbers overwhelm no matter the quality of leadership. At 16:1, the Swiss Guard stood no chance even though they were trained soldiers fighting a literal mob.
- indymike 5y ago
  > We have a long history of redlining, and basically no history of appropriating the wealth of our richest citizens. First, our entire system in the US is designed to protect three things: life, liberty and property. The system is built to allow people own property and deliberately make it difficult to take property away. That is why injustice in the American system is often suppression (you can't own that) instead of confiscation (we're taking it from you).

by GDC7 5y ago

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

I disagree. It's much easier for the layperson to dehumanize and justify mistreatment and violence toward faceless groups than toward individuals.

Leader2light 5y ago
Yeah but it's so much easier to just kill one person. Even if 99% don't want to see it happen.

ashtonkem 5y ago

A quick perusal of American history shows that in fact it’s much easier to politically suppress the wealth of a group than it is to suppress the wealth of an individual. We have a long history of redlining, and basically no history of appropriating the wealth of our richest citizens. Heck, to this very day, having pictures of black people up in your home will suppress its assessed value. If anything turning off the mechanism by which minorities’ wealth is held down is really hard.

GDC7 5y ago
> than it is to suppress the wealth of an individual That's because it's not an immediate concern due to the fact that you always have the optionality to do so , if needed be.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Disagree. If anything else there are more roadblocks setup to protect wealthy individuals. Even talking about raising their taxes marginally causes what can be charitably described as an institutional freak out. At no point has “well, we can expropriate the wealth of billionaires if we need to” been an opinion anywhere other than the far left, and that group really doesn’t hold a lot of power here.
  - GDC7 5y ago
    > well, we can expropriate the wealth of billionaires if we need to” been an opinion The fact that it's not an opinion, doesn't mean it's not an option. People other than the far left don't want to do it, just like people don't want to treat a paper cut with cortisone off the bat. You always have the optionality to do it later, if needed be.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      > The fact that it's not an opinion, doesn't mean it's not an option. Yes, and making me dictator for life is an option, but it isn't going to happen now is it? Lots of things are an option, but we must grapple with both the probability of them happening, and the historical incidence at which similar events occurred. In general if you're making the argument that A is easier than B, and B keeps happening at a much higher rate than A, then you're probably missing some very important detail to explain that difference. America, and the world really, has a long history of suppressing and extracting the wealth of large groups. Peasants, slaves, tenant farmers, sharecroppers, lower level laborers, and demographic minorities today have all had their wealth suppressed and extracted for the sake of someone else. Meanwhile the wealth of those elites being expropriated and given to the masses are extremely rare events[0]; much more common is elites overthrowing other elites to expropriate their wealth personally. For my part, I think you're overly focused on the mechanical aspects of confiscation rather than the political ones. Yes, if you get the political systems in alignment it is mechanically very easy to take Bezo's wealth; just take his bank accounts or hit him with a wrench until he authorizes a foreign transfer. But actually getting that political system in alignment to do that is extremely difficult; often even getting people like Bezos to pay the same tax rate as the rest of us is too big a political lift. As an analogy, it was pretty easy mechanically for the French to get rid of their kings. Paris was a city 650,000 strong, overwhelming the ~1,000 Swiss Guard protecting the king at the Tuileries palace and (eventually) executing the king was mechanically simple. After all, how hard can a battle be if you can muster a 16:1 advantage[1]? But while winning that battle was easy, getting to the point where the King was forced back into Paris and the mob was ready to literally kill him took a long long time to happen. The will to do things matters more than anything else. 0 - Not that you'd know that based on the amount of material produced on such events. I would argue that we're still living through the elite panic in reaction to the October Revolution, even the USSR was hardly an "expropriate the wealth of the rich in order to feed the masses" kinda place after Stalin took over. 1 - Actual order of battle for the storming of the Tuileries in 1792 was 20,000 republicans vs. 1,200 royalist guards. Generally military theorists hold up 4:1 as the tipping point where numbers overwhelm no matter the quality of leadership. At 16:1, the Swiss Guard stood no chance even though they were trained soldiers fighting a literal mob.
indymike 5y ago
> We have a long history of redlining, and basically no history of appropriating the wealth of our richest citizens. First, our entire system in the US is designed to protect three things: life, liberty and property. The system is built to allow people own property and deliberately make it difficult to take property away. That is why injustice in the American system is often suppression (you can't own that) instead of confiscation (we're taking it from you).