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The "I can't have it so nobody should" is a powerful and pervasive mindset that has infiltrated many different aspects of life. It has found a home in many angr
by daenz 5y ago
The "I can't have it so nobody should" is a powerful and pervasive mindset that has infiltrated many different aspects of life. It has found a home in many angry people and often masquerades effectively as the noble idea of fairness.
"Billionaires shouldn't exist" is one manifestation.
- aaomidi 5y ago> "Billionaires shouldn't exist" is one manifestation. Probably because it's impossible for a person to make a billion dollar in value without stealing from others. Name me a single example that has made it up there without - labor violations - stealing profits from workers - causing damage to the people who have worked for them
- encoderer 5y agoOk you're a troll but I'll feed you anyway. How about Paul Graham?
- aaomidi 5y agoycombinator actively takes ownership of the means of production by providing loans. Any founder knows how predatory external funding is, but, it is the only choice to get a company up and running.
- infamouscow 5y agoA founder with the choice of taking YC money also is free to make the decision not to take YC money. What's the problem besides some abstract argument of moral superiority?
- aaomidi 5y agoThink out of the box for a second, is this really the only possible choices we have here? Or are billionaires using and designing the system to create more opportunities to make $$$ at the expense of others work.
- infamouscow 5y agoHave you visited IndieHackers.com? They are demonstrating you don't need funding to create amazing things.
- losvedir 5y agoThanks for letting me know about this site. I hadn't seen it before! I don't suppose I could beg an invite from you...?
- infamouscow 5y agoUnfortunately I don't have any invite codes, but I'm sure another reader on HN could help you out :)
- krona 5y agoYou're using corporatism to argue against capitalism. They're not the same thing.
- splistud 5y agoIt's not out of the box thinking. The problem is that you want to throw one of the values out of the calculation box. You want billionaires to provide capital because there is 'no other way to get a startup going (paraphrasing)' but you don't want to assign a value to that (as in, the workers are what is creating the value).
- andrepd 5y agoYes, indeed if you assume that the current system for allocating capital is good then you conclude that the current system for allocating capital is good. If you apply a bit more critical thinking you can start to question whether the fact that a small proportion of people have a monopoly on the ownership, allocation, and creation of capital, and are therefore able to extract rent from loaning it out without providing any value themselves, whether that is a good thing at all.
- sershe 5y agoThe "small monopoly" in this thread is Paul Graham, who created his capital himself. First-a, he deserves what he has (as far as you can make such a statement in a complex society). He provided some value, got paid for it, he now takes a risk helping others do the same. The only difference between him and me consuming X, providing X+Y value, and using the Y to buy tiny parts of public companies to have some claim on their profits is scale. First-b, and yes, if someone came and took away my Y for "fairness", I would start working less to just make what I consume. And I mostly /like/ my job, unlike most people. Second-a, after critically thinking about it, I actually believe it's better for people like him to allocate capital, instead of either some "democratic process", or even worse some semi-elected bureaucrats. I wish we could have people like Bezos, Buffett, Graham, etc. run MANY MORE things (generally speaking, not attached to a particular implementation). We have all of history to indicate who does things better. Second-a-a, even if we were to say "free market is bad in this area, no free market is allowed [e.g. healthcare or housing]" (to be clear, I disagree with that, but let's say we did) I would prefer to install a conventionally-defined-self-made billionaire from another industry to run said area, instead of a govt bureaucracy like we do now. Third, as others have mentioned you don't have to take his money, you can bootstrap (and then get rich and loan money just like him). Second-b, combining second-a and third in a more narrow scope, do you think either voters or bureaucrats would fund startups (and, do it better than the likes of VCs)? It has happened, but rarely and almost always in response to an existential threat. Viaweb FAQ says they were financed by angels to the tune of $2m 90ies-dollars. What are the alternative sources of funding you envision in the "fairer" allocation structure for such startups, be it Tesla, Google, or Viaweb, given their success rate?
- infamouscow 5y ago
- encoderer 5y agoSlow down, Karl. I'm a founder. I can tell you, external funding is as generous now as it's ever been, and in my network there are YC alumns (and 2-time alums) that would disagree with your take. Also, we are in a golden age of bootstrapping, you don't need to raise to get a company up and running. All this to say: Maybe just possibly capitalism isn't so bad? My dad is the manager of a gas station, and I am the founder of a startup with financial security. Anything really is possible when you work for it.
- aaomidi 5y ago> Maybe just possibly capitalism isn't so bad That's the best part, it isn't for a chunk of people. It destroys life for another chunk of people. So yeah, maybe, to you, it's not bad. To others? It's fucked.
- infamouscow 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_... is a pretty long page.
- aaomidi 5y ago1. I never said anything about communism. 2. Do you consider all the supply chain related deaths, all the prison related deaths, all the civilians killed in America going after oil part of "people killed under capitalism?"
- infamouscow 5y agoWhat you're describing is deaths under Crony capitalism.
- andrepd 5y ago> Maybe just possibly capitalism isn't so bad? Ironically, you know who else thought the exact same thing, lavishing praise on capitalism? Karl Marx. Maybe educate yourself and open your horizons to something outside your narrow views. I have no problem with people being ignorant (nobody knows everything), but it's grating when somebody is proud of it. > Anything really is possible when you work for it. Actually nevermind, such naivete is mind-boggling.
- irl_chad 5y agoDo you actually think VC money is predatory? I have a $1m MMR startup that I founded without any external funding - but mostly because I was naive to such structures existing at all. I would have saved years of struggling if I had an initial cash infusion of a few hundred thousand. Idk about you, but I would trade 10% of my $1m MMR company for more free time during my early 20s.
- aaomidi 5y ago> Do you actually think VC money is predatory? Yes. But again, not a lot of options to avoid it as you said.
- encoderer 5y agoThere are tons of options. Like for example just build something and start selling it and make money. That's what I did. Millions others have too. You are on Hacker News, you are probably a hacker, you can just create assets out of thin air!
- splistud 5y agoIt is more predatory than simple business lending leading to making enough revenue to justify more private lending leading to forming a small public company. The only reason there is so much VC money in this industry is because there is little revenue in selling user data or eyeballs at small scale.
- StevePerkins 5y ago> "takes ownership of the means of production..." > "Warren Buffett has made his money using ... land ownership and exclusivity ... a human construct" Well, sheesh... if your starting frame of reference is that "capitalism is stealing by definition", then there's really no further discussion to be had.
- andrepd 5y agoWhat about your starting point, that appears to be "capitalism is a natural law as inescapable as gravity"? x)
- aaomidi 5y ago> then there's really no further discussion to be had. Why not? Is Capitalism the universal truth or something that we can't touch or change?
- irl_chad 5y agoIt’s the default system that will always arise. Even in the USSR, there was a black market.
- ModernMech 5y agoThe concept of markets is not exclusive to capitalism.
- andrepd 5y ago> Ok you're a troll but I'll feed you anyway Nothing like this to show you're open to healthy discussion.
- encoderer 5y agoMaybe not troll, what even is that, who knows. But the comment you replied to had a subtantitive point about the linked article, and you replied to a tertiary part of that post with a political message (no billionares exist without theft/etc) that had nothing to do with the thrust of the conversation. That led me to believe you were being a troll. You engaged in a way that seemed straight forward so maybe you are just somebody who feels very strongly about a political view.
- markdown 5y agoNobody should be a billionaire. They're a symptom of a broken system. https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1179237019043729410 https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1179237019043729410
- robertlagrant 5y agoMost of them are paper billionaires. If you don't understand that yet, you shouldn't be commenting.
- aaomidi 5y ago> If you don't understand that yet, you shouldn't be commenting. So you mean they're paper billionaires by "owning the means of production" Yeah. I know. :)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- robertlagrant 5y ago> So you mean they're paper billionaires by "owning the means of production" Yeah. I know. :) I don't know how you could misread this badly. A paper billionaire means that they don't have billions in the bank; it's just the sale price of the last share that was traded in their company multiplied by the number of shares they own. It's not real, and any attempt to confiscate shares will not result in real money being given to anyone else. Shares are only worth real money when they're sold, and no one will buy shares in a confiscation world.
- viro 5y agoDo you think Tesla made anything near $113 billion last year?... not even close ... Paper billionaire means they are only a billionaire because of stock they own. Tesla stock value is detached from the reality of the company and its assets. Who did Elon exploit to make "chad the mega Elon tech bro" buy Tesla stock as a meme and in turn make the stock value go up?
- aaomidi 5y agoSo, why aren't the workers seeing that amount, or anything near it, in their "paper wealth" go up?
- 5y ago
- saulpw 5y agoIn general I agree with you, but how about Warren Buffett, or the younger Kardashian? Neither of them have added value to the world, but neither seem particularly evil either. Unless your claim is that unequal ownership under capitalism is itself "stealing profits from workers", in which case sure, I don't think there are any billionaires without equity.
- coffeecat 5y agoIn Warren Buffett's case, I'd say there certainly is value in scouting out profitable, well-managed companies and giving them access to a large centralized pool of capital. Probably not $100 billion worth of value, but I do think the Berkshire Hathaway umbrella helps the acquired companies to grow beyond what they'd be able to achieve without it.
- aaomidi 5y ago> I don't think there are any billionaires without equity. That becomes the crux of this. "Billionaires are bad" is a discussion about the system that actually allows them to exist, rather than the people themselves. Warren Buffett has made a ton of his money using state-backed monopolies like real-estate. Land ownership and exclusivity, even when the land use is unproductive, is a human construct after-all.
- rablackburn 5y ago“Steal” is a deliberately inaccurate word there. Especially considering that in your own list of offences “steal” only makes a single appearance. Even then, I’m not sure if “steal” is the correct verb for “non-optimal profit distribution”. Note I’m pretty sympathetic to the argument that extreme wealth inequality (billionaires) are are symptom of a poorly configured economic system and should be minimised, but your hyperbole is off-putting. And it’s probably hindering rather than helping you make your point.
- stocknoob 5y agoWho did JK Rowling exploit? She made something appealing to hundreds of millions of people, and they willing gave her money for it. The horror.
- andrepd 5y agoThe problem isn't that she got money, it's she got on the order of ~1,000,000,000£ of it. There's no "merit" that warrants that kind of reward. There is definitely a case to be made that such massive amounts of wealth need to be more progressively taxed. Not as in "evil gobernmint comes to steal your hard work", but as in that's the pay-back to society for enabling that success in the first place, that's the social contract.
- stocknoob 5y agoSo a billion people shouldn’t be able to voluntary give $1 to a person, for whatever reason? Maybe we should put a limit on charity giving? Or do you have an official list of Authorized Ways to spend money?
- andrepd 5y agoThat's not what I said so.... I'm not entirely sure what you want from me? xD
- stocknoob 5y agoFor you to realize that creating wealth, on its own, isn't a problem? If I write a poem 1B people want to pay for, nobody was harmed? The actual problem is people can use wealth to corrupt others, e.g., buy political influence. But instead of railing on that, you can't see that you're fighting against value generation itself.
- krona 5y agothe pay-back to society for enabling that success in the first place Punishment, for writing such addictive tales of wizardry!
- changoplatanero 5y ago> Name me a single example that has made it up there without Okay, let me try. I'll go with Jerry Seinfeld. What labor violations did he do? Who did he steal from and what damage did he cause to the people who worked for him?
- aaomidi 5y ago> Who did he steal from and what damage did he cause to the people who worked for him? All the staff that made his shows possible. All the workers that made his ability to make tons of profit possible, and they saw essentially no real amount of it.
- jaywalk 5y agoNobody watched Seinfeld because they were a fan of Key Grip #2, and Key Grip #2 was compensated accordingly. Why should they receive anywhere near the amount of compensation that Jerry Seinfeld receives when they are not anywhere near as important to the success of the show as he is?
- meany 5y agoWhy do you consider that stealing? I think many readers of your comment define the word stealing as "taking without permission". Are you suggesting that he took that wealth from the staff without their permission? Do you think the staff feels tricked/stolen from? Or would you define stealing differently?
- panabee 5y agohere are three to start: j.k. rowling, george lucas, and notch (maker of minecraft). not all billionaire are good, and not all are bad.
- aaomidi 5y ago> notch Minecraft became what it is because of the third-party developer community. They saw nothing of it. > j.k. rowling Has already been explained. But also, her editors, and the fact that copyright/intellectual property is still a govt backed monopoly. > George Lucas Same deal as J.K.
- panabee 5y agothe minecraft devs were not workers. critically, they did so voluntarily and for the compensation of entertainment, passion, and helping themselves. rowling and lucas didn’t harm workers nor did they violate labor laws. complying with IP laws was not in the criteria, nor should it be.
- aaomidi 5y agoThat's basically where we disagree. Leaving people no option other than wage slavery isn't an actual choice.
- panabee 5y agoit's not slavery when someone voluntarily contributes to a game like minecraft instead of choosing one of the many other activities available -- including money-earning ones.
- krona 5y agoI don't know, J. K. Rowling?
- slibhb 5y agoThis poster is arguing from the Labor Theory of Value. You can read about this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value, including many criticisms. In my opinion the Labor Theory of Value is a tautology.
- wetmore 5y agoThat's probably not the motivation behind everyone who thinks billionaires shouldn't exist.
- daenz 5y agoI truly believe some people believe they are working towards fairness, but when you investigate their motivations, they give off all the signals of someone who is motivated by something else. The masquerading can also exist in the form of hiding what you truly believe from yourself. As an example, try this: ask someone who doesn't believe that billionaires should exist if they could snap their fingers and make all billionaires vanish, but nobody would become any wealthier, would they? I've seen that answered yes way too many times. That tells me that some people just don't want to know that someone is doing better than them, regardless of if it actually impacts them or not.
- pseudalopex 5y agoIt tells you they noticed disproportionate wealth translates into disproportionate political power.
- daenz 5y agoThat's fair. I'll be modifying my question for next time to rule out that possibility. Though to be even more fair, if the political class didn't prostitute their influence, there would be nothing for the wealthy to buy, so making billionaires vanish does not address that problem.
- goldcd 5y agoTo be fair, that has pretty much the same result as "magically we're all billionaires" - when you find it's going to cost you 120k for a burger, as the billionaires need more money to get them out of bed and into the McDonalds kitchen. The nasty-but-necessary aspect of capitalism is that you need a few rich people at the top and many more beneath agreeing to those rules that put them there on the offchance they'll make it up to those lofty heights themselves.
- montblanc 5y agoSome people are justified to be angry since the system definitely screwed them over...
- collegeburner 5y agoSome people are angry because education system screwed them or somebody else over, retaliatory or punitive actions still aren't a good approach for solving things and the people who cater to them are dishonest demagogues.
- andrepd 5y agoConflating two entirely different things to try to muddy the waters, well done.
- markdown 5y ago"“Billionaires should not exist” does not mean certain people should not exist. It means no person should have a billion dollars. The ascent of billionaires is a symptom & outcome of an immoral system that tells people affordable insulin is impossible but exploitation is fine." - https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1179237019043729410 https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1179237019043729410