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>think they’ll be Jeff Bezos one day. I see that phrase thrown around a lot. It's a variant of "you're never going to be a billionaire (so you shouldn't be aga

by daenz 4y ago

>think they’ll be Jeff Bezos one day. I see that phrase thrown around a lot. It's a variant of "you're never going to be a billionaire (so you shouldn't be against X)." Why do people assume that you have to think you'll be a billionaire to be against something that would affect billionaires negatively? Is something only wrong if you think you'll find yourself in that position one day?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
themitigating 4y ago
I think this counter argument is used when people are against something without offering a reason. For example I often hear "The riches 1% pay 80% of the taxes" (or whatever the correct values are). The person makes this argument against the idea of raising taxes, however they aren't explaining why it shouldn't be done Since they don't offer an explanation the assumption is they are either already rich or think they'll be rich.
- l33t2328 4y ago
  That’s assuming people can’t be purely altruistic and principled and they must hold every position they do for personal gain.
  - AndyNemmity 4y ago
    It would not be altruistic to be for a person with a monopoly of assets to hold more of those assets while other people don't have homes. Principled makes sense though.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  > For example I often hear "The riches 1% pay 80% of the taxes" (or whatever the correct values are). Top 1% earns 21% or income, pays ~40% of taxes (has ~34% of wealth): https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-much-the-rich-pay-taxes https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-much-t...
- technothrasher 4y ago
  Even regardless of their motives, this statement is begging the question. The only way it is relevant is if that percentage (it's actually ~40%, if we're talking federal income taxes) is enough for them to be paying. So the argument is that they already are paying enough because they're paying enough. It's circular and therefor meaningless.
gaze 4y ago
Yeah it's not necessarily true. I think Innuendo Studios/Ian Danskin explains this mechanism very very well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs Many people think Jeff Bezos should exist and have his wealth because he got there by playing the game better than everyone else, and that this game is just the way things are. He earned it. Attempts to change the game will just make everything worse and people won't get what they deserve, and thus these attempts are unethical. Equal societies are an absurd liberal fantasy. My attempts to advocate that Jeff Bezos shouldn't have the money he does are actually just selfish attempts to cheat at the game and stuff my own pockets with money and get something I haven't earned. The real issue here is a lack of discipline. Watch the rest of the videos. People who think like this largely can't be argued with.
- daenz 4y ago
  I watched the whole thing. I think he gets a few critical points wrong, for example, the idea that the economy is a zero sum game (9:10), and someone can only have more if everyone else has less. I could make the whole "increasing the size of the pie" argument, but I'm sure you've heard it. With this premise, the author doesn't even identify the argument that while members of the hierarchy have relative positions, the wealth creation resulting from the hierarchy ensures everyone's absolute position increases. A side effect of this is how a country can have poor people who are wealthier than other countries middle classes. Destroying that hierarchy without a design to replace that progress mechanism means everyone's absolute position would not continue to move primarily up. If conservativism was just "a hierarchy where everyone stays in their absolute positions, but they may move around relatively sometimes," it would be a lot less appealing. The whole point is that it is the most effective driver of overall progress.
kelseyfrog 4y ago
> Why do people assume that you have to think you'll be a billionaire to be against something that would affect billionaires negatively? Because there is a group who struggles to reconcile what looks like a contradiction - another group who appears to advocate for policies which harm themselves. The quote and its derivatives attempt to explain this apparent contradiction.
- mc32 4y ago
  Not P, but I agree. One does not have to like a billionaire or even dream about being one to disagree with disproportionate taxation out of other principles or concerns.
  - Rapzid 4y ago
    It goes the other way around too. There are billionaires in favor of increased taxes on billionaires.
    - mc32 4y ago
      And the IRS allows you to contribute as much as you prefer to the treasury. It's voluntary and no one is compelling you. So that group of billionaires who think the government can use their money more efficiently than they can in order to advance American society are absolutely free to do so! Go them! They don't need the government to compel them. They can form their own Philgubernatorial group -set their own donation rules and taxation (donation) bands and percentages and come tax season give it to the feds.
      - Rapzid 4y ago
        How do you know that don't? Really though, they shouldn't. That's pissing in the ocean on an individual level, and the government doesn't run it's budget off rando Treasury donations. They are not just advocating more taxes on themselves but on the very wealthy in general. A systemic change in taxation. These same people likely also donate a huge amount of money to charities and etc. On an individual basis it's easier to draw a line between funds donated and outcomes. > They don't need the government to compel them. Do they? Do you? Why not just make the government a charity then.
21723 4y ago
> I see that phrase thrown around a lot. It's a variant of "you're never going to be a billionaire (so you shouldn't be against X)." Why do people assume that you have to think you'll be a billionaire to be against something that would affect billionaires negatively? Is something only wrong if you think you'll find yourself in that position one day? Obviously cappies (meaning people who support capitalism, who are not necessarily actual capitalists--most aren't) don't walk around believing they personally have a greater than 50% chance of being billionaires. It's hyperbole. That said, they do overestimate their future earning potential while severely underestimating the number of ways in which preexisting social class will block them. This is evidently true; behavior and preferences reveal beliefs, and no one supports capitalism and its extreme inequities unless they harbor a belief--perhaps an underexamined and irrational one--that they'll one day be invited to join the capitalist class, since there's literally nothing to justify the system but "It's good if you're one of them."
djmips 4y ago
My anecdata is that I've literally heard people say that. For example - 'I don't want the rich to be taxed because I might be rich someday.' They don't specifically even mean Jeff Bezos or even a billionaire but assume that 'when' they are rich they will want the tax advantages.
reilly3000 4y ago
That’s a really good point. It highlights the hegemony of self-interest in contemporary culture. Collectivism has become frail, immobile, even dubious. We are demographics. We demonize one another. We struggle for causes that affect us and ours, and despise people for joining popular social movements. Fatigue turns out to be the limiting factor for compassion, and boy are we tired. I don’t expect I would become a billionaire (…anymore). I imagine that I would be a benevolent one, but fear the gravity pull of such wealth would collapse any good intentions. Capital demands such rigor. I would think that if some some policy or popular uprising made wealth distribution flatter, the billionaires of the world could exhale. The burden to care becomes much lighter when borne by many hands.
jmyeet 4y ago
A lot of people will quote John Steinbeck [1]: > “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” There's plenty of circumstantial evidence to back this up. The 2000 election is a good example although I can't find a good quote for this. Gore famously daemonized the "top 1%". An illuminating poll in 2000 revealed that 19% of Americans thought they were the "top 1%" and another 20% thought they would be someday. So 39% of the population thought of themselves as the "top 1%". Americans also love the slippery slope fallacy. The idea, that you allude to, is that people will defend Jeff Bezos's taxes being raised because the next step is apparently them coming for the working class. This too is propaganda. B does not necessarily follow from A. But political leaders and plutocrats are happy to use this argument to their own benefit. It's the sort of argument people make when they have no argument. It's a byproduct of American exceptionalism [2]. [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck-once-said-that-socialism-never-took-root-in https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck-once-... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism
- bitwize 4y ago
  The "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" phrase was used by John Steinbeck to describe not the poor, but what we might call today "champagne socialists": "Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: 'After the revolution even we will have more, won't we, dear?' Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property. I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew — at least they claimed to be Communists — couldn't have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves." (source: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck) Ronald Wright somehow turned this into a quip about Gramscian false consciousness, in the great global game of telephone we're all playing with each others' words.

by daenz 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

themitigating 4y ago

I think this counter argument is used when people are against something without offering a reason. For example I often hear "The riches 1% pay 80% of the taxes" (or whatever the correct values are). The person makes this argument against the idea of raising taxes, however they aren't explaining why it shouldn't be done Since they don't offer an explanation the assumption is they are either already rich or think they'll be rich.

l33t2328 4y ago
That’s assuming people can’t be purely altruistic and principled and they must hold every position they do for personal gain.
- AndyNemmity 4y ago
  It would not be altruistic to be for a person with a monopoly of assets to hold more of those assets while other people don't have homes. Principled makes sense though.
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
> For example I often hear "The riches 1% pay 80% of the taxes" (or whatever the correct values are). Top 1% earns 21% or income, pays ~40% of taxes (has ~34% of wealth): https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-much-the-rich-pay-taxes https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-much-t...
technothrasher 4y ago
Even regardless of their motives, this statement is begging the question. The only way it is relevant is if that percentage (it's actually ~40%, if we're talking federal income taxes) is enough for them to be paying. So the argument is that they already are paying enough because they're paying enough. It's circular and therefor meaningless.

gaze 4y ago

Yeah it's not necessarily true. I think Innuendo Studios/Ian Danskin explains this mechanism very very well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs Many people think Jeff Bezos should exist and have his wealth because he got there by playing the game better than everyone else, and that this game is just the way things are. He earned it. Attempts to change the game will just make everything worse and people won't get what they deserve, and thus these attempts are unethical. Equal societies are an absurd liberal fantasy. My attempts to advocate that Jeff Bezos shouldn't have the money he does are actually just selfish attempts to cheat at the game and stuff my own pockets with money and get something I haven't earned. The real issue here is a lack of discipline. Watch the rest of the videos. People who think like this largely can't be argued with.

daenz 4y ago
I watched the whole thing. I think he gets a few critical points wrong, for example, the idea that the economy is a zero sum game (9:10), and someone can only have more if everyone else has less. I could make the whole "increasing the size of the pie" argument, but I'm sure you've heard it. With this premise, the author doesn't even identify the argument that while members of the hierarchy have relative positions, the wealth creation resulting from the hierarchy ensures everyone's absolute position increases. A side effect of this is how a country can have poor people who are wealthier than other countries middle classes. Destroying that hierarchy without a design to replace that progress mechanism means everyone's absolute position would not continue to move primarily up. If conservativism was just "a hierarchy where everyone stays in their absolute positions, but they may move around relatively sometimes," it would be a lot less appealing. The whole point is that it is the most effective driver of overall progress.

kelseyfrog 4y ago

> Why do people assume that you have to think you'll be a billionaire to be against something that would affect billionaires negatively? Because there is a group who struggles to reconcile what looks like a contradiction - another group who appears to advocate for policies which harm themselves. The quote and its derivatives attempt to explain this apparent contradiction.

mc32 4y ago
Not P, but I agree. One does not have to like a billionaire or even dream about being one to disagree with disproportionate taxation out of other principles or concerns.
- Rapzid 4y ago
  It goes the other way around too. There are billionaires in favor of increased taxes on billionaires.
  - mc32 4y ago
    And the IRS allows you to contribute as much as you prefer to the treasury. It's voluntary and no one is compelling you. So that group of billionaires who think the government can use their money more efficiently than they can in order to advance American society are absolutely free to do so! Go them! They don't need the government to compel them. They can form their own Philgubernatorial group -set their own donation rules and taxation (donation) bands and percentages and come tax season give it to the feds.
    - Rapzid 4y ago
      How do you know that don't? Really though, they shouldn't. That's pissing in the ocean on an individual level, and the government doesn't run it's budget off rando Treasury donations. They are not just advocating more taxes on themselves but on the very wealthy in general. A systemic change in taxation. These same people likely also donate a huge amount of money to charities and etc. On an individual basis it's easier to draw a line between funds donated and outcomes. > They don't need the government to compel them. Do they? Do you? Why not just make the government a charity then.

21723 4y ago

> I see that phrase thrown around a lot. It's a variant of "you're never going to be a billionaire (so you shouldn't be against X)." Why do people assume that you have to think you'll be a billionaire to be against something that would affect billionaires negatively? Is something only wrong if you think you'll find yourself in that position one day? Obviously cappies (meaning people who support capitalism, who are not necessarily actual capitalists--most aren't) don't walk around believing they personally have a greater than 50% chance of being billionaires. It's hyperbole. That said, they do overestimate their future earning potential while severely underestimating the number of ways in which preexisting social class will block them. This is evidently true; behavior and preferences reveal beliefs, and no one supports capitalism and its extreme inequities unless they harbor a belief--perhaps an underexamined and irrational one--that they'll one day be invited to join the capitalist class, since there's literally nothing to justify the system but "It's good if you're one of them."

djmips 4y ago

My anecdata is that I've literally heard people say that. For example - 'I don't want the rich to be taxed because I might be rich someday.' They don't specifically even mean Jeff Bezos or even a billionaire but assume that 'when' they are rich they will want the tax advantages.

reilly3000 4y ago

That’s a really good point. It highlights the hegemony of self-interest in contemporary culture. Collectivism has become frail, immobile, even dubious. We are demographics. We demonize one another. We struggle for causes that affect us and ours, and despise people for joining popular social movements. Fatigue turns out to be the limiting factor for compassion, and boy are we tired. I don’t expect I would become a billionaire (…anymore). I imagine that I would be a benevolent one, but fear the gravity pull of such wealth would collapse any good intentions. Capital demands such rigor. I would think that if some some policy or popular uprising made wealth distribution flatter, the billionaires of the world could exhale. The burden to care becomes much lighter when borne by many hands.

jmyeet 4y ago

A lot of people will quote John Steinbeck [1]: > “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” There's plenty of circumstantial evidence to back this up. The 2000 election is a good example although I can't find a good quote for this. Gore famously daemonized the "top 1%". An illuminating poll in 2000 revealed that 19% of Americans thought they were the "top 1%" and another 20% thought they would be someday. So 39% of the population thought of themselves as the "top 1%". Americans also love the slippery slope fallacy. The idea, that you allude to, is that people will defend Jeff Bezos's taxes being raised because the next step is apparently them coming for the working class. This too is propaganda. B does not necessarily follow from A. But political leaders and plutocrats are happy to use this argument to their own benefit. It's the sort of argument people make when they have no argument. It's a byproduct of American exceptionalism [2]. [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck-once-said-that-socialism-never-took-root-in https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck-once-... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

bitwize 4y ago
The "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" phrase was used by John Steinbeck to describe not the poor, but what we might call today "champagne socialists": "Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: 'After the revolution even we will have more, won't we, dear?' Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property. I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew — at least they claimed to be Communists — couldn't have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves." (source: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck) Ronald Wright somehow turned this into a quip about Gramscian false consciousness, in the great global game of telephone we're all playing with each others' words.