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How do you deprive an oligarch of their ill gotten wealth without violence?

by pydry 4y ago

mistermann 4y ago
Why apply constraints before we've even gotten started?
commandlinefan 4y ago
How do you do it even with violence? How would you seize and “redistribute” Jeff Bezos’s (for example) wealth? It’s mostly in stocks that would start to lose value if you tried to cash them all out at once.
- maeil 4y ago
  This is a non-issue; the stock will temporarily lose a bit of value through the increase of supply and that's it. Amazon as a company would still intrinsically be valued at hundreds of billions if not 1+ trillion, even if Bezos were to die tomorrow and his will would say that all of his shares should be sold on the market within a day. The fact that you might only end up redistributing $70 billion instead of the $80 billion he was worth when alive doesn't matter, it's still $70 billion being redistributed.
- __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
  You disable his AWS account and badge and stop inviting him to meetings, likewise for any other hands that that stock falls into. It's not valuable if it doesn't give the holder enough power to make changes happen.
- sebzim4500 4y ago
  Who says you have to sell it? It could be held by the taxpayer, and they could pocket the dividends. Not saying I support this kind of action, but I don't think this is a good argument against it.
- pydry 4y ago
  Laws that force Bezos to open up his platforms to competition would likely collapse the share price while not killing the actual value of what was built. Tax is another. The problem is getting into a position where you could pass those laws without violence. I'm not sure it is possible to do it democratically in such a corrupted political system. 3rd parties are essentially impossible and oligarchs have a lock on the other 2.
AndrewKemendo 4y ago
This is one of the most important questions we should be asking today. I'm not even joking as I think it's a critically important part of fixing society As dumb as it sounds I genuinely think it's a concerted effort to change people's minds - specifically those people who want to become capital class or otherwise are on the way to the capital class. If we can 1. Prevent new billionaires from being created and 2. then create structures to allow the capital class to feel like they are important to the process of reducing their own power and democratizing the economy, there might be a chance.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
teucris 4y ago
Make the next generation of wealth-generating innovations easily within reach to anyone, not just those with capital.
klibertp 4y ago
It's time for the "without violence" to, once again, become of no importance compared to "ill gotten" (plus, with ever expanding definition of "ill"). That's what tends to happen, historically. We'll then get a decade or two of reconciliation and then will again start pretending that we're not murderous primate bastards we are, just like we did for the past 50 years (and even that not nearly universally).
maeil 4y ago
Through violence, as history has shown.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mort96 4y ago
There isn't really any non-violence. The common solution to depriving people of their ill-gotten wealth is state coercion under threat of violence. I don't know if that would work in the case of the 0.1%, but we surely can't limit ourselves to non-violent solutions for the ultra wealthy when we have no trouble with violent solutions for the less wealthy.
vc8f6vVV 4y ago
Think one step further. What happens if you do? Doesn't the USSR example teach you anything? You will have a different breed of oligarchs, that's all (yes, there were oligarchs in the USSR, just not in the way you think, money is not everything and oligarchy is not about money).
shrimp_emoji 4y ago
Why should you play with a handicap? The "oligarch" forces you to work with violence. They've already violated the non-aggression principle. No work? No money. No rent payment? Eviction (with violence). Stealing food? Arrest and imprisonment (with violence). It's violence all the way down. It always was. It's just a question of how it's organized and rhetorically justified.

How do you deprive an oligarch of their ill gotten wealth without violence?

by pydry 4y ago

How do you deprive an oligarch of their ill gotten wealth without violence?

mistermann 4y ago

Why apply constraints before we've even gotten started?

commandlinefan 4y ago

How do you do it even with violence? How would you seize and “redistribute” Jeff Bezos’s (for example) wealth? It’s mostly in stocks that would start to lose value if you tried to cash them all out at once.

maeil 4y ago
This is a non-issue; the stock will temporarily lose a bit of value through the increase of supply and that's it. Amazon as a company would still intrinsically be valued at hundreds of billions if not 1+ trillion, even if Bezos were to die tomorrow and his will would say that all of his shares should be sold on the market within a day. The fact that you might only end up redistributing $70 billion instead of the $80 billion he was worth when alive doesn't matter, it's still $70 billion being redistributed.
__MatrixMan__ 4y ago
You disable his AWS account and badge and stop inviting him to meetings, likewise for any other hands that that stock falls into. It's not valuable if it doesn't give the holder enough power to make changes happen.
sebzim4500 4y ago
Who says you have to sell it? It could be held by the taxpayer, and they could pocket the dividends. Not saying I support this kind of action, but I don't think this is a good argument against it.
pydry 4y ago
Laws that force Bezos to open up his platforms to competition would likely collapse the share price while not killing the actual value of what was built. Tax is another. The problem is getting into a position where you could pass those laws without violence. I'm not sure it is possible to do it democratically in such a corrupted political system. 3rd parties are essentially impossible and oligarchs have a lock on the other 2.

AndrewKemendo 4y ago

This is one of the most important questions we should be asking today. I'm not even joking as I think it's a critically important part of fixing society As dumb as it sounds I genuinely think it's a concerted effort to change people's minds - specifically those people who want to become capital class or otherwise are on the way to the capital class. If we can 1. Prevent new billionaires from being created and 2. then create structures to allow the capital class to feel like they are important to the process of reducing their own power and democratizing the economy, there might be a chance.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

teucris 4y ago

Make the next generation of wealth-generating innovations easily within reach to anyone, not just those with capital.

klibertp 4y ago

It's time for the "without violence" to, once again, become of no importance compared to "ill gotten" (plus, with ever expanding definition of "ill"). That's what tends to happen, historically. We'll then get a decade or two of reconciliation and then will again start pretending that we're not murderous primate bastards we are, just like we did for the past 50 years (and even that not nearly universally).

maeil 4y ago

Through violence, as history has shown.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mort96 4y ago

There isn't really any non-violence. The common solution to depriving people of their ill-gotten wealth is state coercion under threat of violence. I don't know if that would work in the case of the 0.1%, but we surely can't limit ourselves to non-violent solutions for the ultra wealthy when we have no trouble with violent solutions for the less wealthy.

vc8f6vVV 4y ago

Think one step further. What happens if you do? Doesn't the USSR example teach you anything? You will have a different breed of oligarchs, that's all (yes, there were oligarchs in the USSR, just not in the way you think, money is not everything and oligarchy is not about money).

shrimp_emoji 4y ago

Why should you play with a handicap? The "oligarch" forces you to work with violence. They've already violated the non-aggression principle. No work? No money. No rent payment? Eviction (with violence). Stealing food? Arrest and imprisonment (with violence). It's violence all the way down. It always was. It's just a question of how it's organized and rhetorically justified.