6 ms·

The comment you replied to is so tone deaf that I wonder if they're trolling.

lapcat 3y ago
I wish that were the case, but we wouldn't have such a problem with inequality if the only defenders of the system were trolls.
roenxi 3y ago
But, putting aside your tone policing, do you see any flaws in the argument? Pretend Elon Musk disappeared and you got your $8 allocation from his fortune ($180 billion over 8 billion humans), would that really make a difference to your life? Even for people living in complete poverty where $8 might be more money that they see in a year it is still a pitiful amount of real resources. As a one-off payment. The existence of very wealthy people really isn't the thing holding back median living standards.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > The existence of very wealthy people really isn't the thing holding back median living standards. What you're missing here is the power and political influence of the ultra-wealthy. They aren't just passive participants in the system. Rather, they actively shape the system to suit themselves. They can buy politicians. Or as you said yourself, "the ultra wealthy buy up a few media firms and then gently redirect all the anger towards the middle class and/or stirs up social issues." You mentioned Musk: he bought up Twitter, the influential social network, and has turned it into his own political propaganda machine.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    I put it to you that not only did I hit that point, but you just quoted the part where I explained that very thing. You're citing my words to make a point that I was also making.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      I don't think so. Your original point was "Poor people looking at the ultra-wealthy as a pot of money isn't going to work." And you just reiterated with "Pretend Elon Musk disappeared and you got your $8 allocation from his fortune ($180 billion over 8 billion humans)". But that's not what I'm talking about, and it's not what the article was talking about either: “when we are talking about redistribution, we are largely talking about redistribution from ourselves to ourselves at a different point in our lives and not from ‘us’ to ‘them’.” The ultra-wealthy make too many of the decisions about how resources will be allocated in the system, i.e., which goods will be or won't be produced, and they try to rig the system to direct to themselves most of the economic gains of the system, to break and suppress labor unions, and to undermine and destroy the social safety net that the article authors (and myself) support, either to produce a desperate worker base willing to do anything, or just for ideological reasons. It's not about redistributing their money per se, it's about breaking their concentrated power. Money is power. This is why the ultra-wealthy continue to accumulate money far beyond any amount they can possibly spend on themselves/family/friends for material goods and services. I would say that 8 billion people each having 8 economic "votes" is vastly more democratic (small "d") than 1 person having 180 billion economic votes. Democracy itself is endangered by concentrated economic power.
      - roenxi 3y ago
        > The ultra-wealthy make too many of the decisions about how resources will be allocated in the system... The ultra-wealthy don't have a lot of choice in how resources are allocated. As just pointed out, Elon Musk has power of about $8 per human - relatively speaking that is an insane amount of power. Absolutely speaking it is not that much. Consumers and regulators have most of the power there. The ultra wealthy mainly control which people sit where in the social pyramid, but not what the pyramid then does. If people allocate resources in a way consumers don't like they go broke really quickly. That is one of the reasons free markets are so successful - they punish people quickly and effectively for bad decisions no matter how much economic power they used have. > Democracy itself is endangered by concentrated economic power. Democracy is a tool to enable concentrated economic power. The most democratic successful society in the world is the US, ie, one that has consistently voted for lots of capitalism. The people who wanted to decentralise economic power were the communists and it turns out committees and big groups suck at making good economic decisions and lots of people literally starve. > ...we are largely talking about redistribution from ourselves to ourselves... On this point the article descends into nonsense. The authors believe this is a thing and will be proven wrong in an experiment.

I wish that were the case, but we wouldn't have such a problem with inequality if the only defenders of the system were trolls.

roenxi 3y ago

But, putting aside your tone policing, do you see any flaws in the argument? Pretend Elon Musk disappeared and you got your $8 allocation from his fortune ($180 billion over 8 billion humans), would that really make a difference to your life? Even for people living in complete poverty where $8 might be more money that they see in a year it is still a pitiful amount of real resources. As a one-off payment. The existence of very wealthy people really isn't the thing holding back median living standards.

lapcat 3y ago
> The existence of very wealthy people really isn't the thing holding back median living standards. What you're missing here is the power and political influence of the ultra-wealthy. They aren't just passive participants in the system. Rather, they actively shape the system to suit themselves. They can buy politicians. Or as you said yourself, "the ultra wealthy buy up a few media firms and then gently redirect all the anger towards the middle class and/or stirs up social issues." You mentioned Musk: he bought up Twitter, the influential social network, and has turned it into his own political propaganda machine.
- roenxi 3y ago
  I put it to you that not only did I hit that point, but you just quoted the part where I explained that very thing. You're citing my words to make a point that I was also making.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    I don't think so. Your original point was "Poor people looking at the ultra-wealthy as a pot of money isn't going to work." And you just reiterated with "Pretend Elon Musk disappeared and you got your $8 allocation from his fortune ($180 billion over 8 billion humans)". But that's not what I'm talking about, and it's not what the article was talking about either: “when we are talking about redistribution, we are largely talking about redistribution from ourselves to ourselves at a different point in our lives and not from ‘us’ to ‘them’.” The ultra-wealthy make too many of the decisions about how resources will be allocated in the system, i.e., which goods will be or won't be produced, and they try to rig the system to direct to themselves most of the economic gains of the system, to break and suppress labor unions, and to undermine and destroy the social safety net that the article authors (and myself) support, either to produce a desperate worker base willing to do anything, or just for ideological reasons. It's not about redistributing their money per se, it's about breaking their concentrated power. Money is power. This is why the ultra-wealthy continue to accumulate money far beyond any amount they can possibly spend on themselves/family/friends for material goods and services. I would say that 8 billion people each having 8 economic "votes" is vastly more democratic (small "d") than 1 person having 180 billion economic votes. Democracy itself is endangered by concentrated economic power.
    - roenxi 3y ago
      > The ultra-wealthy make too many of the decisions about how resources will be allocated in the system... The ultra-wealthy don't have a lot of choice in how resources are allocated. As just pointed out, Elon Musk has power of about $8 per human - relatively speaking that is an insane amount of power. Absolutely speaking it is not that much. Consumers and regulators have most of the power there. The ultra wealthy mainly control which people sit where in the social pyramid, but not what the pyramid then does. If people allocate resources in a way consumers don't like they go broke really quickly. That is one of the reasons free markets are so successful - they punish people quickly and effectively for bad decisions no matter how much economic power they used have. > Democracy itself is endangered by concentrated economic power. Democracy is a tool to enable concentrated economic power. The most democratic successful society in the world is the US, ie, one that has consistently voted for lots of capitalism. The people who wanted to decentralise economic power were the communists and it turns out committees and big groups suck at making good economic decisions and lots of people literally starve. > ...we are largely talking about redistribution from ourselves to ourselves... On this point the article descends into nonsense. The authors believe this is a thing and will be proven wrong in an experiment.