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Its not possible to become fantastically rich without the support of a state, or by essentially being a state. For Amazon to work, they need the roads that the
by spencerflem 2y ago
Its not possible to become fantastically rich without the support of a state, or by essentially being a state. For Amazon to work, they need the roads that the govt built, the internet the govt invented, the cable the govt subsidised, the military and the police to protect their shipments and keep the workers in line, the courts to handle disputes and a million other things.
Corporations themselves are a legal fiction made up by the state. Its incredibly fair to tax for this and Could Not Possibly work any other way.
And on top of that, come on:
look at https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/?v=3 https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/?v=3 and tell me that having hundreds of billions of dollars isn't greedy. 10 million (ie. thirty thousand times less) and you can retire in luxury.
- glimshe 2y agoRelative luxury. It gets you a great house, frequent travel, nice cars every year. But no jets or truly luxurious real estate (which would cost more than that alone). Still, I hear you.
- alchemist1e9 2y agoThank you for at least being able to understand the most crucial and important function of the state is to create well regulated markets with law and order, along with property and individual rights they are necessary preconditions to capitalism. commentators have confused either oligarchy or anarchy for liberalism and capitalism. This is a profound cultural and educational failure that capitalism has been slandered in this way. Unfortunately the rest you likely have completely misunderstood. fwiw you visualization is very silly so much of reality makes no sense on linear scales, I suggest you use logarithmic scales and it all makes perfect sense. Unless a crony capitalist has corrupted the state to gain unfair advantage, has monopoly power, or is providing unnecessary services or providing weapons for war and embezzling public funds, then when they are successful they earned their “unearned” income in capital gains by providing a valuable service to the society. The impulse to strike them down and steal their capital is frankly disgusting and embarrassing. Nothing but Envy masquerading as Empathy!
- spencerflem 2y agoIts more- the money to make society run smoothly has to come from somewhere , and if I had to pick it would be from they guy that has ten thousand times more than he could possibly need over the guy who doesn't. & Also: why is it necessarily true that they 'earned' their 'unearned' income. This is going from relative fact to opinion here "how does the enocomy work" to the squishier "what does it mean to earn something", but when I put my $$ in an index fund and wake up next month with more money than I did before, it doesn't really feel earned to me.
- alchemist1e9 2y agoUnbelievable misunderstanding of money.
- mixmastamyk 2y agoUnearned in this case doesn’t mean “undeserved.” It refers to the lack of work involved, aka passive income/gain.
- spencerflem 2y agoYeah totally, that's the official meaning. But also, its kinda both - like, I'll take the free 15% a year, im not crazy, and its what the government promises. But its not like that money is from choosing wisely what to invest in and taking on risk, I'm literally putting it all into index funds its dead simple. The only trick is to have money. I have no problem with the government deciding that this is unfair. Its not fair that I get free money for having money already and other people don't.