4 ms·

It's draconian to have some upper limit on wealth? what if a small number of people managed to, legally, extract wealth to the point where we all became vassals

It's draconian to have some upper limit on wealth? what if a small number of people managed to, legally, extract wealth to the point where we all became vassals? (Or is that what we've already gone very far towards?)

AdrianB1 2y ago
No. But it is a slippery slope of having limits on people, from wealth to anything you can think of (random example: limit ownership to a single car). In the end if it is all legal, it is nobody else's business. If it is illegal, setting an upper limit is not the moral solution.
- recursive 2y ago
  > If it is illegal, setting an upper limit is not the moral solution. Any particular reason you believe that?
  - sieabahlpark 2y ago
    [dead]
  - AdrianB1 2y ago
    Yes, if something is illegal then you don't need to set limits, you send people to prison, don't pass Go, don't collect $200.
- mxkopy 2y ago
  You can make just about anything a slippery slope if you wanted to - “they’re putting limits on guns, what’s next, kitchen knives?” Morally you should probably be spending more time figuring out how to get everyone their first car instead of worrying about your legal rights in owning your second.
  - amatecha 2y ago
    Right? What's with all the volunteer billionaire-wealth advocates?
    - fragmede 2y ago
      well, see, it's embarrassing to admit, but you see, I'm a billionaire. I mean, I'm not one right now, it's a temporary thing. Once I'm back on my feet, I'll have a billion dollars and then, see, I just couldn't have restrictions like that placed on me. I think everyone should be able to get that. So even though it's hurting me now that the rich don't get taxed more, it's just this temporary embarrassing thing where I'm not currently a billionaire.
    - Auracle 2y ago
      Just because something won’t affect people doesn’t mean they can’t be allowed to think it’s morally wrong.
  - FredPret 2y ago
    Why yes, there are countries with limits on kitchen knives. And if your focus is on providing that first car, then the system currently doing that en masse for billions of previously-poor people is called “capitalism” and your moral imperative is to speed it up, not slow it down.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - mxkopy 2y ago
      Capitalism only works when you have a middle class. Protecting billionaires’ abilities to hoard wealth is not in the interests of the middle class. To be charitable I’ll point out that in general that’s not what you’re arguing for. There is a real sense in which personal freedom is essential to people making it out of poverty. Protecting one person’s and not another’s would defeat the point. Here is the compromise. It should be easy for people to do things that billionaires would have no point doing (i.e. take out a business loan of $10K) and difficult for billionaires to do things that people would have difficulty doing (hoard the global supply of some good). That’s if your goal is to have an equitable society where everyone is on the same difficulty level, more or less. Approached this way there would not be a slippery slope because the delineation is quite clear. Moreover there’s no squashing of personal freedom, a billionaire is always free to do things a regular person is able to do. In fact the system we have now basically squashes the freedom of the average person because they are not free to do things (buy a house, have a chance in court) by virtue of not having money while other people have a ton.
- fragmede 2y ago
  Where $1 billion is about 40,000 Honda Civics, I think most people would support limiting ownership of cars to 39,999. It doesn't even have to be a hard limit, just a luxury tax on cars that cost more than, say, $1 million, and on owning more than 40,000 cars. If you want a 40,001st car, your can do it but it means you're going to have to pay an extra fee that goes towards helping people with less.
  - FredPret 2y ago
    Who cares what “most people would support”? It’s right, or it isn’t.
  - AdrianB1 2y ago
    "most people would support" is mob rule or tyranny of the majority. Not morally right. People have no right to tell you how many cars (or something else) you are allowed to own.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      how many slaves do you own, how much cocaine do you own, how many guns do you own? how many crocodiles or tigers can I keep as a pet? there are lots of limits on what I can own
bawolff 2y ago
I think anti-trust laws are generally more effective at dealing with that than wealth limits. When capitalism is functioning well, what cones up must go down, and the main trick is to make sure the ultra-wealthy can't leverage their wealth to prevent anyone competiting with them.
- xpe 2y ago
  > When capitalism is functioning well, ... I recommend this question as an interesting conversation starter at parties: Is it in the self-interest of the most successful capitalists to have a well-functioning capitalism?
  - bawolff 2y ago
    Obviously not. Which is why we have antitrust laws. If it was in the self-interest of the most succesful capitalists, we wouldn't have to have laws about it.
    - xpe 2y ago
      Right. Phrasing it as a question and waiting for the gears to turn can be a good strategy.
      - bawolff 2y ago
        I still don't really understand your point. I don't think anyone disagrees that monopolies and other anticompetitive behaviour is a thing that exists.
        xpe 2y ago
        > I don't think anyone disagrees that monopolies and other anticompetitive behaviour is a thing that exists. There are people who never learned this or have essentially forgotten it. Some ideologies bury such truths. Among business/tech circles, there is a fairly common disdain of regulation. People can conveniently forget that self-interest taken too far can destroy the conditions that make competition work. It is one thing to criticize a powerful monopoly that isn’t you. It is another thing to say “Oh. Maybe what I’m doing is part of the problem.”
BurningFrog 2y ago
You don't become a vassal by someone else having a lot of wealth. The feudal systems arose as a way to organize military defense locally in the absence of a strong central power like the Roman Empire.
- defrost 2y ago
  Feudal systems are better described as local organised threat of violence. There are castle strongholds, control of choke points, a lower strata that are required to work the land and pay tithe upwards to the military heirarchy. Feudal systems have existed in times and locations where there was little need for military defense against external forces, they persist in form as a polite, polished, chivalrous bikie club on horses, mafia with great houses. Warrior nobility systems farm farmers.
  - aebtebeten 2y ago
    > Warrior nobility systems farm farmers A farm is a system with many living beings, but most of the benefits accrue to those we call the farmers. A farmer farm is a called a fief (feudum in latin), so it's no surprise that under feudalism most of the benefits accrue to those who have control over heaps of feuda. Would it be true that under capitalism most of the benefits accrue to those who have control over heaps of capital? [to the original point: capitalism works very well when it allows people to trade and specialise in their comparative advantages; under what conditions might it work less well?] EDIT: > little need for military defense against external forces I think they were also successful even where there was need, as long as those external forces were also based on a warrior class. What Napoleon managed was to "scale" the nature of warfare; two poorly remembered quotes from a book one of his cavalry generals wrote: — 10 mamluks could beat 30 french, but 100 to 100 was even, and 300 french could beat 1000 mamluks — our troopers' horsemanship was pitiful, and their officers' not much better, yet with this cavalry we made the tour of Europe I'd say both point to innovation in the use of mass over class.
    - gradschoolfail 2y ago
      Morally speaking, is ((profit<->negative externality) <-> (speculation<->liquidity provision)) a tautology i could get any of u curious about? It motivates a search for the mystical beast: Marxist financier (not the pastry?) (Not to mention elucidates the boney/HF-inspired principle of intertwining* (wrt scaling — CENDEC, decentralizing by centralizing — marxist-financing-in-itself)) *https://archive.is/FxHSl https://archive.is/FxHSl https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40603483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40603483
FredPret 2y ago
How can you not see that it's draconian? You may think it's no biggy since the limit will be so high. 1. First of all, when party A contracts with party B, party C (that's you) does not have a moral right to dictate an upper limit on how many times they can do that or what the terms can be as long as the transaction is legal and A and B are willing participants. Thus, either A or B can build up an arbitrary amount of wealth and you have exactly zero to say about it. Would you have similar concerns for people who have a disproportionate number of friends, or sex partners, or hit songs, or hell, even votes? 2. If there were to be an upper limit, what is the limit? Today it's a billion dollars. What if it's 100m next, then 10m, then 1m, then 100k? What happens after a couple of decades or centuries of inflation? I suspect you don't care about this because the limit seems far out of reach to you. And so it might be - for now. 3. If there was a limit, who will decide what it should be? What are their incentives? Do you really want a jury of your peers reviewing your financials and drawing lines through it? 4. If there was a limit, who will enforce it? And how? Hand over a check or you go to prison? There's no way to implement this without an authoritarian regime that has unlimited power over its citizens.

AdrianB1 2y ago

No. But it is a slippery slope of having limits on people, from wealth to anything you can think of (random example: limit ownership to a single car). In the end if it is all legal, it is nobody else's business. If it is illegal, setting an upper limit is not the moral solution.

recursive 2y ago
> If it is illegal, setting an upper limit is not the moral solution. Any particular reason you believe that?
- sieabahlpark 2y ago
  [dead]
- AdrianB1 2y ago
  Yes, if something is illegal then you don't need to set limits, you send people to prison, don't pass Go, don't collect $200.
mxkopy 2y ago
You can make just about anything a slippery slope if you wanted to - “they’re putting limits on guns, what’s next, kitchen knives?” Morally you should probably be spending more time figuring out how to get everyone their first car instead of worrying about your legal rights in owning your second.
- amatecha 2y ago
  Right? What's with all the volunteer billionaire-wealth advocates?
  - fragmede 2y ago
    well, see, it's embarrassing to admit, but you see, I'm a billionaire. I mean, I'm not one right now, it's a temporary thing. Once I'm back on my feet, I'll have a billion dollars and then, see, I just couldn't have restrictions like that placed on me. I think everyone should be able to get that. So even though it's hurting me now that the rich don't get taxed more, it's just this temporary embarrassing thing where I'm not currently a billionaire.
  - Auracle 2y ago
    Just because something won’t affect people doesn’t mean they can’t be allowed to think it’s morally wrong.
- FredPret 2y ago
  Why yes, there are countries with limits on kitchen knives. And if your focus is on providing that first car, then the system currently doing that en masse for billions of previously-poor people is called “capitalism” and your moral imperative is to speed it up, not slow it down.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - mxkopy 2y ago
    Capitalism only works when you have a middle class. Protecting billionaires’ abilities to hoard wealth is not in the interests of the middle class. To be charitable I’ll point out that in general that’s not what you’re arguing for. There is a real sense in which personal freedom is essential to people making it out of poverty. Protecting one person’s and not another’s would defeat the point. Here is the compromise. It should be easy for people to do things that billionaires would have no point doing (i.e. take out a business loan of $10K) and difficult for billionaires to do things that people would have difficulty doing (hoard the global supply of some good). That’s if your goal is to have an equitable society where everyone is on the same difficulty level, more or less. Approached this way there would not be a slippery slope because the delineation is quite clear. Moreover there’s no squashing of personal freedom, a billionaire is always free to do things a regular person is able to do. In fact the system we have now basically squashes the freedom of the average person because they are not free to do things (buy a house, have a chance in court) by virtue of not having money while other people have a ton.
fragmede 2y ago
Where $1 billion is about 40,000 Honda Civics, I think most people would support limiting ownership of cars to 39,999. It doesn't even have to be a hard limit, just a luxury tax on cars that cost more than, say, $1 million, and on owning more than 40,000 cars. If you want a 40,001st car, your can do it but it means you're going to have to pay an extra fee that goes towards helping people with less.
- FredPret 2y ago
  Who cares what “most people would support”? It’s right, or it isn’t.
- AdrianB1 2y ago
  "most people would support" is mob rule or tyranny of the majority. Not morally right. People have no right to tell you how many cars (or something else) you are allowed to own.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    how many slaves do you own, how much cocaine do you own, how many guns do you own? how many crocodiles or tigers can I keep as a pet? there are lots of limits on what I can own

bawolff 2y ago

I think anti-trust laws are generally more effective at dealing with that than wealth limits. When capitalism is functioning well, what cones up must go down, and the main trick is to make sure the ultra-wealthy can't leverage their wealth to prevent anyone competiting with them.

xpe 2y ago
> When capitalism is functioning well, ... I recommend this question as an interesting conversation starter at parties: Is it in the self-interest of the most successful capitalists to have a well-functioning capitalism?
- bawolff 2y ago
  Obviously not. Which is why we have antitrust laws. If it was in the self-interest of the most succesful capitalists, we wouldn't have to have laws about it.
  - xpe 2y ago
    Right. Phrasing it as a question and waiting for the gears to turn can be a good strategy.
    - bawolff 2y ago
      I still don't really understand your point. I don't think anyone disagrees that monopolies and other anticompetitive behaviour is a thing that exists.
      - xpe 2y ago
        > I don't think anyone disagrees that monopolies and other anticompetitive behaviour is a thing that exists. There are people who never learned this or have essentially forgotten it. Some ideologies bury such truths. Among business/tech circles, there is a fairly common disdain of regulation. People can conveniently forget that self-interest taken too far can destroy the conditions that make competition work. It is one thing to criticize a powerful monopoly that isn’t you. It is another thing to say “Oh. Maybe what I’m doing is part of the problem.”

BurningFrog 2y ago

You don't become a vassal by someone else having a lot of wealth. The feudal systems arose as a way to organize military defense locally in the absence of a strong central power like the Roman Empire.

defrost 2y ago
Feudal systems are better described as local organised threat of violence. There are castle strongholds, control of choke points, a lower strata that are required to work the land and pay tithe upwards to the military heirarchy. Feudal systems have existed in times and locations where there was little need for military defense against external forces, they persist in form as a polite, polished, chivalrous bikie club on horses, mafia with great houses. Warrior nobility systems farm farmers.
- aebtebeten 2y ago
  > Warrior nobility systems farm farmers A farm is a system with many living beings, but most of the benefits accrue to those we call the farmers. A farmer farm is a called a fief (feudum in latin), so it's no surprise that under feudalism most of the benefits accrue to those who have control over heaps of feuda. Would it be true that under capitalism most of the benefits accrue to those who have control over heaps of capital? [to the original point: capitalism works very well when it allows people to trade and specialise in their comparative advantages; under what conditions might it work less well?] EDIT: > little need for military defense against external forces I think they were also successful even where there was need, as long as those external forces were also based on a warrior class. What Napoleon managed was to "scale" the nature of warfare; two poorly remembered quotes from a book one of his cavalry generals wrote: — 10 mamluks could beat 30 french, but 100 to 100 was even, and 300 french could beat 1000 mamluks — our troopers' horsemanship was pitiful, and their officers' not much better, yet with this cavalry we made the tour of Europe I'd say both point to innovation in the use of mass over class.
  - gradschoolfail 2y ago
    Morally speaking, is ((profit<->negative externality) <-> (speculation<->liquidity provision)) a tautology i could get any of u curious about? It motivates a search for the mystical beast: Marxist financier (not the pastry?) (Not to mention elucidates the boney/HF-inspired principle of intertwining* (wrt scaling — CENDEC, decentralizing by centralizing — marxist-financing-in-itself)) *https://archive.is/FxHSl https://archive.is/FxHSl https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40603483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40603483

FredPret 2y ago

How can you not see that it's draconian? You may think it's no biggy since the limit will be so high. 1. First of all, when party A contracts with party B, party C (that's you) does not have a moral right to dictate an upper limit on how many times they can do that or what the terms can be as long as the transaction is legal and A and B are willing participants. Thus, either A or B can build up an arbitrary amount of wealth and you have exactly zero to say about it. Would you have similar concerns for people who have a disproportionate number of friends, or sex partners, or hit songs, or hell, even votes? 2. If there were to be an upper limit, what is the limit? Today it's a billion dollars. What if it's 100m next, then 10m, then 1m, then 100k? What happens after a couple of decades or centuries of inflation? I suspect you don't care about this because the limit seems far out of reach to you. And so it might be - for now. 3. If there was a limit, who will decide what it should be? What are their incentives? Do you really want a jury of your peers reviewing your financials and drawing lines through it? 4. If there was a limit, who will enforce it? And how? Hand over a check or you go to prison? There's no way to implement this without an authoritarian regime that has unlimited power over its citizens.