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Almost every problem in the world would be dealt with meaningfully if we outlawed billionaires.

Everytime I look at small problems or big global problems, if you follow the money trail, it all leads to some billionaire who is either working towards increasing their wealth or protecting their wealth from decreasing.

Everything from politics, climate change, workers rights, democratic government, technology, land rights, human rights can all be rendered down to people fighting another group of people who defend the rights of a billionaire to keep their wealth or to expand their control.

If humanity got rid of or outlawed the notion of any one individual owning far too much money than they could ever possibly spend in a lifetime, we could free up so much wealth and energy to do other things like save ourselves from climate change.

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  • Somethin to remember, money is very important to how our current society functions, it gives a lot of power to those that have a lot of it, but it itself isnt something anyone needs. Say, you get rid of all the billionairess and redistribute all of those funds so that everyone is well above the poverty line now. All of these folks that have a lot more money now want to use that money. They've been putting off medical care so they try to setup an appointment. Getting rid of all the billionaires didnt create more doctors though. They can only tend to so many people regardless of ability to pay. Say, folks want to eat out and treat themselves. Certainly more people than before will be able to, but not everyone, kitchens and staff can only output so many meals, again regardless of ability to pay. And that's overlooking how many people no longer work there, that hated it there and only tolerated for the funds to survive.

    Basically money does not actually create any resources or services, redistributing the money doesnt mean you have enough resources to cover what that money could buy. That's the main goal here, having resources for everyone. Capitalism sucks and getting rid of billionaires is important, but dont get complacent with that underlying mission. We need to be working on providing needs to people in a way that doesnt require money. It involves a lot of volunteer work and a lot of automation.

    • Counterpoint - if people don’t need to take crappy jobs just to afford food and shelter, those jobs will have to provide better pay and conditions to get employees.

      Also, if more people can afford to get further education, you’ll get more doctors and engineers and high skilled workers, because they’ll be able to do the training instead of getting several minimum wage jobs just to support their families.

      I’ve said it before - any society that can afford billionaires can afford to feed, clothe, shelter and provide basic medical care to all is members, it’s just choosing not to.

    • This is the circular argument I often have with my friends about wealth and it all boils down to just power.

      When billionaires lay claim to enormous amounts of money, it gives them an equal amount of enormous power.

      Have that wealth redistributed to millions of people and that wealth no longer matters and no one person has any great level of power.

      It's our own belief that we need or see that it is necessary to have individuals with enormous wealth that is the problem. The belief that our world can only exist if there is infinite wealth.

      The other side of the argument is that the change of eliminating billionaires won't happen overnight. I wish I could pull a switch right now that could drain the bank accounts of billionaires and instantly transfer that wealth to millions of people but it won't work that way, ever.

      I envision a gradual change ... where billionaires are just steadily taxed into non existence, where their wealth is just slowly absorbed into public services everywhere and at the same time any individual that accumulates enormous wealth is discouraged. It would be a process that would last decades or lifetimes and eventually to a point where individual excessive wealth is eliminated.

    • While that's correct in the short term we know it's possible in terms of resources to feed everyone as we produce more food than we need. Likewise plenty of states have socialised medicine and aren't running out of doctors. All of these problems can be solved in time, especially after eliminating useless jobs created by capitalism.

    • You're talking (partly) about two different things.

      The simple truth is that our planet only has a certain amount of replenishable resources which leads to only a certain standard of living being possible for a certain amount of people.

      Thus, the problem you're talking about only gets solved by reducing the amount of people or the standard of living, globally.

      The problem OP is talking about is inequality in the standard of living between people.

      Outlawing billionaires alleviates both problems, but the general resources problem only temporarily until the people with lower standard of living now raise theirs by having more resources available, which is what you talk about.

      Inequality gets improved permanently by this, so it's a good change for that problem.

      The limited resource problem you're talking about, though, doesn't get solved by this at all, there might be a short dip in less resources used while resources are being reallocated, but then it'll likely go back to before, because most people use as much resources as they can to make their lives as nice as they can.

      To solve our problems, both population as well as standard of living need to be limited. Because if either one is allowed to grow infinitely, resources will never suffice long-term.

      • Outlawing billionaires alleviates both problems, but the general resources problem only temporarily until the people with lower standard of living now raise theirs by having more resources available, which is what you talk about.

        no that's the thing, eliminating wealth inequality doesnt make more resources available for anyone, money doesnt create resources. Millions more people suddenly being able to buy a new car or something doesnt mean millions more cars are going to appear.

        • That's why I said temporarily. If there's demand for millions of more cars, capitalists will find a way to provide the supply very quickly. There'll be less demand for idk, private jets or sth billionaires buy, and the resources previously used for the fulfillment of billionaire demand will start going to fulfilling the demand of the new things desired by lower classes that now have more money. Obviously it'll not happen instantly because stuff needs to be repurposed, new supply paths created, but eventually, the resource usage will be equal again.

          • capitalists will find a way to provide the supply very quickly.

            How and why? It might surprise you to find out money isnt the bottleneck in most industries, its finding enough qualified workers, or having enough equipment or work area. And why would these businesses owned by the billionaire class put in the extra effort to meet this demand when their income got capped?

            • Because more medium businesses will fill the need, people that are not at the cap yet. And qualified workers, equipment or work areas are all resources, which eventually will be reallocated to whatever is in demand. I didn't specify a timeframe with my "temporarily", but I was talking decades, i.e. also enough time for new workers to be trained.

    • Getting rid of all the billionaires didnt create more doctors though

      Wrong, more people can afford to go to college. The extra tax base also allows for the creation of new schools.

      I agree we should switch away from currency. Look at the stuff people do for fake internet points. We don't need money to create.

      We certainly have the tech and the numbers to ensure the starving artist meme is finally laid to rest. Imagine what creations or inventions we are missing out on because it's not profitable right now.

      • more people can afford college, and we can afford to build more schools. But that doesnt mean we have the resources to. You don't throw money on the ground and a school pops out. You pay contractors to build it. Contractors are already pretty busy folks, doing very hard work that's difficult to attract a large workforce. And it takes a lot of time to build large projects. Construction is a huge bottleneck. We can get around this a bit with online education instead, but that's still not limitless, especially if you're teaching such a complex and demanding career as medicine. you need people who are already experts to train doctors, there's only so many and they can only teach so many.

    • I think a world without money is a fantasy.

      Money is just a means of trading time, time that I put in, for time that you put in.

      Some things like being a doctor are harder than being a fast food worker, it takes years of training, and hard work. It makes sense that their time is worth more.

      There is a ceiling though where you're not actively contributing "time" you've previously committed time that's just appreciating because it's "invested" in paying people for their time. That's where the problems come in because you have effectively a years work of thousands of people in your pocket, which is a concentration of unchecked power.

      Taxing billionaires out of existence ensures that money is invested (in a democracy) by the voters (through their representatives) and keeps the concentration of power from distorting the politics.

      This issue isn't billionaires, it isn't capitalism, it's and always has been throughout history, concentration of power. It's past time we fixed this unforeseen loophole created by the modern world where a handful of individuals become as powerful as a country.

      When you have bosses that aren't "gods among men", that can't just buy up their competition to squash it, it's much easier to negotiate with them to pay you a fair salary. You're not just a number. Similarly, you can get more done in politics because nobody's got so much money that they can significantly grease palms/run a campaign by themselves/etc.

      • The "loophole" is how capitalism works. Here's my super simple definition of capitalism. Capitalism just distributes resources based on capital. The problem is that capital is a resource that needs to get distributed. Sure a doctor and fast food worker are both being paid for their time. But not the hospital owner, not the restaurant owner. They're being paid for their capital, they had the capital to own this business, so they own the capital it generates.

        I dont think Im really disagreeing with you though, taxing the owner class on a much more aggressive sliding scale of wealth definitely needs to happen, but we need more public sector workers for all that taxed income to be put to use for. The system is flawed and needs changing, just remember that the work still needs to be done regardless of the solution.

        • The definition of capitalism:

          an economic system based on private ownership of capital

          I think where I disagree is that capitalism is an untamable beast or that private ownership is bad. Private ownership at the small scale breeds competition and interoperability. At the large scale it becomes a monoculture just like a truly socialist government would be (in both cases the average person's individual buying power and individual vote aren't going to move the needle much).

          Putting limits on capitalism so that small and medium businesses dominate and the middle class has enough money to reasonably take chances on creating new businesses without gambling their life savings is what I want to see.

      • People thought the world without chattel slavery was a fantasy at one point.

        Yes we simply added more steps to it, but progress is progress

      • You make more money that harder you are to replace. In the case of the billionaires, they are theoretically hard to replace so they make a ton.

        Of course you don't need to be a billionaire to to be wealthy. You can just be good at business and managing money.

        "Taxing them out of existence" is the craziest and dumbest idea I've heard in a while. You can't just do that as it is there money that they rightfully earned. There also would be the issue of the people who have 990 million dollars. Do you want to tax them to oblivion to?

        Billionaires are not the problem

        • There is nobody that's worth a billion dollars, that's wealth hoarding. There is no reason our government should endorse that level of wealth hoarding. It hurts infrastructure, it hurts innovation, it hurts national security, it hurts the press, and it hurts our democracies.

          It's the same rational for why we shouldn't have monopolies and why we have laws against them. Concentration of wealth/power is a very bad thing.

          I genuinely do not believe you can be a good person and make a billion dollars. You have either scammed your customers, scammed your employees, or both. There should be a limit on individual wealth.

    • The problem is you can't just get rid of billionaires. They are just people who made a lot of money by getting really lucky.

      It is also important to note that they do give back there money in many cases as a billion dollars is a huge amount of money. Honestly 10 million dollars is a lot. You can't just make the wealthy successful people go away because you are jealous.

      At the end of they day the richer you are the more unhappy you are. If you basic needs are met you can't become more happy with more money.

      • It's not luck, it's how money works. Money buys you ownership. And there are many things that generate money for the owner. Businesses, stocks, real estate. It's a feedback loop that concentrates wealth like we see today.

        It is also important to note that they do give back there money in many cases

        no they dont

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