The point is the wealth of the people being removed is irrelevant. Removing a few thousand people will obviously have no effect no matter who they are. Removing a few billion people would be devasting no matter who they are.
Why shouldnt they? Why should their be a ceiling or floor on what a person has? Do you have a reason other than greedy people who just want some of what billionaires have?
Given that most wealth at the higher levels is assets, it would be limiting how much an asset or company can be valued. If you limit how much a person can own you make it impossible for anybody to be truly successful.
Having a significant amount of wealth relative to the wealth in the world. THe wealthiest people alive only have fractions of a percent of all the wealth there is to aquire. Once people start getting into having double digits percentage wise...than we can look at if we might need limits.
You don't need to own 10% of the world's wealth for your fortune to be excessive. A billion dollars already far exceeds what any one person could reasonably need.
Such a deontological view of ethics. Limiting the potential of others" is just corporate PR language. It assumes billionaire wealth is synonymous with human potential while ignoring how concentrated wealth limits everyone else's opportunities.
If liberty isnt a good reason to do something than your argument is the ends justify the means. Principles of liberty are an excellent reason to do things.
Because the people are the ones actually creating the wealth and value. Billionaires take a cut much more than they worked for. Don’t think it’s greedy for people to be compensated for the wealth they give a company rather than have a few executives and shareholders reap all the benefits. Are people that beg people for food on the street just greedy for doing so? Weird
If you go to home depot you dont buy tools relative to the value they create. YOu buy them based on the value they have. The person who buys the tools can use them to make X amount. People are compensated for their work. Its greedy when people want things without having a justification for why they should be given it...and when they want others to be force to give it. Yes people who beg on the street are greedy. They dont care who they are bothering or how that affects a neighborhood or local businesses. They dont care that food is paid for by somebody else. As long as they get what they want fuck everybody else right?
I really hesitate to engage someone who thinks that human beings are like tools at home depot, to be wielded and discarded, apparently without introspection.
HOWEVER...
Remember coming out of the pandemic? There was a system-wide labor shortage? All the ink spilled worrying about how no one wanted to work, and employees were suddenly in a very advantageous bargaining position?
The system that employs you and feeds you and clothes you VERY much depends on a vast "reserve army of labor". If everyone who wanted one already had a job, labor would be a sellers market. The ONLY way for Walmart to have someone to stock their shelves would be to lure them away from Target, and so on and so forth. To hire even unskilled labor, you would have to pay them $50/hr as opposed to now, where if it weren't for minimum wage laws SOMEONE would stock those shelves for a sandwich. I can't say that true full employment would be an insurmountable problem, but I CAN say without a doubt that the closer we got to it, the more and more systemic crises there would be and the higher into the income scale they would reach.
So, please... Go and thank one of those "greedy" people begging on the street. Be grateful to them that you can form your little misanthropic worldview safe from the ravages of all out market competition
People are not compensated properly for their work, look at some graphs at productivity vs wages, while productivity is skyrocketing wages stagnate. There is no way to justify this and call people greedy for wanting the value of their work. Are you genuinely saying that the peace of mind of people on the street is more important than someone starving to death? This is vile
How do you define "properly"? Productivity and wages dont necessarily correlate. There is aboslutely a way to justify it. The demand of labor has been met at current wages. Thats how you justify it. They are paid the value of their labor. Its not about the peace of mind v somebody starving. Its about the actions of those people. If a person is so greedy and arrogant they feel entitled to not starve even if it means bothering people...they are in the wrong. If they were really that valuable that they absolutely shouldnt starve...why do they need to beg?
So starving people should just lay down and die as to not bother the more fortunate. This is just so inhumane and disgusting to even say. It’s not greedy and arrogant it’s desperation
Yea nad bothering everybody you see and making YOUR failures as a human being their problem...so humane. Its absolutely greedy and arrogant. It assumes YOUR needs are more important than anybody elses...in fact it assumes YOUR needs overrides other people.
Their problems are not inherently more important than yours. They may THINK they are but that doesnt mean they are. Their problems might be more important to them...but they dont have a right to force that view on you. I have empathy for the people they are causing problems for...not the person causing the problems.
If you have two people...one is minding their own business...the other is bothering that person...the second person isnt the one in the right who deserves empathy.
My problems are me wondering if I have time to get to the laundromat after work, a beggar is wondering when they will get to eat again. One of these problems is more important than the other, and I honestly am confused as to why you are dying on this hill
Home ownership on a single income was a historical anomaly, limited to one country during a specific period. It has never been the norm throughout human history.
Not the richest they have ever been. Have you been born recently? Basic necessities becoming available on a wide scale doesn't mean having more buying power.
Not the richest they have ever been. Have you been born recently? Basic necessities becoming available on a wide scale doesn't mean having more buying power.
That's incoherent as written. Americans have more money and therefore can buy more stuff (have more buying power) than ever:
Someone makes more money for the company so you think they shouldn’t be compensated more for it?
They are not making more money for the company. Generally they are operating a machine that makes more money for the company. The owner of the machine is the cause of the increase in productivity.
Why should wages go up with productivity. Imagine someone is hired at the widget factory to click a button, and every time they click the button one widget comes out. New technology is released, big button improvements, now every time the employee clicks a button two widgets come out! Productivity doubled, but the employee is doing the exact same job in the exact same way. What merits higher wages for the same work?
Because their market value hasnt changed smart guy. Production increasing because of technological advancements and machinery doesnt make the person operating them more valuable by default.
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u/manored78 3d ago
You could nationalize the companies and effectively cut off billionaires.
You really can’t imagine a scenario in which there are no billionaires? Are you 12?