Note this is not a sudden development; Mr. Ma has been in Tokyo for more than six months, and has done successful business in Japan for over twenty years.
This is actually an interesting article, one of few that with credibility paints recent global history with a broad brush, as a pendulum swinging between laissez faire economic policies and a more restrictive, protectionist state. The former characterized by massive accumulation of private wealth and economic inequalities and the latter by rise of nationalism, protectionism and state power. The article implies that these policy changes are not tendencies that play out in isolation within countries, but are global long waves of history, and even offers some explanations as to why the globe might transition from one to the other.
The reasons offered might not be fully satisfactory, but I find this to be a better perspective than the explanations that try to pin the cause of such massive changes in policy on individual people and their personalities, be they Jiang Zemin, Margaret Thatcher, Donald Trump etc. Until we figure out how to stabilize these fluctuations then they, and we, and Jack Ma too, are just riding these long waves, trying to navigate the opportunities and/or disadvantages that each phase offers.
Nobody special. As a semiretired programmer I have some spare time that I seem to spend on HN to a large degree. I like the dispassionate discourse across divides that this forum sometimes (often?) enables.
Seriously, is this necessary in an article about Jack Ma? "The growing wealth gap gave rise to populism in forms such as Britain's exit from the European Union"? It so oversimplified it hurts my brain.
Same about the rest of the article. It is so typical for the international "business magazines" to characterise Jiang Zemin's rule through the lens of "neo liberalism", "opening up" etc. This is all bull**. Liberalism (neo or otherwise) requires liberty, while Jiang has built one of China's biggest oppressive aparatus in a form of his "office 610". Its idea was to persecute Falun Hong practitioners, but horrible as it is, it was only a cover story for his personal gestapo. It killed and jailed extrajudicially millions. Let's not forget his rise in the previous leader's eyes was thanks to his "hard line stance" towards the Tiananmen massacre.
Jiang Zemin didn't open up China. He just allowed selected foreigners to get rich too. Just look at all those "billionaires" that appeared during "his era". They are all tied to him or his faction (there was no other way to succeed at a time). This is precisely why they are all distrusted by the current ruling faction. There has been antagonism between the Jiang and the Xi factions for a long time.
The only thing Jiang was objectively better at was in projecting China's image abroad.
Falun Hong is a genuine cult. In the US they've become extremely intertwined with the far right (they run the Epoch Times which promotes antivax and other Trumpist stuff and is somehow EVERYWHERE in SoCal)
Also Jack Ma is no saint. He's pushed for the 996 hour system (9am-9pm, 6 days a week) which is illegal under Chinese labor law. Most of his grips with the Chinese government has nothing to do with "liberty". Unless you consider being able to exploit already disempowered workers a "right"
Can we stop trying to make this such a black/white issue? The fact that someone hates China doesn't make them somehow worthy of praise
Xi Jinping has reversed all the main features of Deng Xiaoping’s policies. Chasing away your biggest wealth creator, biggest movie star, tennis player etc is a great way to hurt the future prospects of your country.
For every Jack Ma who’s left, there are a thousand lesser known entrepreneurs who’ve shipped out, and a hundred thousand folks who’ve moved their money out/sent their kids abroad.
It’s not a twilight of neoliberalism. It’s the twilight of China’s rise.
I’m imagining that anybody from the Chinese diaspora is reading your comment and shaking their head, for as they still believe in the great power and potential of China.
It’s really hard to break the cult of nationalism. I’m often wondering how one can do that, besides showcasing the freedom of expression that people can have in the west.
No one argues the potential. But an inept regime is very capable of wasting a country's potential for decades. An economy controlled by a political party and where all decisions are made based on corruption or political connections is going to make bad business decisions.
It doesn't matter how good is Xi at running an economy, no one can, not even McKinsey. What makes capitalism successful is millions of initiatives, most of which random, which are tested against the market, the good ideas succeed and take over the bad ones, and in the long run you get extraordinary results. Centralisation always loses.
Good thing he doesn't micromanage the economy then. PRC private sector responsible for 60% of gdp, 70% of innovation, 80% of urban employment and 90% of new jobs. CCP+SEOs does some direction, but most of PRC run on market forces, while (IMO) top down / centralized priorities are more competently directed than inept, seeing as PRC is rapidly closing gap in myriad of industries, so much so that others are centralizing and restarting industrial policies in response to PRC moving up value chain. At least US sees enough PRC potential to rationalize massive unilateral tech sanctions because centralization was winning. See similar response when US had to slap JP semi when their centralized approach worked too well. Reality is, for strategic sectors with high moats, centralization always wins because you can't rely on private sector and capitalism to maintain market lead when the board would rather do stock buy backs. And sometimes centralization requires solid dose of corruption and political connection to align resources with strategic goals that private sector is not capable of tackling.
How does corruption and political connection align resources with strategic goals? My first thought was that it would make alignment worse since each agent is optimising for person gain, not for national gain.
See Yuen Yuen Ang's model that unbundle corruption, TLDR is PRC bureaucrats are mostly involved in "access money", i.e. elite "exchanges" to get things done (basically lobbying in the west). When aligned with CCP bureaucrats incentivized to hit performance KPIs according to development goals, whereby getting shit done increase access to to greater tiers of corruption / personal gain, it forms a system where corruption is aligned with competency and state interests. CCP officials have to be very good at getting shit done to get promoted to get access to the big graft bux. They want to do well in their tier3 city postings where they can graft thousands and be promoted to tier1 city where they can graft millions. That frequently involves patronage networks with other competent performers.
Years ago this was also noted by Yukon Huang, former World Bank director for China, Russia, and Former Soviet Union Republics, where he observed that PRC is the only country where increased corruption is correlated to increased growth - a paradox according to classical development theories. Essentially everywhere else corruption leads to inefficient allocation because corruption always almost not aligned with state interest. There elite are more just strait up involved in "grand" theft because the system is not aligned to make corruption contingent on realizing state goals. Of course at some point the corruption becomes so much that it affects social fabric, hence Xi's anti corruption drive that some think may have gone over board with respect to development because wheels stopped being greased due to fear/paralysis, no one want to do anythign for little reward or worse.
As a part of the diaspora, I agree with nitin-pai. Xi has all but destroyed China’s rise by killing Deng’s vision for China.
Besides, if you believe so much in the mainland and CCP, why did you leave?
In my opinion, if the mainland was a democracy, it would have probably overtaken the US by now in almost metric other than the military. Shenzhen would have also left Silicon Valley in the dust a long time ago. It’s too bad.
> I’m often wondering how one can do that, besides showcasing the freedom of expression that people can have in the west.
That only works for people who give a damn about freedom of expression. Can you imagine what it'd be like if almost every conversation you had were linked to money somehow?
From the party's view, although e-commerce helped in driving down consumer prices despite sky-high inequality and property speculation (much to the party's plan and advantage), he should remain manageble and of use.
The principle is simple for any entity (and a wild west capitalism stint too), when the party need you, you give them your best, and when they don't, according to their grand plan, you must sacrifice without a word.
Nothing is more important than the safety of the party and the ruling class.
> The principle is simple for any entity (and a wild west capitalism stint too), when the party need you, you give them your best, and when they don't, according to their grand plan, you must sacrifice without a word.
You seem to be pretty happy on ignoring all Ma's very dodgy dealings.
Reality demonstrates otherwise. Slapping speculative billionaries and tax evading actors is a great way to improve prospects of country. Deng: let some people get rich. Many did, excessively so. Under Hu, his policies ran it's course, the next step was always to reign the extravagantly rich in. Breaking softwares hold on monopolizing talent to shave seconds of food delivery and tech workforce has now been reoriented towards strategic hardware, sectors that's seen huge growth in employment and wages post soft tech crackdown. Capital controls slowed enormous capital flight, while PRC has been consistently moving up value chain (even during zero covid), with waves of sea turtles abroad flooding back, including record amount from academia now that PRC is flush with resources and opportunities. There's reason US (and TW) literally has to sanction their workforce from working in Chinese semi, while hammering their industrial policies. Meanwhile PRC kids being sent abroad are mostly those too dumb to make it in Gaokao, this isn't the 70-00s where state was sending out top talent to learn abroad, now PRC is not sending their best anymore. See how PRC rapidly climbing science and innovation indexes (controlled for quality) in last few years. All of which doesn't factoring in the fundemental human capita math that PRC is now generating so much high skilled talent (~OECD combined) paired with mature industrial base, that brain drain no longer meaningfully impedes her rise. And last I checked PRC is still generating plenty of media and winning tons of the medals in the last few olympics. Believe it or not, most Chinese are fine pursuing the dream of being an apolitical millionaire with an escape plan abroad just incase their kids are too dumb to compete in pressure cooker PRC society.
Last party congress the CCP had a problem. There wasn't enough place within the walls of the forbidden city ... for all the VERY expensive cars (>120k USD) the politicians arrived in.
These people, presumably the main decision makers, you say are going to chose against their own wealth over a very long period of time just because that would be the better thing to do for their children and grandchildren? Just because the party policy no longer wants them to have luxury cars from moment X?
I find it very hard to believe the CCP will make better choices than any western democracy. Oh, and by any indication the cars are still there.
Article doesn't mention party congress at all. Last party congress was 2022, before that was 2017. Your article from Jan 2012 is almost year before Xi entered office and his anti corruption drive that dramatically reduced public displays of extravagance, which is not "very expensive" 100k-300k luxury cars. Chinese sentiment circa 2012 was generally fine with top 100s officials and their rich spawn driving nice cars, let alone Audi A6s. Because ultimately that was peanuts to the stupid extravagance like banquets officials were flaunting that cost more than said cars.
The actual article covers post Gansu bus crash negative sentiment that resulted in school bus safety reforms. Some kids died, people whined, it was loud enough, reforms happened. It also touches on low-mid level bureaucrats and their beyond salary nice cars, many of which are not still there after 2M+ anti corruption cases by CCDI. In fact, article highlights why someone like Xi was selected to rule, and why he hammered anti corruption so hard. Again, low-mid level bureaucrats driving Benz =/= hundreds of standing/presidum of NPC or central congress members, aka literally the creme de la creme of most powerful politicians / wealthy industrialists in PRC being able to afford nice cars. It would be wierd if they couldn't.
> against their own wealth over a very long period
If they get purged by CCDI where does that leave their children / grand children? Hence sitting on their piles of gains quietly with escape plan abroad. If anything anti-corruption has been too effective because historically corruption facilitated getting things done fast and there are signs of paralysis down the bureaucracy chain due to caution. Or recent analysis trying to hammer Xi for increasing income inequality, but actual data shows top 1% share of wealth relatively stagnant and most grown among burgeoning middle class. Ultimately, it's easy for 1% to go against accumulating more excessive wealth. for very long period of time, if it means holding on to what they have while avoiding the guillotine, especially if they can still enjoy their nice cars in moderation. Behaving is path of least resistence vs even running abroad where PRC long arm can still harass while capital controls makes it impossible to take out all wealth. Jack Ma can chill in JP, but most of his money is still trapped in PRC, by design.
> find it very hard to believe the CCP will make better choices than any western democracy
Not in every domain but but certainly some/many - again western democracies are trying hard to imitate CCP industrial policy - previously dirty neolib word - to maintain competitiveness. All while top western politicians are driving their own fancy cars. State department wouldn't label PRC as "only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge" US if PRC leadership wasn't in aggregate, making better choices over past decades.
Taiwanese local elections from 2022 [1] are an indications that there won't be any need for a full-scale Chinese invasion. China is patient and they'll keep on influencing politicians and citizens of Taiwan until they acquiesce to Chinese rule. America's hegemony is on its last legs and being a massive thorn in China's side will not that advantageous anymore to Taiwan. The odds are pretty high that Taiwan will avoid the faith of becoming another Ukraine.
That's complete nonsense, every poll over the past 30 years has shown a constantly increasing number of Taiwanese don't want to be part of China. China's behaviour in Hong Kong will only likely strengthen that view.
You should look at the source for that chart. Not sure why grid.news decided to do this, but the original chart[0] actually has 7 categories. grid.news left some of those out and (combined?) some others? Anyways I think the full data tells a pretty different story...
There does seem to be recent (~2018) in support for independence. But the interesting thing is there was actually a shift towards more support for unification right before that. It's also probably important to take into account the methodology[1] and the low sample sizes corresponding with the largest shifts
The lack of support for "Full Independence" rather than the Status Quo of effective independence they have now is usually explained by people not choosing a policy that provokes China into attack.
That’s exactly it. There’s interviews with the the president saying effectively that. A reporter tried to get her to say it on record, and she effectively said there’s no need. They de facto independence. No need to provoke an attack
I don't know what you're trying to imply with that link. The vast majority of Taiwanese don't want to be part of China.
One politician's failed attempt at using fear-mongering about imminent Chinese to get elected does not imply the Taiwanese want to become part of China.
We can all see what happened in Ukraine. The country is well on the way to being a smoking crater, they barely have a power grid, they've lost 10% of their land and something like 20% of their population have become refugees. We have yet to see the ramifications of pouring weapons into the 2nd most corrupt country in Europe but it is unlikely to be pretty either. Their economy is probably an ex-economy. If things go really wrong it is plausible that they will get nuked.
Compare that Hong Kong, where life sucks but, end of the day, it isn't a war zone. Not as civilised as it once was, but still a respectable city.
At the end of the day, there are some very difficult decisions to be made by Taiwan. Integration into China is an option that they will at least have to consider. It is a terrible option. It may be the best option they have. In their shoes, I'd be wargaming ditching the US and negotiating some sort of protectorate deal with China. Probably thinking very hard about trying to be grandfathered in as some sort of neutral Switzerland. War is still just as horrific as it ever was and being at war with the world's most industrial superpower is a very bad plan A.
I agree we should be supporting whatever it is the actual people of these countries want. Online discourses about what other countries should do drive me nuts
If we had let the people decide in Ukraine, we probably wouldn't be at war now. Zelenskyy ran on and was largely elected because of a platform of making peace. And he kept his word once elected and negotiated a peace deal with Putin. It was the US and NATO that stepped in to break that apart when it was just about to be signed.
The people of Ukraine clearly supported peace and we should have respected the people's will
All 'peace' with Russia temporary they will only use it to rebuild there forces and attack again.
Why should anyone believe a word from a Russian peace agreement is actually going to be honoured?. They already previously promised to respect Ukraines sovereignty and to never invade it but they went ahead and did it anyway.
Russia is not a good faith actor, and you cannot treat it as one.
I generally agree, but they've been extremely clear that this is about NATO expansion. And NATO has actually made multiple promises to NOT expand to the point of Russia's border but has made those exact expansions 3 times in the past decades. Everything Russia's done has pretty much been a direct response to this. The primary ask of the peace deal was basically just that Ukraine doesn't join NATO (something which at the time was unpopular anyways). Add to that that Joe Biden (who was the head of the US's Russia's strategy under Obama) has been pretty explicit about everything since 2014. Their primary goal is to weaken Russia. That's exactly what this proxy war is and exactly why we keep sending so much "aid". That's also why in September 66 countries representing most of the world's population asked "all sides" to resume peace talks. They didn't just mean Russia and Ukraine...
Americans need to own up to their role in this (no, I'm not a Russia apologist)
> but they've been extremely clear that this is about NATO expansion
So? it doesn't matter what Russia thinks, Ukraine is a sovereign country that can join NATO if it wants, just like other former Warsaw pact countries they all probably have a very good reason.
> And NATO has actually made multiple promises to NOT expand to the point of Russia's border but has made those exact expansions 3 times in the past decades.
This is actually false, NATO has never made this promise, there is time just after the fall of the Soviet Union that people claim this was made but the person who was there at the time disagrees, you can read about that here.
> Everything Russia's done has pretty much been a direct response to this.
I agree thats it's very likely that everything Russia has done has to do with either perceived slights (that dont actually exist) or imperialism.
> The primary ask of the peace deal was basically just that Ukraine doesn't join NATO
The reason Russia doesn't want Ukraine joining NATO is so that they can try this again in the future, Ukraine needs solid military alliances (even if not NATO) that mandate boots on the ground.
> That's exactly what this proxy war is and exactly why we keep sending so much "aid"
Our "aid" actually stops Ukrainians being killed and tortured, but if your all for letting Ukraine been steam rolled and genocided by Russia you wouldn't want any "aid" sent I guess.
> Americans need to own up to their role in this (no, I'm not a Russia apologist)
I'll take your word for it but every single sentence so far has been pretty much straight pro Russian so don't be surprised if I find it not believable.
If your not a Russian apologist I take it you want Russia to leave Ukraine (including Crimea) and for war crimes proceedings to begin against the Russians who are committing war crimes in Ukraine?.
> And he kept his word once elected and negotiated a peace deal with Putin. It was the US and NATO that stepped in to break that apart when it was just about to be signed.
This is nonsense. Zelenskyy is on record saying the opposite and blaming Putin for not accepting the peace offering and also it’s obvious Putin started the war. Nobody else did
That isn't really a path, that is a destination - how do you want them to keep their independence? Because if the plan is to sit on China's border as a staunch, militarily aligned US ally that is a plan with some very obvious risks - especially in light of what happened to Ukraine.
In fact, the only way that ends well for Taiwan is if China experiences some sort of collapse. Possible, but not really a good strategy.
On the contrary, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has strengthened America's hegemony massively by showing the world how weak Russia is and how good the US's military and intelligence are.
"Taiwan will avoid the faith of becoming another Ukraine."
> On the contrary, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has strengthened America's hegemony massively by showing the world how weak Russia is and how good the US's military and intelligence are.
Just checked my calendar again, it is 2022, not 1992. The US has a single challenger in this entire world, it is China. How strong/weak is Russia is irrelevant.
Russia likes to think it was a challenger to the US, and the US thought it was also until now. It took Russia's abysmal showing in the Ukraine invasion to show the world just how irrelevant Russia really is.
KMT simply have a better ground game when it comes to local elections. After 40 years of single-party rule, they are still the Good Ol’ Boys of local politics. People care more about DPP’s policies nationally. The electorate still overwhelmingly reject unification.
> military budget is greater than the sum total of all their neighbors is because of what
Because PRC has greater population and GDP than rest of region combined, of which she spends less than 2% on defense, less than most of her neighbours, less than what America wants NATO allies to spend on, and now less than JPs revised budget. All in all, too modest.
Same question, why the US has to spend 800 billion $ a year? worried about an invasion by Mexico?
That military budget got criticized by many Chinese. With a comparable GDP to the US, the CCP constantly refuses to further increase its military spending. As a result of such policy failure, its defense budget is just about 20% of the US one.
The question stands, irrespective of what legacy or current dysfunction the US is suffering from. And Taiwan Invasion is the logical answer.
There is really no other reason. Just look at US struggling to even raise a single Division of troops in Europe to support Ukraine. If they cant do it in Europe, there is no way they are a serious threat as far away as Taiwan.
If it was true that this still was the CCP’s main strategy for Taiwan, it would have been a relief. This was the policy before Xi’s ascension. Unfortunately, Xi isn’t very bright or as patient as his predecessors.
Jack Ma's upset that the Chinese government won't let him require 72 hour work weeks. Say what you want about the government, but I don't think any common person in China is gonna miss this asshole
If he depends on others inside the PRC to enact his decisions he will expose them to risk the more their financial decisions collide with state strategic policy objectives.
Article repeats the myth that neoliberalism in the US started with Reagan. It actually really got going with Carter, although Reagan certainly accelerated the process.
It's often negatively associated with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher but if you squint your eyes you will notice it's the economic principles followed by every North American and Western European country since the end of the 19th century.
Since the 1990s the term has been consistently used in academia to imply the move from welfare state to laissez faire economic management, particularly associated with the promotion of free market ideals in the late 1980s by Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US.
> Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War.
Are you perhaps American...? In America, you use the word "liberalism" to mean "left-of-centre", while in the rest of the world the word "liberalism" refers to a specific centrist political ideology.
Neoliberalism—at its core—is a term that comes from social science academia and refers to the post-WW2 trend of liberal ideological policies replacing e.g. traditional social democratic policies around the world.
Related terms: free-market capitalism, Washington Consensus, Third Way.
It's global liberalism, selling natural monopolies to private entities and letting monopolies/oligopolies squeeze the market and use their position to capture other market.
I went to a ski resort near Tokyo lately and more than half the time I could hear Chinese being spoken. No idea if this due to Xi's insane policies, or just the usual large number of Chinese immigrants in JP.
I don't think they have very good quality snow there and very low altitude resorts due to not having very large mountain ranges, if they do have good snow, I'm sure Chinese go there too.
Add up tourists from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and you'll see that they make up half of the people visiting Japan.
As for why, I can speculate: These places are geographically close to Japan, so you're looking at under 5 hours of flying instead of 10 to 20 hours from Europe and North America. Japan is a safe country to travel around, unlike much of the world. Although the per-capita visitation rate from China is much lower than Taiwan and HK, having some middle-class people in a population of a billion means that some will afford to and choose to visit Japan.
This comment is like asking if an American went to a wildly popular tourist attraction in Mexico, and attributing hearing English to Biden or Trump's policies and not bothering to check plane ticket prices from North America.
I’m not sure if cheering an oppressive billionaire who got rich off being a borderline slave driver is a thing to do. A man who has more wealth than he could spend in a thousand lifetimes expects people to work 12 hours a day, six days a week to barely make a living so they can provide a more extravagant lifestyle for himself.
For all the bad things happening in China, attempting to crack down on a borderline comic book villain and spread a little of his wealth isn’t one of the things I can criticize them for.
The man is a product of his country. If you'd like to show me where Chinese workers make as much as they made working for Jack Ma, and for shorter hours, I'd be interested to see it. It doesn't exist.
The government in China, while marginalizing figures like Ma, have done nothing but encourage the status quo. At least Ma challenged it.
If the CCP had not liberalized 30-ish years ago, sure, we'd have no Jack Ma. But we'd have no modern China either, would we?
Clearly, we have a long way to go towards life being livable in a place like China for the average person.
Jack Ma could have 10% of his wealth and that much more could be in the pockets of his workers, and he’d still be one of the richest men ever on earth.
Plus, knowing people who’ve done 996 in China, they were basically sitting in an office with their brains being numbed by pretending to look busy so they could feed the ego of some insanely rich guy who’d use their hours of life wasted as a talking point for international speeches in which he praises himself.
Jack Ma didn’t build China. He’s been out of the country for apparently a long time but things are still trucking along there. So it seems like things would also be fine if he gave a little more back and gave employees an extra hour a day of their life back.
And he’s not really a product of his country. Every single country has insanely wealthy people who accumulate their wealth by exploiting those under them. This guy just packed his bags and cowardly ran when the government said it’s time for him to pay something back.
I’m not sure if cheering an oppressive billionaire who got rich off being a borderline slave driver is a thing to do. A man who has more wealth than he could spend in a thousand lifetimes expects people to work 12 hours a day, six days a week to barely make a living so they can provide a more extravagant lifestyle for himself.
It's probably isn't actually helping him to be a slavedriver. It's unlikely you're getting your money worth making people work 12 hours six days a week.
Stronger labor laws will likely increase wealth generation and create a more powerful economic engine.
For all the bad things happening in China, attempting to crack down on a borderline comic book villain and spread a little of his wealth isn’t one of the things I can criticize them for.
Just because he's getting cracked down doesn't mean that the CCP is a good guy either. To me, it looked more like a consolidation of power, likely making inequality worse not better.
Just check taobao, there are hundreds of millions faked or dodgy products openly being sold. Ma obviously doesn't have any sense of social responsibility for letting this to happen.
Let's don't even bother to start on the dodgy strategies from Ma's AliPay.
US GDP is about $75/hour per hour of labor. This means every billion dollars of wealth a single person has is over 6600 years of full time labor stolen from actual productive people.
So, money is equal to stolen time in you view. So if I work and get paid I am a thief. It makes little sense. When I get paid I can use this money to buy someone else labor. It is a medium of exchange and it is indicator of value that I generate. In the free market place, by default, you must generate or promise to generate value to get paid.
The point is no one becomes a billionaire from honest labor but by become a parasitic hedge fund manager or by stealing the labor from the employees of the company they own shares in, like Bezos does. to get to Bezos and Musks net worth in 20 years you need to be "producing" more like $3 million/hour. No single human is that productive and the only way to do this is by being parasitic.
Sad how you and I are getting down voted for telling harsh truths. Renting inherited property is the text book example of unproductive "rent seeking" behavior.
$75/hour of GDP is _average_. Per-person GDP follows power law, which means that given the average, _lots_ of people also produce $0.75/hour of GDP or less, and quite a lot of people produce $7500/hour.
Except to get to Bezos and Musks net worth in 20 years you need to be "producing" more like $3 million/hour. No single human is that productive and the only way to do this is by being parasitic.
If you wrote a program in one week that saved some company multiple millions of dollars per year in expenses, and you get 1% of that saving—did you steal that money? Were you being parasitic on that company? Were you not deserving of that money because it only took you one week, and you didn’t even break a sweat? Should you not have written that program? I don’t think so. I think those people were happy to pay you that money to save even more money.
I imagine that making a system that enables a billion people almost overnight delivery for most of consumer goods produced on the plant at low cost—might easily increase GDP by much more than 3 million dollars per hour.
Bezos and Musk are so rich because they own many shares of their companies. Those shares are valuable because of the labor of hundreds of thousands of people. It is these people the hundreds of billions of equity should flow to. Bezos and Musk aren't much different to feudal lords taking from their serfs.
Their “serfs” are free to go though, that’s a big difference. Also feudal lords own land which is in limited supply, but Bezos and Musk own equity which is in unlimited supply, that’s a second big difference.
Sorry, but I see it as just plain old “if a woman is beautiful, anyone who enjoys her beauty is entitled to sharing bed with her”. “If a business is successful, anyone who enjoys receiving salary from it, is also entitled to its shares”. No and no?
People give and receive what they had mutually agreed to give and receive without coercion.
Also I hope that you’re personally not a hypocrite, you will start a business and split shares among employees, and show the world how it is actually better for you, the business, and, most importantly, your employees.
"If a business is successful, anyone who enjoys receiving salary from it, is also entitled to its shares"
Actually I think this IS a possible solution. For every dollar of wages an employee gets they should also receive a dollar of equity.
"People give and receive what they had mutually agreed to give and receive without coercion."
We see how rabidly Starbucks, Amazon, and Musk fight Unions. They do this because they know exactly how much harder it is to exploit workers who are unionized.
"you will start a business and split shares among employees,"
I would feel like a complete piece of shit if I got as rich as Musk or Bezos off the backs of my employees like they did.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/12/14/business/jack-m...
Note this is not a sudden development; Mr. Ma has been in Tokyo for more than six months, and has done successful business in Japan for over twenty years.