This seems to be more about political power and government overreach than money. The narrative seems to be focused solely on concentration of the later, lately.
I expect economical and political power to get along well. You normally acquire both organically; except in some cases, suddently acquiring much of one will buy some of the other.
It's too bad we can't withdraw our votes for a politician continuously, with the politician having to leave office if the vote changes enough.
I'm not sure it can be solved without everybody writing down their vote, but this would be one way that would make pushing through unpopular policies, whether because of changing opinions, mismatches where politicians misrepresent their plans or corruption, much more difficult.
I have had this idea for a long time: An online realtime voting platform, where you can change your mind about policies at any time, and what the people want needs to be implemented. And of course all issues and policies must be put on the platform for people to vote on.
Of course initially we would have to learn, that changing our minds too often will lead to things not getting done at all. And it is doubtful, that a lot of people are even capable of becoming informed and reflecting beings, not to be swayed by a hip populist radical, and thus causing shit to happen. Also the sheer number of issues and policies would be so many, that most people couldn't make up their mind on everything. But that's OK, since people can raise awareness and simply vote later, when they became aware. Another issue would be what the choices are that people have on the platform. How to give all relevant opinions as choices? How to know what is relevant? Or can voters apply for adding a new opinion? But then who grants the right to add a choice? How to prevent spam?
So there certainly are huge issues with the idea. But maybe, over time, we would develop into politically reasonable societies and politicians would have to fear the opinion of the people, because one scandal uncovered, and they could end up kicked out tomorrow. Maybe it could also better designed, so that there is some minimum time between being able to change ones stance about something. Or some maximum of policies one can have an opinion about per day.
Even initially to have such a platform without real political consequences of voting, would be super interesting, because you could lookup what the current opinions of the people are.
> It's too bad we can't withdraw our votes for a politician continuously, with the politician having to leave office if the vote changes enough.
I think that would empower ill-conceived (and/or ill-willed) populist & short term movements, with everyone in constant fear of being "un-vote bombed" by armies of easily led, and likely make the lobbying problem worse.
If not continuously, there needs to be mechanisms to recall a politician (or an entire government), and re-hold elections for both failing to govern and failing to represent the interests of the people over the interest of billionaires.
To use the recent US shutdown as an example. Passing a budget is like one of the basic requirements of governing. If the current government cannot accomplish that, it should immediately dissolve and elections be held. Every single position in power at the time, gone, the whole thing gets re-elected because they have proven that the current group cannot adequately govern.
The ability to recall needs to work similarly. Vote should be able to be initiated by the people at anytime, and a successful vote means the government dissolves and new elections are held.
We could also have a "cooling off" period after a piece of legislation (like chat control) fails. It failed the first time, it should not be able to be immediately reintroduced whether in the same or a different form. There should be some sort of cooling off period where that piece of legislation (or its goals) cannot be reintroduced for x number of years.
These are good ideas, but they do have some pretty big sticking points. The ability to trigger a re-election has the same problems we're trying to avoid in the larger thread: If a bad actor (say a business) wants a politician out, they can just continually issue recall votes until they wear out the population and get lucky. Unfortunately, I think the only solution here is exactly what we have: Politicians have to be re-elected every couple of years.
The cooling off period also has problems, because sometimes a piece of legislation is a good idea, but has a major flaw that causes people to vote against it. What happens when people want a law passed, but not in the form it's presented in?
Re-election every couple of years does not solve the issues, as demonstrated by most elected governments around the world. People are too lazy, uninformed, stupid, to vote for their own good, and will be made to vote against their own interest, time and time again. As societies we are mostly not ready mentally to vote properly. This is in the interest of the people in power. Have stupid and confused subjects, so that you can rally them for whatever cause you need them to rally for.
> Passing a budget is like one of the basic requirements of governing. If the current government cannot accomplish that, it should immediately dissolve and elections be held.
It's important to note that this is a basic principle, almost the basic principle, of English-style parliamentary democracy. You have a monarch who makes decisions (through their chosen government, ever since the English cut off a few heads), and the rest of the Parliament (a bunch of nobles, clergy, and eventually representatives of commoners) is there to withdraw financing from that government when they disapprove.
> We could also have a "cooling off" period after a piece of legislation (like chat control) fails.
We usually do, it is called a "session." The problem is the inability to pass negative legislation (which also has a pretty long history) i.e. we will not do a thing. Deliberative assemblies explicitly frown on negative legislation, and instead say that purpose is served simply by not doing the thing.
The problem is that individual rights are provided by negative legislation against the government: think the US Bill of Rights. Instead, we have systems where exclusively positive legislation is passed by majorities, and repealing that legislation takes supermajorities. The only pragmatic way to create new rights becomes to challenge legislation in courts, and get a decision by opinionated, appointed judges that X piece of legislation is superseded by Y piece of legislation for unconvincing reason Z, and this new "right" is about as stable as the current lineup of the sitting justices.
What we need is to pretend like "democracy" is a meaningful word rather than an empty chant, or more often simply a euphemism for the US, Anglosphere, Western and Central Europe, and whoever they currently approve of. Democracy is rule by the ruled, and the exact processes by which the decisions are made define the degree of democracy. Somehow, elites have decided that process is the least important part of democracy, and the most important part is that elites get their preferred outcomes. Anything else is "populism."*
Decisionmaking processes in "democracies" need to be examined, justified, and codified. The EU needs either to cede a lot more leverage to its individual members (and make that stupid currency a European bancor, rather than a German weapon) OR become more directly responsive to European individuals. If you're not serving the individual states, and you're not serving the individual citizens, you're exclusively serving elites.
But they have ways to evade the law.
And my dystopian inner oracle tells me, that when the pervasive online identification will soon be reality, certain people's IDs will have a special "all access, no logs" status that will allow them stay under the radar.
What happens when you get what you want, and rather than magically solving every problem confronting society, it doesn't solve anything at all, and in fact creates several more problems, as generally happens when such ideas are put into practice?
What's plan B? Lower the threshold to a million dollars?
> as generally happens when such ideas are put into practice
Is this true? Lots of countries with high living standards have high taxes. It doesn't need to solve every problem but it does help solve the problem of one unelected person holding too much power and influence.
> What's plan B? Lower the threshold to a million dollars?
1B = 1000M. I think thats high enough. Don't see why you need to make it 1000x smaller to try and make a point.
It doesn't need to solve every problem but it does help solve the problem of one unelected person holding too much power and influence.
It does? Really?
What are they teaching kids in school these days? According to the books I studied, nominally-egalitarian leaders racked up an eight-digit body count in the 20th century alone.
Not if it gets us a Trump, twice. What has democracy done for us lately?
It appears that democracy just devolves into mindless yet profitable populism, given enough time and technology. Stupid voters are easier for ill-intentioned people to herd, using the modern tools we've built to do just that. Social media has made it possible for the first time to exploit a fatal bug in democracy that we always knew was there. AI will slam the coffin lid shut.
I don't see a way back, personally, but confiscatory taxation of everybody that you think has too much money isn't a way forward. The people being taxed will demand a return on their investment, and now they know how to get it.
The problem isn't the money, the problem is the power.
Taxes are ~irrelevant to billionaires. When you say "you can't be a billionaire" what you're saying is "you cannot own any significant amount of a large business" because billionaires aren't liquid, their status is based on their assets and primarily their shares in large businesses.
I agree that wealth inequality is horrible and taxes on the wealthy should be much higher. But if someone owns 10% of a trillion dollar company, that's $100B in shares. They can sell off 900M$ worth of shares and "not be a billionaire" in terms of income and money (and thus taxation). So what do you do?
- Seize control of their shares and thus their control over private industry
- Or, accept that billionaires exist
This is basically the core fight between capitalism (private ownership of the means of production) and communism (government control of the means of production).
Most people hate the idea of billionaires, but people generally also hate a centrally planned government where the government owns a controlling stake in all businesses preventing any insider from having any real control.
We should be discussing strategies to tackle this. Not just go "oh lets just accept it".
Just how many people have 100B+? Do you see them trying to interfere in governance and elections? Maybe we can have annual wealth taxes. Just like property taxes. There are many ways to tackle this. That's what we should be discussing. Not just giving up. Absurd wealth inequality will cause societal collapse.
> This is basically the core fight between capitalism (private ownership of the means of production) and communism (government control of the means of production).
No it isn't. It's taxation. Does the presence of property taxes and inheritance taxes make the west a communist region? Communism is the govt "owning" a company. Some rich guy selling his shares on the stock market to pay his taxes doesn't mean the govt owns the company.
So, the government steals a percent of private businesses every year? What does the government do with this? Are you suggesting that the government forces business owners to liquidate their own shares to give to the government? So on a long enough time line, no one is allowed to own a business.
> No it isn't. It's taxation. Does the presence of property taxes and inheritance taxes make the west a communist region? Communism is the govt "owning" a company. Some rich guy selling his shares on the stock market to pay his taxes doesn't mean the govt owns the company.
The business is already paying taxes (i.e. property taxes). You're proposing a new tax on top of the existing taxation scheme, an ownership tax that likely requires the owner to reduce their ownership. Imagine if you had to sell 1% of your house every year because "home ownership is unfair". Most middle class folks would never end up owning their home.
Communism is when you're not allowed to own private businesses, and the wealth that is problematic is the ownership of private businesses. Skin this cat however you want, but if you want a skinned cat, the skin has to come off.
Again, I agree that billionaires are bad. I don't think taxation or incentive structures will fix it. I do think that revolution/wars that destroy the oligarchy and reset wealth are the only times in history that the middle and working class truly prosper. It is what it is. In an ideal world, business ownership is broadly spread across employees and wealth and power are shared broadly. But that's not an outcome that is ever achieved without significant force.
> So, the government steals a percent of private businesses every year? What does the government do with this? Are you suggesting that the government forces business owners to liquidate their own shares to give to the government? So on a long enough time line, no one is allowed to own a business.
All tax is theft by that argument. Whether they liquidate or not is up to them. They just need to pay x tax. They aren't selling their stake to the government. They are free to pay the tax from their general annual income or by selling their stocks in the market like they do today every year.
> Imagine if you had to sell 1% of your house every year because "home ownership is unfair". Most middle class folks would never end up owning their home.
How are folks paying property taxes today? They are paying x% of the properties annual value yearly.
> Communism is when you're not allowed to own private businesses, and the wealth that is problematic is the ownership of private businesses. Skin this cat however you want, but if you want a skinned cat, the skin has to come off.
If stock is being sold to pay tax its being sold to someone else in the market not the govt. The govt is not owning the business.
> I do think that revolution/wars that destroy the oligarchy and reset wealth are the only times in history that the middle and working class truly prosper. It is what it is. In an ideal world, business ownership is broadly spread across employees and wealth and power are shared broadly. But that's not an outcome that is ever achieved without significant force.
I agree. But I don't share the sentiment that nothing can be done. None of what I said is radical. Its reality in many european countries. And wealth equality is far less. eg. an annual 1% wealth tax. 1% of 1B is 10M. That's peanuts to them. Heck their stocks appreciate far greater than that yearly.
>Its reality in many european countries. And wealth equality is far less. eg. an annual 1% wealth tax. 1% of 1B is 10M. That's peanuts to them. Heck their stocks appreciate far greater than that yearly.
Ah yes Europe, where businesses are largely uncompetitive globally and the countries are more than ever completely at the mercy of global superpowers. I'll also point out that the most competitive and richest european countries also have the largest wealth inequality, and the european countries pulling down the average are the poorest ones and most irrelevant globally. Their stock market is also considered mediocre and many European prefer to invest in US markets instead.
Just pointing out that "more taxes" isn't some panacea and there's a real cost to competitiveness going this route. If the US went this way, the BRICS nations especially China would eclipse the western world within a generation on the back of more absuive practices, and become the global superpowers easily pushing the west around.
I suppose that's nicer for this generation of citizens, although potentially catastrophic for the generation afterwards. And I don't necessarily envy the geopolitical reality of Europe right now, even if I do envy many of their healthcare systems.
European businesses are uncompetitive because of excess regulation. Not the ultra wealthy having to pay more tax. I'm pointing out they have wealth tax and haven't turned into a communist hellhole. None of the things you complain about whether its Europe refusing to build up their military or its business competitiveness is because of wealth tax. The USA has an annual property tax based on the properties value and isn't a communist nation.
> I'll also point out that the most competitive and richest european countries also have the largest wealth inequality, and the european countries pulling down the average are the poorest ones and most irrelevant globally.
This isn't even true. The US has the same inequality as Russia. Every top EU country is far far lower. Maybe we are communist after all.
Your entire argument is that 900 people out of 350,000,000 people in the US having to pay more tax is going to drive the US into the ground.
>Your entire argument is that 900 people out of 350,000,000 people in the US having to pay more tax is going to drive the US into the ground.
Talk about a low-faith strawman! Let me eviscerate this garbage argument.
The 900 billionaires in America control around $7.8 trillion USD in assets (US yearly GDP is over $30 trillion, for reference)
Let's tax 1% of that yearly, meaning we just gained $78 billion dollars per year! Congrats, with a $7 trillion yearly federal budget, your +$78 billion covers about 1% of federal spending.
Pack it up boys, we completely solved wealth inequality and will be a glorious european nation with our $78 billion dollars! If we applied that to nationalized healthcare (estimated cost $3 trillion per year) we just paid for 2% of the healthcare system!
Or maybe we just redistribute that $78 billion. That's $588 dollars per US household per year. Problem = solved.
> Let's tax 1% of that yearly, meaning we just gained $78 billion dollars per year! Congrats, with a $7 trillion yearly federal budget, your +$78 billion covers about 1% of federal spending.
Excellent point. I'm glad you see how much of a pittance 1% annually is. Though I've made the same point before(remember I said 1% of 1B is just 10M, thats a joke for billionaires). Increase the % as you wish. 1% does nothing for inequality given stock gains are far higher yearly.
My whole point is that its a problem that needs to be solved. How we can solve it is a great thing to discuss. Your entire argument so far is that it can't be solved. Which I don't agree with.
And for some reason you just ignore some points. eg. property taxes: "in 2023, approximately $363 billion in property taxes was collected on single-family homes across the United States. Property taxes generally account for about 10-11% of total U.S. tax revenue.". You said "Most middle class folks would never end up owning their home.". Turns out thats not true.
Tax the billionaires. You seem to think the current trend is bad as well. You just happen to think my suggestions to fix it is bad. That's fine. But I think its a better constructive use of your time trying to think of better ideas than give up.
1% is your number. Feel free to tell me the magical wealth tax % that fixes all income inequality and maintains strong ability to own private businesses. This is your argument and it's lazy to tell me to do your work for you.
>My whole point is that its a problem that needs to be solved. How we can solve it is a great thing to discuss. Your entire argument so far is that it can't be solved. Which I don't agree with.
Yes, I think that your wealth tax cannot solve the problem unless it tips away from capitalism towards socialism, e.g. destroy billionaires ability to have control over private industry and broaden the base of ownership or make it public. Maybe you have a magical % wealth tax that fixes everything, I'll wait for your thesis.
>And for some reason you just ignore some points. eg. property taxes: "in 2023, approximately $363 billion in property taxes was collected on single-family homes across the United States. Property taxes generally account for about 10-11% of total U.S. tax revenue.". You said "Most middle class folks would never end up owning their home.". Turns out thats not true.
This is not a place to have expansive multi-point debates. I'm not ignoring anything, I'm having targeted discussions on major points. Again, property taxes are NOT universal in the US and are largely balanced by income taxes. States with high property taxes generally have low/no income taxes and vice versa. And yes, property taxes have had a strong effect in lowering home ownership. In China, over 70% of millenials own a home (no property taxes). In America, less than half of millenials own homes (high property taxes).
Another point I neglected to reply to because these replies get way too long: European regulation is bad on businesses because corrupt billionaires aren't in place to stop it. Can't you see that regulation and private power go hand in hand? A government strong enough to force billionaires to not get richer and instead spread the wealth is a government strong enough to regulate the heck out of businesses. Given power, it will be used.
>Tax the billionaires. You seem to think the current trend is bad as well. You just happen to think my suggestions to fix it is bad. That's fine. But I think its a better constructive use of your time trying to think of better ideas than give up.
We do tax billionaires and the wealthy! The top 1% of Americans pay 25% of all revenue. The bottom 50% pay roughly 3% of all revenue.
Please forward your taxation thesis that 1) solves wealth inequality 2) preserves the ability to own large businesses. And no, forcing a business owner to sell their shares to retail investors and hedge funds does not preserve business ownership, it guarantees that citizens will eventually be forced out of their own businesses that they start.
My thesis is simple: Skin the cat. Blow up their ownership. Prevent them from owning large businesses. Use the power of government to jail them and disappear them until they bow before a government of the people. Or accept the system for what it is. But half measures? Fiddling with minor taxation numbers? Get real, that's controlled opposition that prolongs their reign.
Also how do you avoid billionaires worldwide? Not everyone lives under your government. Even if you could, how do you know for a fact that some people don't secretly control hidden assets? Is Xi openly a billionaire? China is a "communist" country on paper. How does he hold so much power?
The sad reality is that the world has a nonzero percentage of power-hungry narcissists. We need governments that are more democratic and robust. We all know that the current government processes are broken and corrupted.
