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Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

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Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#231

Post by emcq »

ohyes wrote: post #124
_m8fo wrote: post #84

Everytime I see these types of articles I wonder if we're still in feudalism. Should we really be celebrating that a single individual is worth more than hundreds of millions of people[1]? I dunno, it seems dystopian , like we're enslaved to the system. [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...

Okay, but think of it this way. Bill Gates is worth 90 Billion, sure fine. What is the entire United States worth? GDP is 18 Trillion, expenditures are 4 trillion. So if you do something (admittedly kind of dumb), like take the GDP, subtract expenditures, let's pretend the earnings are 14 trillion? Valuing the US at 10x earnings, that would put it at a valuation of 140 trillion dollars. This is horribly incorrect, bu…

There are 540 billionaires in the US. The top 400 combined are worth 2.4 trillion. That's a remarkable portion of the economy.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#232

Post by appleflaxen »

habosa wrote: post #143
mjfl wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a little hyperbolic. In feudalism the balance of power is enforced by violence, whereas Jeff Bezos got rich because you gave him money in exchange for products. Like, "Hey, here's this cool electronic device called the Amazon Echo for $50." is a markedly different from "Farm here or I'll decapitate you." The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terr…

This reminds me of Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain example, which I will quote here: > Nozick's famous Wilt Chamberlain argument is an attempt to show that patterned principles of just distribution are incompatible with liberty. He asks us to assume that the original distribution in society, D1, is ordered by our choice of patterned principle, for instance Rawls's Difference Principle. Wilt Chamberlain is an extremely popu…

Interesting. the solution should be to just to tax Wilt Chamberlain at a rate high enough that the astronomical net worths become merely "stratospheric".

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#233

Post by owyn »

mjfl wrote: post #224
baursak wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also inheritance is ultimately the extension of the will of someone who was economically productive, so I see no problem there. Like Queen of England's inheritance, for example? Or anybody inheriting land on American soil? Totally no violence involved in initially obtaining those assets?

Crimes aren't inherited.

Inequality sure is.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#234

Post by mhermher »

ImSkeptical wrote: post #213
mhermher wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property is violence. If I try to take something that "isn't my property", the state will intervene with violence (e.g. forced imprisonment, etc.) on behalf of the person deemed to be the "lawful owner".

I haven't seen opinion polls, but I doubt that's a widely held view. Why should people conform to your unusual position on property, as opposed to the mainstream one? Personally, I quite like owning things that are mine. The cost, that other people can own things that are theirs and not mine, seems well worth it.

I'm not making a moral point. And it's not an opinion, nothing in my explanation is outside of trivially observed reality.

I'm just trying to dispel the idea that capitalism (as we experience it, or otherwise) isn't maintained through violence. It very well is more pleasant for most people than feudalism, but they both perpetuate themselves through violence.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#235

Post by wging »

Keyframe wrote: post #118

Kudos to him, hopefully he will go all in on some crazy idea eventually. I still have this feeling amazon (as in online store) isn't all that big outside of US/english-speaking world. I do have a question though. When you have that much net worth and you get plastered all over the press about how much you have... What do you do then? What's your life then like? Seems like a nightmare, especially if you have kids and…

At his stage he's got the ability to fund his ideas effectively and still stop well short of 'all in'. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#236

Post by baursak »

mjfl wrote: post #224
baursak wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also inheritance is ultimately the extension of the will of someone who was economically productive, so I see no problem there. Like Queen of England's inheritance, for example? Or anybody inheriting land on American soil? Totally no violence involved in initially obtaining those assets?

Crimes aren't inherited.

So if I kill you and take your house, and somehow escape justice before dying myself and passing said house to my son, your son forfeits any claim to the house? Correct?

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#237

Post by branchless »

mjfl wrote: post #100
_m8fo wrote: post #84

Everytime I see these types of articles I wonder if we're still in feudalism. Should we really be celebrating that a single individual is worth more than hundreds of millions of people[1]? I dunno, it seems dystopian , like we're enslaved to the system. [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...

I think that's a little hyperbolic. In feudalism the balance of power is enforced by violence, whereas Jeff Bezos got rich because you gave him money in exchange for products. Like, "Hey, here's this cool electronic device called the Amazon Echo for $50." is a markedly different from "Farm here or I'll decapitate you." The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terr…

First generation rich, yes. But then his riches will rely on the state's monopoly on violence to defend the "property" of his descendants.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#238

Post by branchless »

baursak wrote: post #216
mjfl wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal society, we identify theft/criminal activity and get the money back. That's part of what we have government for right? Also inheritance is ultimately the extension of the will of someone who was economically productive, so I see no problem there.

> Also inheritance is ultimately the extension of the will of someone who was economically productive, so I see no problem there. Like Queen of England's inheritance, for example? Or anybody inheriting land on American soil? Totally no violence involved in initially obtaining those assets?

Love this cartoon:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COQgS0MUcAA7-RK.png

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#239

Post by mhermher »

mjfl wrote: post #206
greghatch wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The negatives need not be so similar for the two to occupy the same space of vast property ownership concerns - namely that a single person has what many consider to be a troubling amount of wealth and power. EDIT: sentence structure change

But that's not the important part. The violence is the important part. Feudalism wasn't unjust because the kings had a lot of money, it was unjust because they got a lot of money through force and not through productive economic activity. Also, I think it is extremely problematic to compare any system with large disparities of outcome with an essentially violent system like feudalism (or just defining "inequality = v…

You don't think land lords provided positive economic activity under feudalism? That's absurd, but not as absurd as the implications that capitalist states don't have blood on their hands.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#240

Post by mjfl »

baursak wrote: post #236
mjfl wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crimes aren't inherited.

So if I kill you and take your house, and somehow escape justice before dying myself and passing said house to my son, your son forfeits any claim to the house? Correct?

I think the general consensus is that if you can identify a specific property that has been stolen from you in an estate, you can reclaim it (from the estate). But claims against someone who purchased the stolen goods unknowingly, or general claims from one group to another, like a common English person against the Queen, a colored person against a random white man, or a Palestinian against an Israelite, those are not valid.
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