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Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

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Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#91

Post by FredPret »

thinkski wrote: post #68
avgcorrection wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things were created by working people, most of whom are not wealthy.

Organized by an employer, capital, and management. The orchestration, decision making, done well, is the difference between a highly valuable well functioning company, and dysfunctional paralysis. There are now multiple examples in history (pre-1989 Poland, Soviet Union, DPRK, etc.) that show the communal ownership of industry by labor does not create a high standard of living, enabled by plentiful goods, services, a…

East Germany, North Korea, and the USSR are wonderful examples of how this idiotic idea fares in real life.

Unless people there somehow have much lower IQs than their neighbours, who do vastly better, the difference in outcome must lie in the system that co-ordinates their work.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#92

Post by lostlogin »

FredPret wrote: post #73
lostlogin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other ideas should we ban?

I didn't say "ban the idea". I said "ban the ambition to control the lives of others". The best counter to these jumped-up mini-Mao's is to spread the power far and wide; to have lots of little decision-makers rather than a few grand ones; to have those little decision-makers make tons of small but important decisions every day, rather than trusting everything to one election every few years.

I think that the description ’mini-Mao’ fits both the ambition to blocking others from excess wealth and the behaviour we are seeing from some billionaires. Extremes promote extremes.

Getting lots of people to make lots of small decisions is not easy and the masses are not necessarily that sensible. Delegating decision making to a chosen representative is the least bad system seen so far, but has a way to go.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#93

Post by MeImCounting »

eej71 wrote: post #87
MeImCounting wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not in favor of a planned economy, but I do believe our society faces a significant issue with certain individuals hoarding money and resources. If we are to employ a group that uses violence to enforce the will of the majority under the threat of violence, then we should at least utilize this forceful approach to prevent some individuals from becoming entrenched in power and wealth. As they exist now, mechanism…

You have provided, perhaps unintentionally, a wonderful concretization on the difference between political power and economic power. In even simpler terms, its the difference between the gun and the dollar.

That is indeed the comparison I was trying to make. The average citizen should (if our democratic system worked correctly) wield just as much political power as the oligarch through his vote and so should be able to wield that power, collectively with the rest of society, to limit the economic power of the oligarch.

Unfortunately as our system works now the oligarch wields both substantially more political power through lobbying and general corruption in the government and courts as well as clearly wielding more economic power. What I am saying is that we as a society should endeavor to reduce the misbalance in economic power between the oligarch and the average citizen.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#94

Post by avgcorrection »

kuratkull wrote: post #88
avgcorrection wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People of my opinion/disposition already know that CEOs make too much. You don’t have to indirectly tell me.

You wouldn't have those items without that compensation. This should be more traumatic than people make it out to be. You wouldn't have your iphones, twitters, facebooks, vr goggles, steams, ikea tables, etc.

Traumatic? What are you talking about?

And it’s easy to argue (EDIT: more like assert without evidence) that cherry-picked aspects of the status quo for the last forty years is the linchpin of everything.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#95

Post by lostlogin »

fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #66
lostlogin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think people go just for the money? There are a lot of healthcare systems where the wages aren’t that impressive and the hours are very long. There are benefits beyond money. Job satisfaction, societal standing, caring about people, etc etc.

I think most people go for the money. If you were to walk into any undergrad bio 101 class and announce: "sorry guys, but you can only make 80k a year," 95% of the students would leave immediately.

I’m not a doctor, but work with lots. I’m extrapolating what I see and that’s always dangerous, but there isn’t a single colleague whose primary motivation is money. Maybe someone did come in and state an earnings cap, and I’ve been left with the 5%?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#96

Post by FredPret »

jszymborski wrote: post #79
bluescrn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just not practical to enforce a cap though. Even with a very authoritarian world government to stop people moving assets elsewhere, there'll be too many ways around it. So you can only have $15mil of assets? But your partner can have $15mil too, as can your kids, and parents. And if that's not enough, you can still try to hoard extra wealth in easier-to-hide forms - whether it's physical gold, bitcoin, art, fine…

But even in your family hypothetical, the overall inequality is still much less than between billionaires and the middle-class (nothing said of the truly destitute). > Or worse still, the super-rich will realise that they can spend many times the wealth cap per year consumable/disposable items (so long as they stay under the cap, or get back there by year-end), and become more wasteful. "Might as well spend a few mil…

Ah yes, here come the arguments for "monitoring".

Next come regulations about having to "cooperate".

Then the question will be raised as to what happens to those rich people who don't cooperate, or middle class / poor people who, god forbid, don't agree with this plan for society. Pretty soon, you've got your jackboots and your re-education camps.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#97

Post by tehjoker »

lavelganzu wrote: post #58
tehjoker wrote: post #7

What about having a rationally planned democratic society instead of people chasing dollars at the expense of everything? No rich people, just democratic processes accessible to all incl. in production.

We've seen enough attempts at planned societies that ended badly, so most folk are justifiably wary of further attempts, even putatively democratic ones. Make it easily opt-in, easily opted-out, and successful, and then people will be interested again.

This one is ending badly too. Uncontrolled pandemic with over a million dead, openly supporting a genocide in Palestine, endless war, near zero democratic input from people less rich than wealthy suburbanites, climate crisis, the ending of U.S. hegemony causing a hyperfixation on military control of the world. It goes on and on, and can all be traced back to a fundamentally undemocratic governance structure and economic structure.

It didn't help that prior attempts, while making their own mistakes, were facing an implacable powerful enemy that constantly set out to destroy them. Security threats generate centralization and reduced democracy in all societies.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#98

Post by marttt »

FredPret wrote: post #32
kuratkull wrote: post #4

I'm wondering if people understand that almost all the pleasures/comforts in modern life were created by people who wouldn't exist in this system.

No, people don't know this. The degree of economic and historical naiveté has really skyrocketed in recent decades. "Let's just try a planned society one more time , THIS time will be different, look how nice and kind we are!" is a perfectly reasonable statement to many educated people today. It's really an indictment of the education system.

In my Former Soviet Country, this is a fairly common thing that (sensible) older generation intellectuals remind to Gen Y/Gen Z lefties. There was a short period of "dude, communism is quite hip" in some circles roughly a decade ago, but this seemed more like an overblown, cynical nostalgic game, because we still have Soviet era artifacts lying around everywhere.

As of today, I think Russia's idiotic invasion to Ukraine has destroyed those mind-games of a functioning society with very strong central planning. Even if it might truly include thoughtful, interesting ideas in countries that by now have a long, unbroken tradition with democracy, I guess people of the former Soviet Bloc are extra careful these days. YMMV, of course.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#99

Post by FredPret »

lostlogin wrote: post #92
FredPret wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say "ban the idea". I said "ban the ambition to control the lives of others". The best counter to these jumped-up mini-Mao's is to spread the power far and wide; to have lots of little decision-makers rather than a few grand ones; to have those little decision-makers make tons of small but important decisions every day, rather than trusting everything to one election every few years.

I think that the description ’mini-Mao’ fits both the ambition to blocking others from excess wealth and the behaviour we are seeing from some billionaires. Extremes promote extremes. Getting lots of people to make lots of small decisions is not easy and the masses are not necessarily that sensible. Delegating decision making to a chosen representative is the least bad system seen so far, but has a way to go.

I want to believe you are well-intentioned, but

> the masses are not necessarily that sensible

is an absolutely toxic sentiment. "We, the smart ones, will decide for them" has led to disaster every time.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#100

Post by FredPret »

jdiff wrote: post #89
Dalewyn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These arguments nearly always come back to the fundamental desire (greed) for "Giev moniez pl0x.", as you say the limit is above their own wealth as to not be an inconvenience to themselves while siphoning monies from those around (and presumably above) them. It would make for better discussion if these social justice warriors were at least honest about what they actually want.

Most people in this thread aren't making 6-7 figures. The boogeyman you're railing against isn't here.

Are you kidding? This HN.
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