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Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

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Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#181

Post by WalterBright »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #112
cosmojg wrote: post #75

Productive wealth is a good thing. It's what made our current society possible. Unproductive wealth is the real devil, the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil. I strongly prefer a society which permits the existence of Jeff Bezos over one which does not. Of course, more strongly than that, I prefer a society which taxes inelastic goods and negative externalities and returns that wealth to the public…

> Productive wealth is a good thing You have a lot of faith, it seems, in the ability of the already rich to somehow make better decisions (by some metric) than an arbitrary political process. I don't mind if Jeff Bezos the person exists, but I have no reason whatsoever to want him to have control over the scale of resources and decision-making that he does.

> You have a lot of faith, it seems, in the ability of the already rich to somehow make better decisions (by some metric) than an arbitrary political process.

I have faith that an Olympic athlete is a lot better about making diet and exercise decisions than I am.

I have faith that Mick Jagger is far better at crafting a new song than I am.

I have faith that Tom Hanks could make a far better movie than I can.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#182

Post by yellowapple »

nobleach wrote: post #169
medo-bear wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth caps of 15M is certainly not communism > Ambition and envy are basic human traits No they are not

As someone who has worked extremely hard to acquire assets great than 15 million, who do you suggest has the authority to come and take some of it away from me. And what will they do with the resources they confiscate?

By what authority are those assets "yours" in the first place? Whence did those assets originate?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#183

Post by golemiprague »

dbingham wrote: post #6

Adding this to my reading list. I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million. Because that's the point at which you have enough wealth to live a comfortably middle class lifestyle for the rest of your life, still pass down a substantial chunk to your children, and never have to earn another cent. I've argued we should combine this with a move towards a worker o…

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Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#184

Post by jimbokun »

Voultapher wrote: post #110
cosmojg wrote: post #75

Productive wealth is a good thing. It's what made our current society possible. Unproductive wealth is the real devil, the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil. I strongly prefer a society which permits the existence of Jeff Bezos over one which does not. Of course, more strongly than that, I prefer a society which taxes inelastic goods and negative externalities and returns that wealth to the public…

Wealth, at least the way we measure it, is inextricably tied to modernity. The system you say is a "good thing" is literally speedrunning the destruction of our biosphere. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a system more effective at destroying our world. What many see as prosperity, is irreconcilable with sustainability. I find that's an uncomfortable thought.

It's not a difficult problem to reconcile capitalism and sustainability from a technical perspective. Just a question of political will.

Carbon taxes. Water prices reflecting scarcity. Compensating people living in rain forests to not cut down their trees.

Capitalism is still the best tool we have for setting prices and incentivizing efficiency. Just needs to be guided to place appropriate prices on externalities.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#185

Post by missedthecue »

jdiff wrote: post #26
eej71 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your usage of the word "hoarding" implies a Scrooge McDuck view of wealth where its just stashed away in some vault - never put to use. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

My mental image is one of unelected, untouchable oligarchs taking actions that they're accountable to nobody for. That's far worse than Scrooge McDuck.

That's not the same thing as hoarding. It's always the case that the wealth of even unelected untouchable oligarchs is comprised of productive assets, not hoarded in a secret pile.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#186

Post by megaman821 »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #150
megaman821 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what end? Innovative companies are literally creating money that did not exist before. Do you think there is a fixed pie of money?

The Federal Reserve creates money. This is Econ 101. There is a fixed pie of money it's called the M2. Again, Econ 101. Perhaps you meant "value"? Be careful though, if you start differentiating between money and value, you arrive at communism. This is literally the first and last chapters of Capital vol 1.

Obviously the monetary policy is important. The innovation part is deflationary and the money creation part is inflationary, if they cancel each other out you end up with more money supply and the same price of goods.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#187

Post by missedthecue »

jdiff wrote: post #69
frabjoused wrote: post #44

No NBA player may score more than 100 points per season. After reaching this cap they may only pass the ball.

You score points. No one has ever earned a billion dollars.

Who did JK Rowling steal her billion from?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#188

Post by yellowapple »

MightyBuzzard wrote: post #55
medo-bear wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth caps of 15M is certainly not communism > Ambition and envy are basic human traits No they are not

Yes, they are. If they weren't you wouldn't care if someone made more than $15M.

Is watching those around you starve/freeze to death due to having $0 (or less!) not a reason to care about whether some people make more than $15M? How many people could that hoarded wealth have housed and clothed and fed?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#189

Post by poncho_romero »

rsoto2 wrote: post #157
simonh wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He built a company employing over a million people, created novel goods and services, including services my job depends on (AWS). The wealth of a man like Bezos isn't a pile of gold he wallows in like Scrooge McDuck, it exists in his shareholder control of a vast set of companies full of employees and doing productive work. These companies would not exist without his ability to identify new markets, build efficient c…

Workers created all those things not Jeff Bezos. A lot of the services and technologies leveraged by AWS are created via open source projects for example PostGres.

And in addition, if we grant the idea that Bezos created those things, it was not the super rich Bezos we have today who did. The parent commenter is arguing for the existence of a Jeff Bezos who is not the Jeff Bezos who exists today—rather they want a significantly poorer Bezos, because that is the Bezos who accomplished those feats

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#190

Post by jimbokun »

pdonis wrote: post #171
cosmojg wrote: post #75

Productive wealth is a good thing. It's what made our current society possible. Unproductive wealth is the real devil, the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil. I strongly prefer a society which permits the existence of Jeff Bezos over one which does not. Of course, more strongly than that, I prefer a society which taxes inelastic goods and negative externalities and returns that wealth to the public…

> a society which taxes inelastic goods and negative externalities and returns that wealth to the public over one which does not. The problem is that this kind of society, even if we assume for the sake of argument that it would be preferable, is not really achievable politically. The only way to implement it is to have a government that has the power to coercively tax people, and all history shows that governments w…

There are countless programs that redistribute wealth. Welfare payments. Public education. Public health insurance programs. Retirement programs.

Recently there has been a down swing in willingness to fund new programs that redistribute wealth. But that could change.

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