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Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

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Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#301

Post by germandiago »

yellowapple wrote: post #188
MightyBuzzard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think that is a wrong perspective. Of course many people care about that.

The problem is that by looting rich people you will not end up with the problem.

In fact, you can make the problem much bigger mid-term by killing incentives and making people into poverty...

Cuba or Venezuela were richer than Spain in the 50s just to give you a couple of examples. And Venezuela has natural resources.

What happened? Well, yes, this kind of: let's take everything from the others and give to the poor.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#302

Post by asadotzler »

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.

How many people here aren't making 6 figures? I'd wager a slim minority. And I'll bet that some who show up here are making 7 figures. Did you think you were replying on reddit or twitter or something?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#303

Post by amalcon »

glitchc wrote: post #31
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…

Any solutions that are in conflict with human nature will never be successful. Ambition and envy are basic human traits. At a deeper level, we are beings that measure everything (including light, sound, smell, touch and taste) by way of comparison. Communism fails because no one has anything left to aspire to and everyone is therefore equally miserable.

Communism fails because giving everyone a voice in central planning can't scale up to an economy of millions of people. It requires a degree of central planning that permits too much corruption. The only known vaccine against corruption is high civic engagement. Every society has a given level of civic engagement; and thus a given maximum level of central planning before corruption becomes intolerable. No known large society has a high enough level of civic engagement to support the amount of central planning required by communism.

Communism works just fine for small groups (Of course it doesn't super matter, because this proposal (though not a great idea) isn't communism and communism reliably fails anyway at the scales most people mean.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#304

Post by jonathankoren »

WalterBright wrote: post #254
poncho_romero wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. Still, I would disagree. Communism was tried and failed, its environmental effects (while bad) were therefore limited. Capitalism has endured great challenges for much longer, and despite increasing discontent with the system in many areas of the world, doesn’t appear likely to go anywhere. If that’s the case, the prodigious output of environmental harm capitalism generates won’t go anywhere either. Gree…

> Communism was tried and failed, its environmental effects (while bad) were therefore limited I recall reading after the USSR collapsed that Poland was the most polluted country in the world. All due to the rush to industrialize and to heck with the environment. Chernobyl is another case about communism giving short shrift to environmental considerations.

Of course one could argue that that this wasn’t the fault of socialism, but rather a government that prioritized the desires of industry above all else.

Lest we forget when that paragon of free market capitalism, the United States, prior to the creation of the EPA and its glorious burning Cuyahoga River.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught...

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#305

Post by Biganon »

jimbokun wrote: post #203
rsoto2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Managing and growing companies is a distinct skill. Open source software is wonderful and amazing. But it's not a replacement for Amazon and other companies.

> Managing and growing companies is a distinct skill.

Yes. It is not, however, a skill worth 100 billion dollars.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#306

Post by kevinob11 »

askafriend wrote: post #263
NegativeK wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its usually just a notch above their own (well within their social class status). I'm a tech worker in the public sector. To be blunt: tax me more, please.

Nobody is stopping you from contributing more. In fact, contributions to charity are tax exempt. But if you want to contribute more to the government directly, others here have pointed you to some good resources.

While true and a fair rebuttal to all higher tax suggestions, increased tax on people like OP would have a much larger effect than just them giving a bit more away.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#307

Post by aslgbb »

sackfield wrote: post #46
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…

Whenever people talk about how much wealth is comfortable (or ethical) to have, its usually just a notch above their own (well within their social class status). To be fair I don't know your wealth at all but its just an observation I've had from talking with others about this. The end result of this would be to make these people some of the wealthiest in the country by dragging the wealth curve to just above their l…

There are only two measures of money: No money and not enough money. (Steinbeck)

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#308

Post by OJFord »

crotchfire wrote: post #299
samatman wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This supposes that there's some naturally-right size for a corporation to be, without bothering to argue why that might be. I don't see why that would be true, and abundant evidence that both large and small corporations add value to the world.

This supposes that there's some naturally-right size for a corporation to be No, in fact, it doesn't. Please re-read the comment you're replying to. There is no cutoff, limit, or threshhold. It doesn't prescribe a naturally-right size any more than a graduated income tax "prescribes a naturally-right amount of income".

Is a 'cap' not a 'cutoff, limit, or threshold'?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#309

Post by crotchfire »

OJFord wrote: post #308
crotchfire wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This supposes that there's some naturally-right size for a corporation to be No, in fact, it doesn't. Please re-read the comment you're replying to. There is no cutoff, limit, or threshhold. It doesn't prescribe a naturally-right size any more than a graduated income tax "prescribes a naturally-right amount of income".

Is a 'cap' not a 'cutoff, limit, or threshold'?

Please read the comment again; you have not understood it.

No cap is proposed.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#310

Post by kagakuninja »

JackFr wrote: post #257
NegativeK wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its usually just a notch above their own (well within their social class status). I'm a tech worker in the public sector. To be blunt: tax me more, please.

Ok, big talker, step up: Gifts to the United States U.S. Department of the Treasury Reporting and Analysis Branch 2 P.O. Box 1328 Parkersburg, WV 26106-1328

That's not how it works. Get Elon and friends to donate half his wealth and then we can talk.

Progressive taxation is a good idea...

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