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Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

fortune.com

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Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#131

Post by noncoml »

shuwix wrote: post #47
masfuerte wrote: post #16

Money is power. That is the problem with extreme wealth. It provides unaccountable power outside the democratic process. It is not surprising that an already powerful man wants even more power, but I do not understand why anyone else would go along with this.

Sorry to knock you out of your cloud. In democracy, power comes from demos. In capitalism, power comes from capital. Demos doesn't have concentrated capital. Try starting a new party without capital and backing from people tied to mainstream media. People never had power. Whenever they've thought they have power (revolutions), they fought for one new power hungry scumbag to replace old power hungry scumbag.

> they fought for one new power hungry scumbag to replace old power hungry scumbag.

Because, as Plato argued, the best rulers are the ones that don’t want to rule, as ruling is a very heavy duty, if not burden.

If you strip corruption, it has no rewards. Instead you have to put up with “scambags” accusing for the things the corruption they would do if they had the power.

Why does this sound familiar?

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#132

Post by trollbridge »

anonym29 wrote: post #105
andsoitis wrote: post #29

> one that would strip voting rights from anyone who pays no income tax It could be an interesting thought experiment to consider the second and third order consequences, even if, from first principles this is a non-starter in a democratic society. First off all, what percent of people do not pay any taxes on income? What portion of them are poor vs. hedge fund managers or other super wealthy people who have structur…

>First off all, what percent of people do not pay any taxes on income? If you modify this slightly to the percent of people who are not net taxpayers , meaning you subtract transfer payments (including social security, medicare, medicaid) to them from the taxes they pay (including social security, medicare, and medicaid), it's about 60% of the country, which tracks quite closely to the percentage of Americans who cou…

The best analysis I have seen puts it at 28% once you net out sales taxes and property taxes. (There are a lot of people who own property that they live in, but don't work, but they do owe property tax obviously.)

Your 60% figure is reasonable, though, as the gap between 28% and 60% is people who are paying a very, very small net amount, mostly via sales taxes or other taxes that exist like taxes on airplane tickets or hotels.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#135

Post by corps_and_code »

Ekaros wrote: post #68

I am not against idea of only net tax payers getting single vote. Say if you use government services or receive money such as grant that is counted against your total. If you own part of corporation that gets such support that is counted again. If you or your corporation gets tax deductions or relief those are counted as double. Total everything up and if you are net payer you get to vote. If not no vote for you.

We tried this already in America and have decided that disallowing entire groups of people from voting is bad for democracy.

What happens when the federal government passes new tax laws that prevent certain genders, racial groups, etc from having to pay income tax? Are they permanently disenfranchised? This would be a system that I think would rapidly move social progress backwards and concentrate power in the hands of a few groups.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#136

Post by MSFT_Edging »

throw2ih020 wrote: post #52
kennywinker wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Most "normal" people would hit $5-30 million, realize they have enough money for themselves and their descendants to be comfortable in perpetuity with some decent wealth management, and either retire or change careers to a passion project. Going to 100s, 1,000s, or 100,000s of millions inherently filters for people who have either absurd greediness (seeing wealth as a scoreboard) or a desire for power.

This is sorta the reasoning behind statements like "billionaires shouldn't exist".

It's not a statement that people shouldn't see fruits of their labor, but that past a certain point, its no longer about the fruits or even the tree, but the power that comes with it. In a democracy, those who get lucky in business are not owed power.

So yeah, billionaires and trillionaires shouldn't exist, because their existence is a side-channel attack on society. Pay enough money and rules don't apply. Past a certain point, that wealth should be heavily scrutinized and audited as if it's nuclear fissile material. Similar to the nuclear material, it can be productive for society, or absolute destruction.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#137

Post by rayiner »

The article criticizes “taking us back to the 19th century,” but ironically dropping property qualifications for voting was an innovation of the Jacksonian era of the 1820s-1850s. There is a tendency to all efforts to generalize the franchise together, but that’s illogical. Just because race and sex are illegitimate qualifiers for voting doesn’t mean that all qualifiers for voting are necessarily illegitimate. Are we asserting that psychological science has taught us nothing in 200 years relevant to our evaluation of whether someone who can't hold down a job at a grocery store should be steering democracy to the same degree as a doctor or scientist? (And note this is an argument against interest here, since I belong to what’s clearly now the dumber party.)

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#138

Post by elevation »

homeonthemtn wrote: post #55

I don't understand why we humor this stuff. Our society has lost the ability to simply say "no" to something. We have to argue everything into the weeds, constantly hand wringing about biases and hearing all voices. You can be biased. I, for one, am biased towards democracy and am comfortable telling people to fuck off when they question it. I don't need to debate it. Just fuck right off.

> I don't understand why we humor this stuff

Social contract is a difficult subject, and people don't think about it enough.

But thanks to this clickbait headline, thousands of readers may come upon an articulation of why current enfranchisement is more desirable than arrangements that preceded it. In other words, it's a chance to learn what's worth defending and how our current situation might be improved.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#140

Post by darth_avocado »

vivekd wrote: post #41

I think the title is inaccurate and a bit inflammatory. He's not advocating stripping most Americans of their voting rights. He's advocating stripping a tiny minority of Americans of their voting rights - specifically the minority of Americans that pay no income tax

Actually no. He’s advocating for attaching the amount of taxes you pay to the number of votes you get. Which pretty much erodes everyone’s rights except the ones at the very top. If everyone still has one vote but some have more than one, you’ve effectively stripped their rights.
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