Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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Almost every problem in the world would be dealt with meaningfully if we outlawed billionaires. (lemmy.ca)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/showerthoughts

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Everytime I look at small problems or big global problems, if you follow the money trail, it all leads to some billionaire who is either working towards increasing their wealth or protecting their wealth from decreasing.

Everything from politics, climate change, workers rights, democratic government, technology, land rights, human rights can all be rendered down to people fighting another group of people who defend the rights of a billionaire to keep their wealth or to expand their control.

If humanity got rid of or outlawed the notion of any one individual owning far too much money than they could ever possibly spend in a lifetime, we could free up so much wealth and energy to do other things like save ourselves from climate change.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Arguing that an alternative may be dangerous when the status quo is destroying our world is not a very good argument.

My point is that society should just simply create an upper ceiling of wealth for everyone. Everything still stays the same. We still have our capitalistic system, everyone is still capable and free to try to become as wealthy as they want to be, everyone is still allowed to manipulate the system and those around them to acquire as much wealth as they want in whatever way they please. The only thing that changes is that any one person's wealth is just limited to ... $100 million for example. Does any person require more than this in order to live a happy full and comfortable life? Any one that wants more than that is a pathological individual that is perfectly comfortable in taking away the wealth of those who have little to give.

It's basically a system where we reward the worst individuals in our society to flourish and become even more powerful.

The alternative I present doesn't look as dangerous as allowing a handful of questionable individuals to own everything and everyone on the planet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I am not saying it is dangerous. My point is that taking a decision that is polar opposite of our financial system will come with consequences, many of them will not be simple to predict.

What happens after you accumulate 100 million? Are you allowed to work? Will you have to give up the interest your existing assets earn you? Do we tax everything the limit at 100%? How will we deal with the fact the some countries will attract people with lots to lose by not following the system?

These are of course just random thoughts, but I think most of us can come up with plenty of things that can jeopardize such a plan.

I don't dismiss the idea, but I think a lot of safeguards need to be in place before such a plan could work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

One of the financial aspects it would deal with is ..... the idea of infinite growth and profits.

Limiting wealth would limit profits everywhere ... which sounds bad for small groups of people and investors in any one sector. Everyone has the mentality of wanting to control one corner of the financial market and then make it grow exponentially without limits to an imaginary infinity ... all of which is impossible.

By limiting individual wealth ... wealth would then be allowed to spill over to more people. The wealth is still there but it is now in the hands of more people instead of a small group of people.

In our current system, we keep watching our financial markets grow every year with the expectation that they will keep rising forever while the amount of wealth everywhere is limited. In order to make it grow, debt has to be created and in order to pay for the debt, more debt is created and on and on to infinity.

The system I imagine puts limits on infinite growth, profit and wealth ... the system that exists is only possible if a small group of people can continually achieve infinite wealth with limited resources.

What makes more sense.

And like I keep saying ... removing billionaires won't solve the world's problems ... but it would really make it a whole lot easier to deal with the world's problems.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I think I see what you mean now. We both agree that wealth hoarding need to go, but I think I focus more on the problems it would cause and you just wanting to set a limit and deal with any issues as they arise. Is that a correct assumption?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think we are imagining the problem, the solutions and the consequences in different ways.

You're worried about the possibilities of what could be and imagine the problems it may cause.

I'm worried about what is happening now, what exists today and the problems it is causing in real time.

If we do nothing, then current problems persist and we avoid the uncertainty of alternatives. The only problem with that is that we will never realize what the alternatives could be ... either a more manageable society with more distributed power ... a repeat of the same system we live in today but with the power given to different actors ... or a far worse situation than we live in today.

None of this is to imagine that it would create an instant utopia or dystopia ... we are human and many of the social problems we have today will persist no matter what we create in the future.

So the final thought is ... We either gamble on the certainty of inequality and power willingly given to those with the most wealth ... or we take the chance on attempting to create a new system.