this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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Showerthoughts

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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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[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There's two answers to that ....

This is a primary reason to get rid of billionaires because they are capable of becoming the next Hitler or at the very least, funding and supporting the next Hitler

The second answer to that is ..... by your own words, it is an admission that billionaires exert way too much control and influence in our world. If one individual has that much control and power where they are capable of influencing or even changing a government, then that is not a democracy ... that's an oligarchy ... or at least a plutocracy (a system run by money). Allowing any one individual to have so much money and influence defeats the purpose of wanting to organize or even conduct a democracy.

It reminds me of the ancient Greek idea of 'Ostracism' .... where we get our modern word ostracize

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism

A system where citizens identified a possible tyrant or upcoming tyrant in their government and then everyone just voted them out of everything for ten years. It wasn't a perfect system but even back then, everyone knew that if you allowed someone to gain too much power over everyone, then eventually you end up with a tyrannical leader who would want to take control of everything and everyone.

[โ€“] antidote101 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

They already donate to both sides in order to insure their influence. So Ostracism of one or two politicians isn't really going to be an effective preventative measure.