Comment by wat10000

Comment by wat10000 a day ago

This is why I think taxes on the very wealthy should be so high that billionaires can't happen. The usual reasons are either about raising revenue or are vague ideas about inequality. It doesn't raise enough revenue to matter, and inequality is a fairly weak justification by itself.

But the power concentration is a strong reason. That level of wealth is incompatible with democracy. Money is power, and when someone accumulates enough of it to be able to personally shake entire industries, it's too much.

Aerroon 17 hours ago

You'll just get a different form of power concentration. Do you think the Soviet Union didn't have power concentration in individuals? Of course it did, that's why the general secretary of the party was more important than the actual heads of state and government.

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wat10000 11 hours ago

Do you think I’m proposing anything like the Soviet system?

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- Aerroon 9 hours ago
  
  No? I'm saying that power concentration is pretty much unavoidable. The question is more about what they can do with that power. I suspect that people getting more power through wealth in the modern world is better than people concentrating power through politics.
  
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  1718627440 7 hours ago
  
  > I'm saying that power concentration is pretty much unavoidable.
  It's avoidable by formalizing the execution of power. The head of state is very powerful, but he can't create laws or anything. That all needs to be done be the parliament, which is several hundred people.
  
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  wat10000 8 hours ago
  
  I don't think it's unavoidable. I don't see why you couldn't have a relatively weak government that's otherwise pretty laissez-faire besides taxing the hell out of extreme wealth. And a strong government doesn't have to have extremely powerful individuals. Power can be divided, and representatives are ultimately accountable to the people.
  What you're saying basically boils down to: kings are inevitable, might as well choose them by economic success instead of the more old-fashioned approaches. I reject the first part.
  
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aianus 17 hours ago

Someone needs to allocate capital, might as well be someone that has done it successfully in the past.

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Ray20 11 hours ago

> But the power concentration is a strong reason.

A centralized authority capable of so severely restricting the economic freedom of the most powerful people implies a far greater concentration of power than the one you're fighting against. You're proposing to cure the common cold with AIDS.

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1718627440 7 hours ago

> A centralized authority capable of so severely restricting the economic freedom of the most powerful people implies a far greater concentration of power
Yes. That's the idea. Make the largest concentration of power an elected body auditable by the commons and whose actions are formalized by a bunch of rules, that they can choose, but still need to stick to.

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wat10000 11 hours ago

Why? We already tax people. This would be a difference of degree, not of kind.

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