Do People Have a Right to Own Vast Wealth?

[icehorse]

Even if a wealthy person is paying his or her "fair share", do you see the danger of an extraordinarily wealthy person could pose to a representative democracy?

That's a great point - I think the whole citizen's united decision was a huge mistake. Lobbying and corruption and excessive campaign contributions are all enormous problems. But I think we can solve them at least somewhat independently from oligarchy issues. They're related, but separable I think.

 

[Sunstone]

All you have done is create of arbitrary standard.

Arbitrary? Perhaps. but only in the sense that all self-interest can be said to ultimately be arbitrary.

 

[Shad]

Would you agree that government does have a say in how they tax income?

Within reason. There are levels of taxes which are tyrannical. Taxing those in poverty, extreme taxing of the rich, a lot progressive tax brackets, etc. Those I am against.

 

[YmirGF]

We aren't talking about slashing the income of the middle class by 75%. It's not a fair comparison because slashing the income of the middle class by 75% would prevent them from affording basic housing, food, and transportation. This isn't the case for the uber-rich.

My reading comprehension is fairly formidable. My deliberate suggestion is that people only feel this way because they have relatively nothing to lose and so very much to gain. It sounds like such a good idea, but it is, in reality, a terrible idea. To paraphrase an old adage, "First they came for the oligarchs..."

 

[Shad]

Arbitrary? Perhaps. but only in the sense that all self-interest can be said to ultimately be arbitrary.

Yes arbitrary as you link the wealth and a specific use in politics as your standard. What if someone that is rich does not involve themselves in politics or donates what an average citizen can? Your standard does not apply in that scenario thus in principle that person can keep their wealth and/or have no cap as they are not running afoul of your specific standard.

 

[Sunstone]

To paraphrase an old adage, "First they came for the oligarchs..."

Not quite. We didn't start this, the uber-rich started it. To quote Warren Buffett, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

 

[icehorse]

So, you have no problem with the government telling you how you can spend your own money?

I don't that's what the suggestion was.

 

[YmirGF]

Not quite. We didn't start this, the uber-rich started it. To quote Warren Buffett, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Meanwhile, I don't see him cutting any massive checks to the government. Far from it.

 

[icehorse]

My reading comprehension is fairly formidable. My deliberate suggestion is that people only feel this way because they have relatively nothing to lose and so very much to gain. It sounds like such a good idea, but it is, in reality, a terrible idea. To paraphrase an old adage, "First they came for the oligarchs..."

Obama got in trouble for saying "they didn't build it on their own", or whatever it was he said. But Obama was correct - it's extremely rare that a rich person is creating something useful to society and NOT using much, much more than his fair share of the infrastructure.

 

[Sunstone]

Yes arbitrary as you link the wealth and a specific use in politics as your standard. What if someone that is rich does not involve themselves in politics or donates what an average citizen can? Your standard does not apply in that scenario thus in principle that person can keep their wealth and/or have no cap as they are not running afoul of your specific standard.

It does not matter whether a billionaire here or there doesn't try to influence policy in a manner disproportionate to the rest of us. It's not them that could bring down democracy. It's the ones who do try to disproportionately wield power and influence that concern me.

But if you genuinely see lumping them altogether as unjust, then would you favor no caps on wealth but total confiscation of any billionaire's wealth who tries to disproportionately wield power and influence?

 

[Sunstone]

Meanwhile, I don't see him cutting any massive checks to the government. Far from it.

Does that render his words false?

 

[YmirGF]

Obama got in trouble for saying "they didn't build it on their own", or whatever it was he said. But Obama was correct - it's extremely rare that a rich person is creating something useful to society and NOT using much, much more than his fair share of the infrastructure.

Personally, I've always felt that was an exceptionally stupid argument. It I recall correctly, Obama simply borrowed the meme from Elizabeth Warren.

 

[YmirGF]

Does that render his words false?

It certainly hasn't slowed his need to win down any, that's for sure. I'd be happy if he gave a measly billion dollars to the US government to show his commitment to change.

 

[Sunstone]

Obama got in trouble for saying "they didn't build it on their own", or whatever it was he said. But Obama was correct - it's extremely rare that a rich person is creating something useful to society and NOT using much, much more than his fair share of the infrastructure.

Any uber-rich who are uncertain how much of a free lunch America has given them should give up their fortunes, move to Honduras, and then try to duplicated their success in a much less developed nation.

 

[Sunstone]

It certainly hasn't slowed his need to win down any, that's for sure. I'd be happy if he gave a measly billion dollars to the US government to show his commitment to change.

You must know, Buffett is giving away to charity all but a fraction of his wealth upon his death. As is Bill Gates.

 

[YmirGF]

You must know, Buffett is giving away to charity all but a fraction of his wealth upon his death. As is Bill Gates.

To the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation... not through taxation! A very important difference, but until then... it's high hog on the trough. Spiffy. Obviously, neither trust government with their vast wealth and want to see it divided as they see fit. That is considerably different from the system you are proposing.

 

[bobhikes]

That's pretty obvious, but it's not like those who provide services hold guns to the heads of the clients forcing them to buy their products. If both parties are satisfied where is the problem? Where is the immorality? Does it become immoral when you have a million people lining up for what you have?

Is it immoral that YouTube has billions of page hits per month thereby making it all but impossible for anyone, regardless of how much cash they have, from creating a rival platform?

I never said it is immoral but I would say being that governments make and support the value of money they should have the ability to insure fair negotiations which may mean limiting profits.

 

[YmirGF]

I never said it is immoral but I would say being that governments make and support the value of money they should have the ability to insure fair negotiations which may mean limiting profits.

I'd be greatly entertained if you can explain why limiting profits may be reasonable.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Do people have a right to own vast wealth? That is, to own and control disproportionately huge portions of the world's economic resources?

Currently, the world's richest 1% own half the world's wealth, and just eight men own as much as the poorest half of the world's total population -- 3.6 billion people.

It is simply a fact that most -- perhaps even almost all -- very wealthy people use some portion of their wealth to influence politics and/or government policy in order to benefit themselves and sometimes others. When they do so, they can be orders of magnitude more powerful and influential that the average citizens of their society.

In 2014, the Princeton and Northwestern report came out. After shifting through 1,800 policy decisions made by the US government, the researches found that the probablility of a particular policy being adopted barely changes whether a tiny minority or a large majority of average citizens favors it. In other words, average citizens have little or no say in whether "their" government adopts any particular policy that might effect them.

However, the same study discovered that policies with low support from the rich were adopted only 18% of the time while policies with high support from the rich were adopt 45% of the time, showing that the rich have much more influence over which government policies get adopted than do average citizens -- even large majorities of average citizens.

In short, the US is not a democracy, but an oligarchy.

Which raises the question: Should there by any limits to the amount of wealth one person can own and control in this world, especially given that ownership of large amounts of wealth translates into disproportionate political power?

Why or why not?

If no, then what form of government do you prefer and would an oligarchy or dictatorship be acceptable to you?

Yes, but it depends on how you acquired that wealth. Whether it was earned or taken, right?

If you are rich because free thinking people willingly paid you what they saw fit for your goods/services in a free market economy, of course.

If you are rich because government forcefully diverted 5 billion $ from those same people into your coffers whether they consented to it or not, (e.g. Elon Musk), not so much

 

[LuisDantas]

I hear ya. It sounds simple enough and even has a tempting appeal to it, however, depending of the cap level it would likely collapse economies outright or at the very least put great stress on them. Another thought, hitting the most capable people in the population, with a punitive "tax" is not likely to work because they are already mobile enough to uproot and move away to more hospitable climates. You would almost have to freeze their assents, passports, accounting firms, etc... it would be a total nightmare.

The very nature of economy revolves around the need to deal with great stresses. There is no clear reason why current levels of concentrated wealth should be considered desirable, and there is a very obvious, very serious amount of real damage coming from them.