Because billionaires who aren’t dead or in danger won’t just let it happen. Also, they aren’t exactly innocent for the state of things - most if not all of them engaged in vast amounts of unethical and often outright illegal behavior to attain their wealth. They have been actively working to make life shittier and deadlier for everyone else, and they deserve some justice for that, if only to discourage the next people who consider imitating them.
Even still, that wealth is not liquid cash you can just redistribute. Most of that wealth is in properties, assets, stocks, etc. Even if their heirs get nothing, you can’t feed people with yachts and overpriced paintings.
You can of course just force them against their will to liquidate 99% of their assets, and then oversee redistribution collectively, maybe by some previously agreed upon framework for that, or maybe pledge it toward some government coffer, nationalize it, many different options.
And that would be a whole hell of a lot more kind than what Lenin or Mao did.
What is most important is the reformation of the workplaces, the business’s structure and ownership itself into democratic entities in and of themselves, as opposed to little business dictatorships/oligarchies, this way, going forward, proceeds of a productive enterprise are at least not as easily siphoned into new giant private collections of wealth, held by some other person or group or class.
Outlaw private corporations beyond some small headcount size, mandate they are instead worker run co-ops that adhere to some bare minimum standard of representation for all employees.
I like how are talking about yachts like that’s some significant portion of their wealth and not all the land these people own. Not to mention their investments into residential housing.
You picked the frivolous thing instead of the very tangible useful things they horde
A yacht could transfer from a single owner’s luxury item to a public owned means of production though.
Instead of a billionaire taking it out a handful of times a year for intimidation parties (because of the implication) it could instead be used to generate wealth for the public purse by being used daily for cruises or a multitude of other things.
Doctors Without Borders use large boats as mobile hospitals to go to places most in need, if you’re really determined it must be used for healthcare I’m sure some renovation to an existing super yacht is cheaper and easier than building a boat from scratch.
You’re still making the best of a bad situation though. You’d rather the original resources were available. Seizing “wealth” won’t get you the full book value.
Who the fuck cares if we don’t get ‘full book value’ or ‘making the best of a bad situation’ when the implied alternative is not doing anything.
How about we do something? Given how badly the situation has gone, taking that wealth back and making the best use we can with what they’ve wasted money on is one of the best paths forward
That’s not an argument against removing billionaires though, right? You’d rather want to stop the spread of cancer instead of bemoaning the fact that we got sick at all. The best we can do is reposes their frivolously purchased assets and recycle them as much as it’s reasonable, and cast away what remains. It’s not all yachts, some of that wealth is locked in empty flats/houses, and giving those back to community would be very beneficial without needing to transform those assets further.
You can run companies without billionaires. Nationalize them, or turn them into worker-owned cooperatives. Or even just sell them to investor groups, if we aren’t going full marxist.
Where do you draw the line for inherited wealth without qualifying for execution, what is the grace period, and how do you enforce it unilaterally without exceptions?
Or is the plan that you and your friends make the decisions case by case and are yourselves also exceptions?
No exceptions. It’s not hard to become less wealthy. The only allowance I’d offer is a warning 90 days in advance that continued retention of their obscene wealth will become a capital offense. They can unload their excess in that time frame and keep their heads.
The most important question is “how do you enforce it?” Does the roaming mob meet up daily to check everybody’s bank records? Or do you pass a law about it democratically, and if it’s that then why did you ever need to execute anybody in the first place?
I mean, Musk has how many kids? That definitely dilutes things. If you include the mothers, none of them would make it to 1 billion if evenly distributed.
Yeah I hate the 1% but you have to be extremely naive to think that just killing them is the answer when all of the mechanisms that led to their existence are intact.
Even if you killed the top 10 richest people every month you’d still have insane wealth consolidation, just with different family members on the chopping block each month.
The French revolution ended in utter chaos because they had no plan beyond killing the crown.
Yeah I hate the 1% but you have to be extremely naive to think that just killing them is the answer when all of the mechanisms that led to their existence are intact.
Ah, but who paid for those mechanisms to exist?
It’s not a perfect fix, but it’s a fix of some kind.
Worked out for the French eventually, and one could say Napoleon was mostly bad for the rest of Europe rather than all of France.
They have to have more than one heir at any time though right? So like that can’t be true unless they own enough wealth that even when split and taxed their primary heir’s still have too much.
In that case I agree, rinse and repeat. No one should own more than something like 20 million in wealth.
I’m familiar with estates. I’d love to see or read any data you have on “a chosen heir or select few at most” being the only possible (or even overwhelming majority) outcome. That doesn’t make any logical sense and isn’t how it’s historically worked in the past from my knowledge.
I have no doubt the majority of cases show wealth being paid out to more than one heir on average and that the dilution, although obviously not enough to combat wealth inequality, is still some amount of dilution.
Sure, it will upset the market. Certain people in certain positions may change their mind about certain things. Perhaps some will rightfully fear the masses. But ultimately it’s all temporary so long as the system that allows for such individuals to appear still exists.
Scare them like we scared the last power-mad authoritarians. Publically and painfully parade the suffering of the oppressor, condemn them to death, and then pointedly scan the crowd for any more that want to express their undying loyalty to the fuher.
Worked for 80yrs last time. Bet if we record a few select billionaires getting drawn and quartered by their own delivery vans and electric vehicles might push it to a century.
And by killing those 8, the wealth would be distributed such that 8 people would own the same wealth as half the world.
At the “guillotine billionaires” stage, I wouldn’t assume that billionaire heirs would get their inheritance as usual.
If you’re going to go to the courts and the banks in order to overturn inheritance, why even guillotine billionaires in the first place?
Because billionaires who aren’t dead or in danger won’t just let it happen. Also, they aren’t exactly innocent for the state of things - most if not all of them engaged in vast amounts of unethical and often outright illegal behavior to attain their wealth. They have been actively working to make life shittier and deadlier for everyone else, and they deserve some justice for that, if only to discourage the next people who consider imitating them.
But you think they’ll just let killing them happen?
Even still, that wealth is not liquid cash you can just redistribute. Most of that wealth is in properties, assets, stocks, etc. Even if their heirs get nothing, you can’t feed people with yachts and overpriced paintings.
It’s fun how people make this stupid “they’re not actually rich” argument while they buy politicians to fuck everyone over.
You can of course just force them against their will to liquidate 99% of their assets, and then oversee redistribution collectively, maybe by some previously agreed upon framework for that, or maybe pledge it toward some government coffer, nationalize it, many different options.
And that would be a whole hell of a lot more kind than what Lenin or Mao did.
What is most important is the reformation of the workplaces, the business’s structure and ownership itself into democratic entities in and of themselves, as opposed to little business dictatorships/oligarchies, this way, going forward, proceeds of a productive enterprise are at least not as easily siphoned into new giant private collections of wealth, held by some other person or group or class.
Outlaw private corporations beyond some small headcount size, mandate they are instead worker run co-ops that adhere to some bare minimum standard of representation for all employees.
All of those can be sold in exchange for currency.
Only to other billionaires. The yacht moves between owners. It doesn’t turn into healthcare.
The problem with a yacht is that it exists
I like how are talking about yachts like that’s some significant portion of their wealth and not all the land these people own. Not to mention their investments into residential housing.
You picked the frivolous thing instead of the very tangible useful things they horde
A yacht could transfer from a single owner’s luxury item to a public owned means of production though.
Instead of a billionaire taking it out a handful of times a year for intimidation parties (because of the implication) it could instead be used to generate wealth for the public purse by being used daily for cruises or a multitude of other things.
Doctors Without Borders use large boats as mobile hospitals to go to places most in need, if you’re really determined it must be used for healthcare I’m sure some renovation to an existing super yacht is cheaper and easier than building a boat from scratch.
Yeah you can rent it for recreational use, no, it can’t be repurposed into anything else, they kinda suck as boats
You’re still making the best of a bad situation though. You’d rather the original resources were available. Seizing “wealth” won’t get you the full book value.
Who the fuck cares if we don’t get ‘full book value’ or ‘making the best of a bad situation’ when the implied alternative is not doing anything.
How about we do something? Given how badly the situation has gone, taking that wealth back and making the best use we can with what they’ve wasted money on is one of the best paths forward
That’s not an argument against removing billionaires though, right? You’d rather want to stop the spread of cancer instead of bemoaning the fact that we got sick at all. The best we can do is reposes their frivolously purchased assets and recycle them as much as it’s reasonable, and cast away what remains. It’s not all yachts, some of that wealth is locked in empty flats/houses, and giving those back to community would be very beneficial without needing to transform those assets further.
No. I wasn’t really arguing against anything. Just that “this guy’s worth $30B. Let’s take it and get $30B” is simplistic thinking.
Bullshit.
“Stocks” are “ownership of the means of production”.
You absolutely can feed yourself on your share of “the means of production”.
You can run companies without billionaires. Nationalize them, or turn them into worker-owned cooperatives. Or even just sell them to investor groups, if we aren’t going full marxist.
Compromise: we’ll just take the factors of production, and they can keep their stocks and dollars.
deleted by creator
then don’t stop. just keep going.
this must be what Reagan meant by “trickle down economics”
Where do you draw the line for inherited wealth without qualifying for execution, what is the grace period, and how do you enforce it unilaterally without exceptions?
Or is the plan that you and your friends make the decisions case by case and are yourselves also exceptions?
No exceptions. It’s not hard to become less wealthy. The only allowance I’d offer is a warning 90 days in advance that continued retention of their obscene wealth will become a capital offense. They can unload their excess in that time frame and keep their heads.
The most important question is “how do you enforce it?” Does the roaming mob meet up daily to check everybody’s bank records? Or do you pass a law about it democratically, and if it’s that then why did you ever need to execute anybody in the first place?
How is it enforced? A bounty system would work. 10% of any funds collected or forfeited.
No body will be executed. They’ll all figure out how to pry open their wallets and portfolios within the 90-day amnesty window.
I tell you what, when you legalize such a bounty system on all tangible wealth over a billion then I will admit it might work.
But if you could do that, why would you not just tax the rich?
Trickle down
“It’s a trickle…of blood!!” *da-dum!*
I mean, Musk has how many kids? That definitely dilutes things. If you include the mothers, none of them would make it to 1 billion if evenly distributed.
I guarantee Musk has an estate planned by very expensive lawyers and bankers. The vast majority of his loved ones won’t recieve jack squat.
Yeah I hate the 1% but you have to be extremely naive to think that just killing them is the answer when all of the mechanisms that led to their existence are intact.
Even if you killed the top 10 richest people every month you’d still have insane wealth consolidation, just with different family members on the chopping block each month.
The French revolution ended in utter chaos because they had no plan beyond killing the crown.
No, but very satisfying.
Ah, but who paid for those mechanisms to exist?
It’s not a perfect fix, but it’s a fix of some kind.
Worked out for the French eventually, and one could say Napoleon was mostly bad for the rest of Europe rather than all of France.
I wouldn’t call the reign of terror, the Thermidorian Reaction or ultimate rise of capitalism “working out”.
The entire system we have now came into place because they had no plan and just let the merchan class become the new royals.
As opposed to what they had? They could be the UK right now.
We gather the top 8 and tell them #9 is being promoted to #1, either through a wealth tax, or a head tax.
Repeat at least annually.
So a return to monarchy.
At that point we should just utilize democracy to tax them.
EDIT: I misread that as the #9 getting the wealth of the previous 8.
How about the highest number gets to do the deed. Lowman gets to take out highman.
Edit: *Lowman on the totem
They have to have more than one heir at any time though right? So like that can’t be true unless they own enough wealth that even when split and taxed their primary heir’s still have too much.
In that case I agree, rinse and repeat. No one should own more than something like 20 million in wealth.
Theres this thing called estate planning where you decide how and when your wealth gets used after you die.
It doesn’t automagically get dispersed, it’s given to a chosen heir or select few at most.
I’m familiar with estates. I’d love to see or read any data you have on “a chosen heir or select few at most” being the only possible (or even overwhelming majority) outcome. That doesn’t make any logical sense and isn’t how it’s historically worked in the past from my knowledge.
I have no doubt the majority of cases show wealth being paid out to more than one heir on average and that the dilution, although obviously not enough to combat wealth inequality, is still some amount of dilution.
Yeah, it’s not enough to simply kill the wealthy.
Sure, it will upset the market. Certain people in certain positions may change their mind about certain things. Perhaps some will rightfully fear the masses. But ultimately it’s all temporary so long as the system that allows for such individuals to appear still exists.
I would argue killing them was always an unnecessary extra step that we could just skip over.
Scare them like we scared the last power-mad authoritarians. Publically and painfully parade the suffering of the oppressor, condemn them to death, and then pointedly scan the crowd for any more that want to express their undying loyalty to the fuher.
Worked for 80yrs last time. Bet if we record a few select billionaires getting drawn and quartered by their own delivery vans and electric vehicles might push it to a century.
Step 1: Kill billionaires and Trump to prevent them from stopping a new system being established.
Step 2: Establish the new system.
Planning to make a plan is not a plan, really.
“and in that system I will be the billionaire”
Shucks, I thought the blood coming out would magically irrigate every bank account and solve all unfairness.