Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
But where would the money come from to pay the tax from billionaires? They don’t have cash so they would need to get it from somewhere.
If they have billions of dollars, they’re not strapped for cash. They have a whole culture and industry designed around tax “optimization” where they buy private yachts, mansions, paintings, and other “real” assets under shell companies to write those purchases off as “business expenses” to reduce their tax liability. That’s why they “don’t have cash”. Because they deliberately avoid holding cash across fiscal years.
They also have sneaky ways of avoiding capital gains tax by reinvesting dividends in ways that defer taxation indefinitely.
That all needs to change, and the only way to change it is through tax policy.
The only way to defer capital gains taxes should be through certain retirement plans, which are generally used by the working class because billionaires don’t need 401Ks. And they still get taxed at the end of term when the money is withdrawn, and they can’t be withdrawn from early without a tax penalty.
All these exceptions for billionaires written into the fine lines of the tax code that you need to be able to afford a personal accountant and layers of shell companies in order to utilize needs to go away.
Billionaires have the money to pay taxes; we need to stop allowing them to pretend they don’t.
They don’t have a billion dollars. So where did the money come from to pay the tax?
I’ll tell you, it’s you. The consumer.
I bet you think China pays the tarrifs too
If the valuations are bullshit, then the tax code should call them out on it so that valuations wouldn’t be so inflated. If the valuations aren’t bullshit, then they should be able to sell to get the money.
But they aren’t the ones evaluating it, the stock holders and buyers are. Plus i agree they should be able to sell it, but I’m a system where every billionaire is running to the open market to sell stocks for taxes wouldn’t work because other would pull out of the market. So the value is the sticks would install go down to realistic p/e earnings. Essentially wiping out the wealth we are trying to tax.
They are a stock buyer and holder, so they take part in that pricing. If inflated valuations became a detriment, the stocks would be priced accordingly. We shouldn’t desire unrealistic p/e ratios.
We really shouldn’t, and yet tesla is 350p/e
So let’s say the guy making $19/hr and the guy making $50/hr come together to take on the really rich guy, what then? They kill the rich guy and take his money? And do what with it? Do they split it evenly, or do they end up fighting each other for it? And what happens when that money runs out? Because it will run out. You give somebody who’s used to living paycheck to paycheck a few million bucks and they will spend it. And once they have the money, aren’t they then the rich guy? Meaning now they would be the target of other working class people? Is the goal to become a rich asshole? Or is the goal for everyone to make $19/hr?
The goal is to evenly distribute the wealth such that everyone has what they need to survive and then if you still have enough wealth left over (if the wealthy class were dismantled we would), you make sure everyone has enough to be comfortable. You take the business assets and you share ownership with the people working in those businesses. You establish democratic structures inside those businesses such that the workers choose who is in charge and what everyone is paid. Any amount of money an individual makes is supplemental to basic income that pays for your needs. Establish a wealth cap such that if your income exceeds it, the funds are distributed back down to the needs of society. Things like education and medicine could be entirely funded through excess earnings and a proper tax structure. A wealth cap means that oppressive amounts of liquid funds can’t be used to control people or lobby governments.
These are very very basic ideas. Not at all difficult to wrap your head around. And people are angry because we are constantly being told by the boots on our necks that it won’t work and that’s why we won’t even try. But in reality, the reason we won’t try is because the wealthy will lose their massive wealth. Wealth that most of them lucked into. This has nothing to do with how hard you work or how smart you are. It has everything to do with who is in control and who is not.
The goal is to evenly distribute the wealth such that everyone has what they need to survive and then if you still have enough wealth left over (if the wealthy class were dismantled we would), you make sure everyone has enough to be comfortable. You take the business assets and you share ownership with the people working in those businesses.
I think that’s a very nice idea. But I think you’re going to have a very hard time getting enough people to support it.
For a very long time I considered myself a democratic socialist. I joined the Democratic Socialists of America eight years ago, but I left after just a few years. To me, democratic socialism just made so much sense. I thought, this is the solution. I was convinced that Democratic socialism, along with environmental sustainability, was the future. Boy, was I wrong. Very few people shared my view. After a while I realized it was futile.
Most people who would read this cartoon don’t want to overthrow and replace the system, they just want the money. They’d prefer the $4 million, but they’d settle for the $50 /hr. You can tell them there’s a better way, but your words will just fall on deaf ears. They ain’t interested. They just want the money.
There won’t be an awareness campaign followed by a wave of socialist political movements that sweep the parliaments and governments of the world. There won’t be a glorious proletarian revolution, which sees the workers seize the means of production. A post capitalist society will one day emerge, but it will only be after capitalism has collapsed, taking the modern world down with it. Maybe on the other side of that, democratic socialism might be possible, in some small pockets of what’s left of humanity. But it will only be on small scales. Democratic socialism is incompatible with empires, and other large, complex civilizations. So any democratic socialist societies that do exist will be relatively small. Not that’s a bad thing. Not at all. In fact, I think it’s much more sustainable. But that means no dynamic, fast growing, expansionist civilizations. Again, better, more sustainable, but much different than the world we know today.
But if this happens at all, it’ll be long after I’m dead.
The “socialism only works at small scales” argument is tired, lazy, and boring.
Explain why. Be honest with me and yourself. And if you start in about “but the oil is funding that”, yes exactly. That’s how it should work, the USA gives away billions of dollars to capitalists every day with it’s mineral riches.
Democratic socialism (or social democracy… the definitions are not crisp or distinct) is already working in several Nordic countries of millions. Together they have populations of tens of millions. We can argue definitions if you like, but they’re much closer. So much closer that I’ll take that as the first several steps in our journey as a society.
Even if for some weird reason democratic socialism won’t ‘work’ at the size of hundreds of millions when it works at the scale of tens of millions, capitalism is currently falling flat in the USA and dozens of other countries, and offers much worse outcomes for 99.9% of it’s population all the while.
Democratic socialism is already working in several Nordic countries of millions.
Those countries are social democracies, not democratic socialist. Democratic socialism and social democracy are different systems. I know it sounds like splitting hairs, but they really are distinct.
Social democracy is a mostly capitalist economy with a democratic government that has a progressive tax system that funds a social welfare system and basic, universal public services. Social democracy does exist in many nations around the world today. Even the US has hada version of this model in the past.
Democratic socialism is a socialist economy with a democratic government. Most services would be provided by community or government owned non-profit organizations. Some for-profit businesses might exist but they would be worker owned. Unlike social democracy, Democratic socialism has never actually been tried. It’s entirely theoretical.
Together they have populations of tens of millions.
Yeah, tens of millions. Not 350 million like the US. Of the top ten democracies, according to the democracy index, all have populations under 20 million, and most have populations under 10 million. Clearly, social democracy has a population limit. I believe democratic socialism would too.
Correlation does not imply causation. Show me a mechanism, with evidence. The mechanism I propose is that if a society looks even slightly too leftist the billionaire class does everything they can to destroy or sabotage it.
Also, there isn’t a crisp definition or delineation between a social democracy and a democratic socialist one. Again- quibble over definitions as much as you want. A social democracy is several important steps in the right direction.
And capitalistic centrism / authoritarianism is NOT “working” globally. It’s just managed to kick the can down the curb for a while.
Correlation does not imply causation. Show me a mechanism, with evidence.
I was thinking about it and it came to me. It’s actually simple math.
Norway is the world’s top democracy, according to the world democracy index. Norway has a total population of about 5.6 million people. Their parliament has 169 seats. That means each seat represents about 33,000 people. The US, on the other hand, has a total population of about 341 million people. The US Congress has 535 total seats (435 in the House of Representatives and 100 in the Senate). That’s about 637,000 people per seat. For each US Congress seat to represent 33,000 Americans, our Congress would need to grow to about 10,300 seats. Obviously, that’s not realistic. It’s also not realistic to act like a representative can represent 637,000 people as well as 33,000 people.
There’s your evidence.
That doesn’t show that democratic socialism or social democracy won’t work.
