What are the best steps to reduce the wealth of billionaires?

There are a myriad of news articles here on Lemmy that display the abhorrent influence billionaires have on our society (especially the US, where I reside). I consistently read comments where the posters appear hopeless and despondent of the situation, while others jokingly refer to the guillotine.

As for myself, I have recently found myself with a lot of free time on my hands after being laid off and want to gather ideas on what would be the best hypothetical route to solve this issue. Let me be clear: These are only THEORETICAL IDEAS and I do not condone any illegal activity.

Historical precedent: While I am not intimately familiar with the inner workings of the Occupy Movement, I do know that they were constantly attacked as being unorganized and lacking structure. It would be wise to not fall into the same pitfalls if those were accurate assessments.

Logical formulation: The foundations of the key points of the movement must be logically sound to withstand any external (and internal for that matter) scrutiny.

Motto: If a motto or slogan is chosen, it must be unambiguous so that attacks are directed to the movement, not the motto itself.

I am also aware that most people can’t spare any time to these kind of movements. Similar to the Texas seceding news, many commentators have noted that most Texans are living paycheck to paycheck and wouldn’t be able to dedicate any time to their cause. I would understand that would be same for this cause as well. However, since I have the time right now, I only ask for your ideas.

Broad issues: High cost of living (mortgages, rent, groceries, etc.) Inflation Homelessness

Philosophical underpinnings: Is there a Threshold of Greed? If so, what is too much wealth?

Possible means of reductions: Voluntary donation or renunciation of wealth past a certain point (highly unlikely) Taxation (also unlikely) Seizing assets (illegal and would most likely set a poor precedent)

It might also to organize an open database of billionaires with their respective fields (Forbes is closed) to help organize a boycott of some sort Though I suspect their fingers are in everything and it would be highly impractical.

Sorry for the word diarrhea. What are your thoughts?

Asudox,
@Asudox@lemmy.world avatar

Locking as the reports for the comments in this post are just enormous.

banneryear1868,

Labor organizing, laws, and taxes. Same way we got what we have now but the work isn’t done.

sagrotan,
@sagrotan@lemmy.world avatar

Guillotines. No, seriously: Long process. First step is ignoring them. Totally and ultimately. Second step: Tax 'em. You wanna live in a civilized environment - you pay. For others. You flee ? Wanted list. Losing citizenship. Step three: If it doesn’t pay taxes, it pays with property. In short: hold them accountable, to the end. And when they lived for a few months on their super yacht in international waters, baking and shaking, they’ll get miserable. There’s a legitimate chance they buy their own country and then they walked into the trap. Imagine that: billionaires that are forced to deal with all the other ego junkies and maniacs: 'dis gon be gud!

pruwybn,
@pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

To answer the question in terms of things you personally can do, I think the boring and realistic answer is to research organizations who align with your goals and who you think have effective methods, and get involved with them.

Personally I like represent.us - They’re specific to the US, but their idea is to put anti-corruption laws into place that help remove the influence of money on the government. This would help get laws passed that favor everybody instead of just the rich. Their approach is to begin at the local level and get enough momentum for a national movement to have some power.

Here are a couple of videos they made, first about what the problem is, and second about how they are trying to solve it:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A

Landmammals,

Execute all the billionaires, starting at the top. Continue until the desired number of billionaires is reached.

Hypothetically.

chunkmcbeefchest,

Remember that company that made the base pay $70,000 for everyone. News was predicting (hoping) they would fail in a year. They didn’t, and big surprise, they have amazing staff retention. We need more companies like that. Places that pay well where people want to work. They would eventually pull away all the talent from the horde companies and shut them down. It would be a long fight, but glorious to see the workers sip tea and watch their old companies fail. This is how you beat the current system, by making egalitarian companies that can actually compete with them, where people are proud to work and get paid a living wage.

scottmeme,

Meat grinder

rusticus, (edited )

Nearly all billionaires have unrealized wealth, meaning they own a large percentage of a giant corporation (ie Bezos, Musk). So taxing them for money they don’t really own won’t work. But there is a better solution.

There are 38 companies in the US whose yearly revenue is greater than 100 BILLION dollars. In fact, the total amount of revenue over 100 billion for these companies combined is a bit shy of the US government yearly budget.

No company needs to revenue that much. Tax the revenue (ie 5%) over 100 billion revenue. This has the added benefit of helping to prevent monopolies and “too big to fail”.

Here is the list and revenue in case you think these companies don’t need to be taxed lol. …wikipedia.org/…/List_of_largest_companies_in_the…

Edit: Extra easter egg: The tax rate that you set could be changed each year to meet the amount of the federal deficit (ie the amount the government “overspends”). This would have the added advantage of limiting excessive government spending because politicians would have to explain to the largest corporations why they are spending their money. And you get a guaranteed balanced budget every year!

aramus,

Suddenly they all make 99.999 billion…

someguy3,

Unions.

Anti trust enforcement.

Squizzy,

deleted_by_moderator

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    mojofrododojo,

    You know what’s free?

    SHAME. Shame these selfish fucks every fucking second they are in the public. I want to see a 4 year old give musk the finger. I want to hear a 7 year old shout “SELFISH CUNT” at bezos. I want everyone they interact with who’s not on their payroll to roll their eyes and say “oh no everyone watch out, mr “I need to horde billions” is here. What do you fucking want?”

    invective has always been a valuable tool against the arsehole polity.

    hark,
    @hark@lemmy.world avatar

    They feel no shame. If they even acknowledge, they just call it “jealousy” from “haters”.

    mojofrododojo,

    so? if they feel no shame, treat them like the greedy assholes they are. at least everyone else will see the object lesson.

    hark,
    @hark@lemmy.world avatar

    They will not stop if they determine that the cost is outweighed by the benefit, that’s what makes them greedy. They need to be suitably punished or they’re just going to continue their ways.

    intensely_human,

    Focus on making the poor people richer instead. Then you’ll realize things are going pretty good.

    jaek,

    Hard to make the poor people richer when the rich are taking an increasingly large share of the pie.

    intensely_human,

    Actually with the wonders of math it’s not. Because if the pie gets bigger faster than their portion increases, we all win.

    And, as it turns out, the poorest people in the world are indeed getting richer.

    Urist,
    @Urist@lemmy.ml avatar

    Resources are ultimately finite, regardless of method of extraction. The poor people would get richer faster with better distribution and research supports basic reasoning that the pie would get bigger if distribution was better.

    intensely_human,

    Not sure which resources you’re referring to that would be at their limit such that poor people can’t get any richer.

    Also no, all the times the economic system has been built around optimizing distribution, production has dropped to almost zero. Under redistribution schemes, the poor tend to die horribly.

    Urist,
    @Urist@lemmy.ml avatar

    I reiterate: All resources are ultimately finite. There is however more than enough for all if extracted sustainably and shared somewhat equally. Under redistribution schemes, the poor stop being poor because having basic needs met increases social mobility. Also production increases because it is in many cases artificially restricted due to the consumers being too poor to buy the things they want and/or need.

    LemmyKnowsBest,

    Money is infinite though. The wealthy people know how to tap into all the manipulative ways of increasing their own wealth. What we need is education for everyone to know how to do this. But of course a problem with that is that if everyone is wealthy, no one is wealthy because wealth doesn’t exist without something to contrast it with, which are the poor financially-illiterate people who do all the hard labor which generates wealth for their CEOs. Which is why the wealthy people don’t want to educate poor people on financial literacy.

    jadelord,

    Taxes! But different. This channel is very informative:

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEdx1BIb1x0

    The first Episode of Sabrina Live! is called How the Rich Don’t Pay Taxes. All the rich need to do is use three simple steps: “Buy, Borrow, Die.” In this episode, Rich Kid attempts to buy a $50 video game after purchasing a $1 Pokemon card. He then leaves his Pokemon card to his son - Rich Kid II.

    www.peoplestaxpage.org.

    stoy,

    To help our poor billionaires I will take one for the team and help them reduce their burden, for a small administrative fee, I will take ownership of 10% of their fortune, I’d imagine there are several other people who gladly would agree to help in slmilar ways.

    Thorny_Insight,

    But then you’d be a billionaire aswell and would need to be excecuted for the horrible person you are.

    stoy,

    I’d obvously vet my clients based on their fortune:

    A bilionaire with a fortune up to 9 billion, then I’d manage to deal with 10%

    But at 10 billions to 99 billions, I could only manage to deal with 1%

    Also, I would disperse the money, sharing it with the world, while at the same time gathering cameras, computers, and other things I enjoy, thus ensuring that the wealth is not just collected, but actively used and taxes are paid.

    Then as the funds I have been tasked with reducing are gone, I am able to accept a new client for this most noble of task.

    uriel238,
    @uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    So many thoughts on this. I’ll try to parse some out, one post at a time.

    Part of the problem is the standard of legality. Late-stage capitalism is defined by the state serving the ownership class rather than the public. It’s why the state cares very little about wage theft, or addicts dropping dead from opioid overdose, or homeless freezing to death in sub-zero Minnesota but are arresting immigrants who are otherwise well-behaved (and paying their taxes) or raiding repair shops that fix iPhones without an Apple authorization. It’s why media agencies are so worried about piracy even as they try to lay off their development teams if they can be replaced with AI software.

    Laws and the legal system work for the ownership class, not the public. Any legal efforts to strip billionaires of their wealth, or even reduce their profits is going to quickly get neutered. This is why the protections afforded by the fourth, fifth and sixth amendments of the Constitution of the United States have been thoroughly gutted with carve-outs. It’s why asset forfeiture is not only a thing, but takes more from Americans than burglaries.

    And this is why law enforcement is already attacking mutual aid organizations based on licensing issues, because it’s not actually illegal but facilitates other threats to the ownership class, such as labor actions. There is no rule of law in the US. Your rights go only as far as your lawyer’s means to enforce them, and if you’re depending on a public defender, they just don’t have the time or funding.

    The ownership class will (according to Marx) tremble before a communist revolution because we will have ruled out all other alternatives, though we may try a fascist autocracy and a massive genocide machine to dispose of all the underclasses, first.

    And that’s the problem. The Holocaust was legal too. Leaving workers hungry and cold to the elements during the Great Depression was totally legal, and at the time communism as per the Soviet Union was looking pretty good to those of our great grandparents who weren’t Carnegie or Rockefeller. This is not our first rodeo. What the state likes (id est, what is legal ) is not a fair moral standard. Nor is what religious ministries like (id est, what is sin ). We have to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong, and if we’re willing to die for our pacifistic standards when law enforcement decides we are intrinsically unlawful

    This is why some are arguing the climate crisis warrants resorting to violent sabotage (say, blowing up oil pipelines) since the alternative is to let industry pollute us to global catastrophic risk (of extinction). If you want a sustainable civilization, if you want wealth and power distributed fairly, if you want a public-serving government, then you’re going to have to give up on lawful action. And if you want to stay within the confines of law, you’ll have to give up on equality, a functional state or a future.

    DecarbonatedOdes,

    Great answer. I’m getting strong Thoreau Civil Disobedience vibes.

    bazmatazable,

    Great reply, thank you. OP points out that the situation appears hopeless and I often leave feeling that capitalism has truly captured all the regulators and is now free to grind all value out of society. Assume we get a decent amount of the population on the same page what is the next step? Is there no room for reforms? I have a feeling that only when public discussion consistently prioritizes human well-being above all else can any progress be even attempted.

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