Billionaires took enough money in '17 to end extreme poverty

[Torrocca]

Based on the math and link, 462,000,000,000/1,700,000,000

Everyone in extreme poverty, if redistributing the gained income by the billionaires, everyone would get 270 dollars per person. If you use the amount of people that make less than 2.50 a day, then you are giving them all about 125.00 dollars per person. While just confiscating that wealth and distributing it to those who don't have it is great in the short term, long term economics wouldn't be as impacted as once that money's gone, typically to corrupt dictators, it's gone.

Better it at least get some short term use than have almost 99.999% of it get sat on by billionaires who only care about raising that number like it's some game or some shit.

[Sucrati]

Based on the math and link, 462,000,000,000/1,700,000,000

Everyone in extreme poverty, if redistributing the gained income by the billionaires, everyone would get 270 dollars per person. If you use the amount of people that make less than 2.50 a day, then you are giving them all about 125.00 dollars per person. While just confiscating that wealth and distributing it to those who don't have it is great in the short term, long term economics wouldn't be as impacted as once that money's gone, typically to corrupt dictators, it's gone.

Better it at least get some short term use than have almost 99.999% of it get sat on by billionaires who only care about raising that number like it's some game or some shit.

That's the thing, billionaires and millionaires (who include a bunch of the political elites around the world, even those who claim to support socialist and communist movements), will still be sitting on their wealth. Now dictators of nations where the masses may have seen a short term gain have nothing to show for it. Sound like so long as someone feels that the ends have been met, even as short as it is met, justifies the means?

[Torrocca]

Better it at least get some short term use than have almost 99.999% of it get sat on by billionaires who only care about raising that number like it's some game or some shit.

That's the thing, billionaires and millionaires (who include a bunch of the political elites around the world, even those who claim to support socialist and communist movements), will still be sitting on their wealth. Now dictators of nations where the masses may have seen a short term gain have nothing to show for it. Sound like so long as someone feels that the ends have been met, even as short as it is met, justifies the means?

Revolution when?

[36 Camera Perspective]

If Joe wants to study a field of his choice, he should move to a capitalist society. In a socialist society, Joe is going to study whatever the fuck the central planners want him to. Oh, Joe wanted to study history at University X? Sorry Joe, we already hit our quota on history majors.

Apparently somewhere along the line someone forgot that anarcho-communism is a thing. Hmm.

Apparently somebody forgot that they’ve been using the general term “non-capitalist” for the entire thread, preventing anybody from understanding precisely what kind of society they’re talking about. If you wanted me to talk about your special flavor of communism, you should have been more specific.

[Major-Tom]

If Joe wants to study a field of his choice, he should move to a capitalist society. In a socialist society, Joe is going to study whatever the fuck the central planners want him to. Oh, Joe wanted to study history at University X? Sorry Joe, we already hit our quota on history majors.

Apparently somewhere along the line someone forgot that anarcho-communism is a thing. Hmm.

I never understand how one thinks something like that could possibly be implemented. It's absurd...

[Torrocca]

Apparently somewhere along the line someone forgot that anarcho-communism is a thing. Hmm.

Apparently somebody forgot that they’ve been using the general term “non-capitalist” for the entire thread, preventing anybody from understanding precisely what kind of society they’re talking about. If you wanted me to talk about your special flavor of communism, you should have been more specific.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Apparently somewhere along the line someone forgot that anarcho-communism is a thing. Hmm.

I never understand how one thinks something like that could possibly be implemented. It's absurd...

Either that or some global socialist/communist society once we fully-autonomize society.

[36 Camera Perspective]

There you go, Torrocca. I respect people who can shrug off their failures.

[36 Camera Perspective]

By the way Torrocca, even under anarcho-communism, the means of production are still commonly owned, so one is still not free to do whatever they want. I can’t go and work at the iron factory of my choice if the worker’s council, or whatever ridiculous decentralized construction you believe in, won’t permit me to.

Oh, and that Kropotkin guy is full of shit too. Obviously he has never ran a joint venture before, for then he would know that the compensation of each individual is determined by their marginal product.

[Srianna Gestane]

Jeez, what a clickbaity title.

OP says they took money, but the article essentially says the rich created more wealth for themselves than the bottom poor did. Which isn't anything new or surprising.

I also get the feeling that the Oxfam/OP's response is implying that these billionaires are literally sitting on a pile of $462 billion in cash, rather than it being indicators of value/worth/etc, like national GDP.

By 'created more wealth for themselves', you mean hired people who did billions of dollars of work for them, and paid them a tiny fraction of what they were worth? Or did you mean that they tore resources out of the ground because they claimed it belonged to them and men with guns backed it up?

Absurd...

[36 Camera Perspective]

Jeez, what a clickbaity title.

OP says they took money, but the article essentially says the rich created more wealth for themselves than the bottom poor did. Which isn't anything new or surprising.

I also get the feeling that the Oxfam/OP's response is implying that these billionaires are literally sitting on a pile of $462 billion in cash, rather than it being indicators of value/worth/etc, like national GDP.

By 'created more wealth for themselves', you mean hired people who did billions of dollars of work for them, and paid them a tiny fraction of what they were worth? Or did you mean that they tore resources out of the ground because they claimed it belonged to them and men with guns backed it up?

Absurd...

Yes, only labor matters. There is no such thing as capital.

[Torrocca]

By the way Torrocca, even under anarcho-communism, the means of production are still commonly owned, so one is still not free to do whatever they want. I can’t go and work at the iron factory of my choice if the worker’s council, or whatever ridiculous decentralized construction you believe in, won’t permit me to.

That

That's not Anarcho-Communism tho

Oh, and that Kropotkin guy is full of shit too. Obviously he has never ran a joint venture before, for then he would know that the compensation of each individual is determined by their marginal product.

Daddy Kropotkin is life, you take that back >:^(((

[Srianna Gestane]

Based on the math and link, 462,000,000,000/1,700,000,000

Everyone in extreme poverty, if redistributing the gained income by the billionaires, everyone would get 270 dollars per person. If you use the amount of people that make less than 2.50 a day, then you are giving them all about 125.00 dollars per person. While just confiscating that wealth and distributing it to those who don't have it is great in the short term, long term economics wouldn't be as impacted as once that money's gone, typically to corrupt dictators, it's gone.

Better it at least get some short term use than have almost 99.999% of it get sat on by billionaires who only care about raising that number like it's some game or some shit.

My suggestion would be to ensure the wealth is invested in things that reduce costs and increase profits for those who need it most. Safe sources of water, sustainable farms, bicycles so they can get their produce to market and have more economic freedom. Increasing disposable income isn't the best way to reduce poverty, and preventing hardship is not just about reducing poverty, anyway.

[36 Camera Perspective]

Ok, tell us what anarcho-communism is.

[Bakery Hill]

Joe could, in a non-capitalist society, go to a free college, study a field of his choice, produced labor beneficial to the collective on his own, and support society, his family, and himself in his own way, without worrying about any financial burdens.

If Joe wants to study a field of his choice, he should move to a capitalist society. In a socialist society, Joe is going to study whatever the fuck the central planners want him to. Oh, Joe wanted to study history at University X? Sorry Joe, we already hit our quota on history majors.

How is the free market better?

[36 Camera Perspective]

If Joe wants to study a field of his choice, he should move to a capitalist society. In a socialist society, Joe is going to study whatever the fuck the central planners want him to. Oh, Joe wanted to study history at University X? Sorry Joe, we already hit our quota on history majors.

How is the free market better?

You can go to whatever university chooses to take you.

[Bakery Hill]

Joe moves to a capitalist society to finally study history. He pays a hundred thousand dollars and works a full time job to pay his rent while going into debt. He find at the end of his tuition that the market no longer values his degree, he discovers now that the free market has quotas of its own. Joe is now in debt and if he loses his job at the burger place to a younger worker or recent immigrant who can be payed less, he's going to get kicked out on to the street. He sometimes wonders how life would have been if he'd studied Agronomy back in the home country.

[36 Camera Perspective]

Joe moves to a capitalist society to finally study history. He pays a hundred thousand dollars and works a full time job to pay his rent while going into debt. He find at the end of his tuition that the market no longer values his degree, he discovers now that the free market has quotas of its own. Joe is now in debt and if he loses his job at the burger place to a younger worker or recent immigrant who can be payed less, he's going to get kicked out on to the street. He sometimes wonders how life would have been if he'd studied Agronomy back in the home country.

And then?

[Bakery Hill]

Joe moves to a capitalist society to finally study history. He pays a hundred thousand dollars and works a full time job to pay his rent while going into debt. He find at the end of his tuition that the market no longer values his degree, he discovers now that the free market has quotas of its own. Joe is now in debt and if he loses his job at the burger place to a younger worker or recent immigrant who can be payed less, he's going to get kicked out on to the street. He sometimes wonders how life would have been if he'd studied Agronomy back in the home country.

And then?

Who knows? We are confronting one issue here, demand for certain types of labour. Central planning (ideally) sees a shortage or an oversupply and acts accordingly. The free market does not do so. Either way, Joe is not going to get a job. But in freemarketstan he can choose to needlessly go into debt and live in poverty. Or if he's smarter he can look at the market for his skills and choose to do something else, which is exactly what the central planners would have advised/coerced/encouraged him to do.

[36 Camera Perspective]

And then?

Who knows? We are confronting one issue here, demand for certain types of labour. Central planning (ideally) sees a shortage or an oversupply and acts accordingly. The free market does not do so. Either way, Joe is not going to get a job. But in freemarketstan he can choose to needlessly go into debt and live in poverty. Or if he's smarter he can look at the market for his skills and choose to do something else, which is exactly what the central planners would have advised/coerced/encouraged him to do.

Market signals would have also encouraged Joe to do something else, and they would have done so far more convincingly and efficiently than a group of fallible men forcing him at gun point. It is easier for Joe to make economic calculations and act on these calculations under the free market than it is for him under a planned economy. Another point is that in this case, the collectivist planners happen to be right. Broken clock and all that. But in general, the free market tends to be more correct and efficient in these matters than central planning.

[Bakery Hill]

Who knows? We are confronting one issue here, demand for certain types of labour. Central planning (ideally) sees a shortage or an oversupply and acts accordingly. The free market does not do so. Either way, Joe is not going to get a job. But in freemarketstan he can choose to needlessly go into debt and live in poverty. Or if he's smarter he can look at the market for his skills and choose to do something else, which is exactly what the central planners would have advised/coerced/encouraged him to do.

Market signals would have also encouraged Joe to do something else, and they would have done so far more convincingly and efficiently than a group of fallible men forcing him at gun point. It is easier for Joe to make economic calculations and act on these calculations under the free market than it is for him under a planned economy. Another point is that in this case, the collectivist planners happen to be right. Broken clock and all that. But in general, the free market tends to be more correct and efficient in these matters than central planning.

But your argument wasn't about the efficiency of central planning, or the lack thereof. You were attacking central planning for restricting the freedom to enter certain careers. What I'm saying is that central planning itself does not create those restrictions. Supply and demand does, and it does so in the free market as well.

[36 Camera Perspective]

Market signals would have also encouraged Joe to do something else, and they would have done so far more convincingly and efficiently than a group of fallible men forcing him at gun point. It is easier for Joe to make economic calculations and act on these calculations under the free market than it is for him under a planned economy. Another point is that in this case, the collectivist planners happen to be right. Broken clock and all that. But in general, the free market tends to be more correct and efficient in these matters than central planning.

But your argument wasn't about the efficiency of central planning, or the lack thereof. You were attacking central planning for restricting the freedom to enter certain careers. What I'm saying is that central planning itself does not create those restrictions. Supply and demand does, and it does so in the free market as well.

Not in the same sense. The central planners aren’t necessarily using market mechanisms in their calculations, or doing so rationally when they try to. The free market is always using market mechanisms (what else could it do?). In the free market, I can attend whatever university will voluntarily associate with me. This does not obtain in a planned society. That is my point.

[Bakery Hill]

But your argument wasn't about the efficiency of central planning, or the lack thereof. You were attacking central planning for restricting the freedom to enter certain careers. What I'm saying is that central planning itself does not create those restrictions. Supply and demand does, and it does so in the free market as well.

Not in the same sense. The central planners aren’t necessarily using market mechanisms in their calculations, or doing so rationally when they try to. The free market is always using market mechanisms (what else could it do?). In the free market, I can attend whatever university will voluntarily associate with me. This does not obtain in a planned society. That is my point.

I don't see any great difference in this situation (labor oversupply) besides the free market allowing you the possibility to fail.

[36 Camera Perspective]

Not in the same sense. The central planners aren’t necessarily using market mechanisms in their calculations, or doing so rationally when they try to. The free market is always using market mechanisms (what else could it do?). In the free market, I can attend whatever university will voluntarily associate with me. This does not obtain in a planned society. That is my point.

I don't see any great difference in this situation (labor oversupply) besides the free market allowing you the possibility to fail.

The salient difference here is the possibility of failure. More specifically, Joe had the right to fail. He willingly chose to pursue his own ends and now he lives with the potential rewards and detriments of his calculation. In our other scenario, Joe is denied the right to pursue his own ends. His individual project was subsumed under a machine of collectivist coercion. Joe was deprived of the right to fail.

[Bakery Hill]

I don't see any great difference in this situation (labor oversupply) besides the free market allowing you the possibility to fail.

The salient difference here is the possibility of failure. More specifically, Joe had the right to fail. He willingly chose to pursue his own ends and now he lives with the potential rewards and detriments of his calculation. In our other scenario, Joe is denied the right to pursue his own ends. His individual project was subsumed under a machine of collectivist coercion. Joe was deprived of the right to fail.

I mean you can pursue this existentialist wank where we celebrate people becoming the victims of the market due to their totally fair and free choices, or you can socially and structurally try and make your country a better place.

[36 Camera Perspective]

The salient difference here is the possibility of failure. More specifically, Joe had the right to fail. He willingly chose to pursue his own ends and now he lives with the potential rewards and detriments of his calculation. In our other scenario, Joe is denied the right to pursue his own ends. His individual project was subsumed under a machine of collectivist coercion. Joe was deprived of the right to fail.

I mean you can pursue this existentialist wank where we celebrate people becoming the victims of the market due to their totally fair and free choices, or you can socially and structurally try and make your country a better place.

Those are pretty words, but the best way to improve a country is the free market.