Do billionaires deserve their money?

[The Land of the Ephyral]

most don't but a couple do i suppose

It would be interesting to see the NSG lynch mob try and sort between these two groups.

[Bear Stearns]

most don't but a couple do i suppose

It would be interesting to see the NSG lynch mob try and sort between these two groups.

facebook spends $30m a year on zuckerberg's personal security

[Fourth Jellian Republic]

Capitalism is like using a fire to generate power.
It’s the strongest thing we have, but if left unchecked it can engulf everything.

Capitalism is necessarily bad people doing things in their self interest for power and it supposedly helping everyone.
And in that way it kinda works.

How capitalism is suppose to work is that if you want power, you need money, and if you want money you need to find a market and deliver a product.
Say toilet paper.
If you want money, you realize people want toilet paper, and build a business out of it.
You provide toilet paper, you receive money.
If you decide to raise prices too much, somebody else will also sell toilet paper at a lower price.
That’s capitalism working.

Instead though, what happens is corporations create monopolies, they use influence campaigns, they do stock buybacks.
Right now, just like fire spreading out of control, or the roots of a tree destroying a sidewalk, or an AI converting the entirety of the earths matter into envelopes, there is no good reason a corporation can’t simply shovel a tiny portion of their profit to someplace in government, and outside of a fair system with competition, get very, very rich without deserving it.


The most extreme example I can think of are hospitals. If you get unconscious, and are given life saving treatment, you have 0 consumer choice because you are usually not about your wits, and or (think of insulin) because they essentially have a bullet to your head,”pay or die”. That’s not capitalism, that’s extortion.

Or a less extreme but still bad example, utilities. Right now, in most parts of the US, there is one water, one power, and one cell/internet provider. If you want these services, pay or you don’t get it.
It’s not like these companies copyrighted cell towers, they just choose to not compete with each other, and you have do deal with whatever price they set. Just look at Amazon or Netflix increasing their price, over and over, because all they care about is short term growth, which is unsustainable.

Or how about this, car companies. There you have some different options, and while there are metrics and testing magazines and the like, owning a type of car is much less about capability, than it is about brand. (It depends, and is probably the weakest of the 4 examples, but it definitely holds some merit)

And my last example, things like Uber, which upended an industry, to pay people less, in a more unregulated, and less safe way. They are skirting laws, so taxi companies simply can’t compete.

All these examples, some more extreme, some less, are companies not acting in accordance to capitalism, but greed, showing that if you want true capitalism, it must be regulated, or the fire will get out of control.

If you don’t, just remember that some time ago, Facebook told its employees to think of themselves as citizens of Facebook, not a country. Too deregulated, and instead of “government tyranny” you will have “corporate tyranny”, you choose which one you like more.

Because capitalism, in America anyways, is escaping containment, no, I don’t believe those billionaires that profited on decreasing wages, busting unions, misleading the public, greasing the wheels, and extorting the vulnerable, deserve their wealth.
But I do believe in capitalism.
The correct kind, anyways.
(Maybe even a better system that makes it more directly profitable to act in the public good)

[The Land of the Ephyral]

It would be interesting to see the NSG lynch mob try and sort between these two groups.

facebook spends $30m a year on zuckerberg's personal security

That may be so and I don't doubt that's more than enough to protect him but I am assuming that all the people saying they don't deserve it and should be stripped of some or all of it would like to see it happen. Maybe not necessarily by force but why spend $30M on personal security if you don't use it?

Edit: typo fix

[Bear Stearns]

facebook spends $30m a year on zuckerberg's personal security

That may be so and I don't doubt that's more than enough to protect him but I am assuming that all the people saying they don't deserve it and should be stripped of some or all of it would like to see it happen. Maybe not necessarily by force but why spend $30M on personal security if you don't use it?

Edit: typo fix

it's in their 10k as a personnel expense

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

that’s a completely hypothetical thing that could also happen in a socialist system. market socialism is pretty much just capitalism where workers own the companies.

Not a hypothetical it's a metaphor. You say it's bad capitalism is fueled by greed and exploitation I say it's good those things are being put to work.

if hundreds of workers are suffering for 60 hours a week for starvation wages to produce a thing, I doubt that it's worth it. you're openly applauding exploitation of workers and not even considering that an alternative system could be valuable. what about a socialist system means that such things will not be produced? what if we could produce stuff without screwing everyone but the wealthy over?

[The Reformed American Republic]

How do you figure they have done something to deserve such a large amount of money?

Many started with incredible ideas, or were way ahead of their time.
Elon Musk, was very smart as a child, created an electronic game. And that's pretty impressive for a 12-year-old.

Elon Musk inherited a fortune from family ownership of a diamond mine in Apartheid South Africa.

[Bear Stearns]

Many started with incredible ideas, or were way ahead of their time.
Elon Musk, was very smart as a child, created an electronic game. And that's pretty impressive for a 12-year-old.

Elon Musk inherited a fortune from family ownership of a diamond mine in Apartheid South Africa.

he's a rothschild?

[The Reformed American Republic]

Elon Musk inherited a fortune from family ownership of a diamond mine in Apartheid South Africa.

he's a rothschild?

Don't know what you mean by that, but he is old money. He did not earn a fortune, he inherited it, and makes even more money using his fame for pump and dump schemes and other BS.

[Bear Stearns]

he's a rothschild?

Don't know what you mean by that, but he is old money. He did not earn a fortune, he inherited it, and makes even more money using his fame for pump and dump schemes and other BS.

i mean the diamond cartel that originated in the 2nd boer war in south africa and today still controls 45% of the diamond market. the rothschilds founded and own the debeers company

[The United Front Empire]

It would be interesting to see the NSG lynch mob try and sort between these two groups.

facebook spends $30m a year on zuckerberg's personal security

Is that a negative somehow? I personally despise Zuckerberg but this isn't a thing to complain about. It doesn't harm anyone, and some security guards get jobs out of it.

Also, now you're complaining when billionaires spend their wealth too?

[Des-Bal]

if hundreds of workers are suffering for 60 hours a week for starvation wages to produce a thing, I doubt that it's worth it. you're openly applauding exploitation of workers and not even considering that an alternative system could be valuable. what about a socialist system means that such things will not be produced? what if we could produce stuff without screwing everyone but the wealthy over?

Then do it. If it's every bit as viable and better for everybody it has a competitive advantage and sure the only argument you need for the superiority of this system is that it's subplanted all others.

[Des-Bal]

Sadly tens of thousands of people die every year from preventable illnesses in America because they can't afford said magic. I'm not opposed to people making money from providing healthcare, but I am opposed to people needing to spend money before they can receive healthcare. Believe it or not those two positions aren't incompatible. It's called single payer healthcare, it provides the incentives for developing and practicing medicine and also fairly distributes the costs for doing so.

Is the American system better than living under Pol Pot or whatever? Sure, but that doesn't mean that there aren't obvious and verifiable ways to improve upon it.

You can certainly level criticisms at the American healthcare system Hell- I don't know that it makes sense you can call the police and fire department for free but an ambulance is going to fuck up your day. And yet it's the US who leads the world in medical innovation.

[Willtime]

NEVER.

[Sundiata]

Every billionaire and millionaire should give all of their wealth to the poor.

[Senkaku]

Many started with incredible ideas, or were way ahead of their time.
Elon Musk, was very smart as a child, created an electronic game. And that's pretty impressive for a 12-year-old.

Elon Musk inherited a fortune from family ownership of a diamond mine in Apartheid South Africa.

it was a Zambian emerald mine but close enough

[Alcala-Cordel]

That's still whataboutism. If you don't want to try to justify the existence of billionaires you're in the wrong thread.

No it's not. If someone says "you suck" and you reply "you also suck" thats whatsboutism because you're not rebutting anything it's very possible for you to suck and for them to suck both can be true. If someone says "you suck" and you reply "Nobody had ever sucked less than I do" that's not whataboutism it's laying bare the flaw of the initial assertion. Capitalism is the best, if you say it's bad your either wrong or bad isn't actually an indictment.

Only you didn't say "capitalism is the best system we have", did you? Instead, you went on an unrelated rant about communism and its supposed failures without addressing the actual question. That's whataboutism.

I literally just justified billionaires they have the money. That's the justification I went into more detail about their worth. The fact is a laborer is more fungible than a CEO and if one manager and one laborer put in an eight hour day the manager created more value.

Good for you, making an argument that relates to the topic.

That's not a fact, though. Managers and CEOs can absolutely be replaced, they're not special. Less of them are needed, though, because the wealth itself is generated by the laborers themselves. They are also human beings who need to pay for things in their own lives, meaning if they have to spend their time working for a company they deserve enough to make it worthwhile.

[Alcala-Cordel]

Every billionaire and millionaire should give all of their wealth to the poor.

That would be cool, but given that they won't maybe we as working people should collecrively do something...

[Sordhau]

Ok fine. It's fanfiction on how to make a utopia.

It's okay, I'll explain it for you:

Socialism is when the workers own the means of production. What this means is that all the workers in a factory share collective ownership of that factory, all the workers on a farm share collective ownership of that farm, etc. They are all entitled to an equal share of the profits and have an equal say in how the business operates through workplace democracy in which no worker has any power over any other. All decisions are made democratically by everyone employed there. There are no CEOs, no shareholders, no board of directors, no redundant 'management' that works less than half the year and never has to put in overtime yet takes home more money than everybody else combined. The profits go directly toward those who make them and no one else. Other important aspects of Socialism include the abolition of private property (land is owned by the people who work on it and no one else), the redistribution of wealth (from those who hoard excessive amounts of it to those who have little to nothing to their name), the state-mandated right to amenities such as housing, food, water, electricity, heat, air conditioning, internet, and transportation on the conditions of employment and tax payment.

Voila. You now know what Socialism is.

It's so cool that socialism did all that stuff when

I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that you lack the ability to understand that Socialism is not Communism and vice-versa.

In a socialist state you'd never go to college because you would die on your knees and your body would be shoveled into a mass grave.

And why would that happen? The bulk of people who died at the hands of Socialist regimes were wealthy, upper class parasites who never worked a day in their lives. I am a working class proletarian in support of a proletarian revolution. I am literally the last person a Socialist regime would target.

I haven't ignored anything I said I will give a fuck about the inevitable doom when the inevitable doom actually happens

Yes, this is the same attitude that the elites who are bringing about that doom have. Shockingly it seems to be making things worse. Go figure.

and that's ignoring the fact the socialism that never existed

It has existed several times and I never claimed otherwise.

but is also solely responsible for space travel

Technically we can thank the Nazis for that one but, well... who would want to thank the Nazis for anything? Fuck the Nazis.

and spread industrialization

Again; Socialism != Communism

This is basic shit bro. If you can't figure this out then there's no hope for you at all.

has no blame whatsoever in the state of the environment.

Oh no, I never said claimed Socialism hasn't had a hand in fucking up the environment. I said we (Socialists) aren't the ones (currently) destroying the environment; which is objectively true. Cuba's contribution to global climate change is negligble to the point of irrelevance. The two major Capitalist powers on Earth, American and China, however... this is not to downplay the roles of every country with oil, overpopulated countries like India, and of course Brazil and their rape of the Amazon, etc.

Even the shittiest parts of the world aren't doing all that bad when addressed at the proper scale.

There are open-air slave markets in Libya.

The Taliban have returned to power in Afghanistan.

Cuba has been under embargo for 60 years.

Mexico cannot maintain law and order in half it's states.

I can go on?

Your problem is you see somebody getting ahead and get upset without considering whether those left behind are actually worse off.

No, my problem is that in order to 'get ahead' those people who do so step on thousands or even millions of other people - people like me - and then people like you celebrate this like it's a good thing that more and more Americans are struggling to afford rent.

I don't need to bring my A-Game to refute socialism- I don't really need anything to refute socialism. Scoreboard. Capitalism won and yes that makes it better because being beaten makes you a loser.

I mean... I'm not convinced you haven't brought your "A-game" already. Are you even listening to yourself? You sound like a caricature. All you're doing is making a fool of yourself by stanning for the second most vile system ever devised after Fascism. What even is your strategy here? If you're trying to convince me I'm wrong then you're failing miserably; I used to willingly believe the bullshit you spout, then I entered the workforce and saw the lies for what they were. If you're trying to convince other people, fuck man, you're failing even worse at that because even the pro-capitalist people are looking at you like "wtf is this guy doing". So why are you here? You've proven nothing other than that you can't debate without juvenile triumphalism which is very pathetic and sad for a grown-ass man to be doing. So what is motivating you to sit here and shitpost about how great the system that is leading humanity to it's demise is? Boredom?

Absolutely mind-boggling.

Point to the single greatest socialist state around today.

Most of them were betrayed by their own leadership, sadly. Ephialtes has nothing on Gorbachev and Deng smh.

Go right ahead- whose the socialist superpower right now?

"Socialist superpower" is an oxymoron; Socialism is anti-imperialist.

When human life hangs in the balance trusting it to losers doesn't make sense.

Makes more sense than trusting it to the people bringing humanity to it's destruction. Like... really? You're going to trust human life to the people destroying it just because they "won"? You've chosen a very weird hill to die on ngl.

That's stupid and not true- there's SOOOOO much money in cures. There's a disgusting amount of money in cures- lots of people get cancer and would pay any amount of money to cure it- cancer can recur or you can develop another type. If you can cure cancer you can print money.

Oh yeah, there's lots of money in cures... until you've cured everybody and the disease goes the way of the Dodo. Suddenly there's no more money in cures.

But apparently you didn't think about that.

That is what free stuff is.

It isn't free. I pay for it through taxes and labor. Please think before you post.

It's evident at every phase of your ideology that delusional fixation with looking at somebody else's plate. Head out to New Mexico and start a commune then build your perfect society that will out-compete- it should be shockingly easy because apparently manual labor is the only actual work- and distribute resources equally. Go build a fucking hospital yourself if it's so effortless. The resources you're saying are being mismanaged exist solely due to capitalism the technologies that make that hospital worth a fuck were forged by capitalism the techniques that make those doctors competent are the products of a capitalist system. That's really all there is to it you care about billionaires because it's not about dignity or worth it's about the fact that by sheer token of drawing breath you feel you deserve an equal share in anything anyone else has. You don't. The system isn't fair- the world's not fair how many life forms are born then immediately die? The system doesn't give everyone a fair shot, most people will not achieve the extent of their dreams, some people will fall into the cracks regardless of how hard they try. But it works, the wheel will turn, most will be okay and some will advance and through whatever combination of luck, cunning, and grit advance and their advancement often but not always benefits everyone else.

As always the pro-Capitalist crowd always finds a way to circle back to the "life sucks, get over it, stop trying to fix it, just give up and accept things will always be shit and suffer in silence like the rest of us" line. Because at the end of the day that's really the only thing keeping you people mindlessly glued to this psychotic ideology of yours: a complete lack of empathy.

Go to New Mexico. Build a commune.

To retreat to a commune is nothing short of selfish cowardice. My fellow workers languish in exploitation; I will not keep them in chains just to liberate myself. I will suffer alongside them, speaking only the truth, until the day the veil lifts and their awakened class consciousness shows them the light. They will one day see the charade for what it is, and God-willing we will all rise up and break our chains together! Liberation is inevitable; it is a matter of when, not if. I hope you live long to see that glorious day. I hope you find the experience humbling. I hope you discover wisdom and choose the side of the oppressed and renounce the oppressors at long last.

Until then, you have proven yourself too obstinate to engage with. This, coupled with your inability to debate seriously and in good faith, leaves me no choice but to ignore you from hereon out. Here's hoping that one day I'll be able to call you a comrade. Toodles.

[Bursken]

he's a rothschild?

Don't know what you mean by that, but he is old money. He did not earn a fortune, he inherited it, and makes even more money using his fame for pump and dump schemes and other BS.

We can all agree that Elongated Muskrat is an odd and quite simply unpleasant fellow

[Pasong Tirad]

All of the workers Bezos employs deserve all of his money, and the same goes for Gates, Musk, Buffet, etc. All of their money should be redistributed to everyone who's ever worked for them proportionally according to the work and the length of time they spent with their companies.

I take it back. I deserve all of their money. Every single billionaire should give all of their wealth to me and I will be the only person worth over $1 billion in the world. Once I die another unlucky person gets to take on all of the billionaire's wealth.

[American Legionaries]

Every billionaire and millionaire should give all of their wealth to the poor.

That would be cool, but given that they won't maybe we as working people should collecrively do something...

"collectively"

[Sundiata]

Every billionaire and millionaire should give all of their wealth to the poor.

That would be cool, but given that they won't maybe we as working people should collecrively do something...

Sure, start a union.

[Kerwa]

It’s not really a meaningful question. They are just products of the system like everyone else.

Some of them are no doubt reprehensible people, some are not. I’ve actually met kindly billionaires - whatever. Much of it is paper wealth anyway.

On the scale of people who fuck up your life though they are generally harmless compared to many others. It’s the grifting classes you have to worry about (some of whom are admittedly billionaires, but that’s incidental).

[Des-Bal]

Only you didn't say "capitalism is the best system we have", did you? Instead, you went on an unrelated rant about communism and its supposed failures without addressing the actual question. That's whataboutism.

Good for you, making an argument that relates to the topic.

That's not a fact, though. Managers and CEOs can absolutely be replaced, they're not special. Less of them are needed, though, because the wealth itself is generated by the laborers themselves. They are also human beings who need to pay for things in their own lives, meaning if they have to spend their time working for a company they deserve enough to make it worthwhile.

I have said it so many fucking times. I have literally described capitalism as the greatest thing in the universe.

Anybody can be replaced it is easier to replace a guy who works an assembly line than a guy who manages a company. The guy who made the thing may have pulled a lever or pushed a button but the only reason they had the power to do this was because somebody else made the machine, somebody else designed the factory, somebody else sourced the materials and the only reason pushing that button was able to generate value was because somebody else worked out the packaging, advertising, logistics. Somebody else designed and oversaw a system that allowed this factory to interact with another, where this guy knew which buttons and levers he had to manipulate how and when, wrote safety procedures to make sure he wasn't maimed doing this, established policies to maximize efficiency and that's not even dealing with the fact that before this guy had a button to press someone had to take the initiative to start this shit they had to assume risk before it was clear this would be viable. There's so much shit happening here that is more complicated than pushing buttons and pulling levers and there's this delusional idea that it's just not work. If all business is choked with parasites any worker owned business will immediately crush them because they have a massive competitive advantage- if you're saying you have a business model that is more efficient and results in greater satisfaction for all the people who matter don't whine that nobody's doing it just do it go forth and conquer.

It literally is worthwhile to them if it wasn't they wouldn't do it. If their pay was suddenly cut to a penny every six years or so they'd quit because even if you feel working to survive is coercive it is a choice and the only reason anybody does it is because it is worthwhile.