Do billionaires deserve their money?

[Darkrill Dwarf Galaxies]

There is NO moral case for billionaires.

[Grinning Dragon]

There is NO moral case for billionaires.

Probably because it doesn't matter, it isn't moral or immoral to have wealth.

[Page]

There is NO moral case for billionaires.

Probably because it doesn't matter, it isn't moral or immoral to have wealth.

It is immoral to have an extreme surplus of wealth while others suffer due to a lack of wealth. Money being nothing more than a medium for the exchange of tangible resources, like food, being a billionaire is like having a Boeing factory sized warehouse full of food while there is a famine among the working class.

[Fourth Jellian Republic]

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

If melon-usk got rich over the suffering of what was essentially slave labour in apartheid South Africa, he’s a textbook example of someone not deserving their wealth.

[Grinning Dragon]

Probably because it doesn't matter, it isn't moral or immoral to have wealth.

It is immoral to have an extreme surplus of wealth while others suffer due to a lack of wealth. Money being nothing more than a medium for the exchange of tangible resources, like food, being a billionaire is like having a Boeing factory sized warehouse full of food while there is a famine among the working class.

This is an argument of the morality of action/inaction more so than the morality of the wealth itself.

[Des-Bal]

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.

It's the same not working shit it's just a matter of how extensively you like the smell.

Yeah that's never been true. It's a lot of tangenitally related motherfuckers especially revolutionaries because you can't trust the fuckers not to revolt.

Cool. Let it happen.

Thanks for rocketry Nazis, boo for the holocaust though it was you mean you guys did that. You can actually recognize the good and bad things about a system or group.

Solely because your losing.

Oh wow problems exist? That's never happened.

Yeah getting ahead means getting ahead- the fact you've got more than other people isn't a negative consequences it's the product of the thing you tried to do.

I don't need to convince you- capitalism is winning. Same situation as billionaires- they have the money. Are you not here because of boredom? What more fun thing would you rather be doing and what will happen to you or your family if you don't do that?

So they lost is what your saying. Like losers.

I won't. If the revolution comes I'll shoot the revolutionaries.

If you can't project influence- both diplomatically and militarily- you will inevitably be in the power of those who can and will. We seem to be in agreement that you're espousing philosophies congenitally opposed to winning I just don't know why you think it's good.

I actually did think about that I literally mentioned how cancer recurs or you can develop another type. But if we're not talking about cancer which is weird because it's our own bodies fucking up one of your earlier complaints actually addresses it. Just as oil barons charge forward heedless of their effect on the environment the first company to cure HIV will print money without giving a fuck about any of the other companies they're ruthlessly fucking.

If the value was proportionate you would pay for it with money. What you want is free stuff.

I'm not saying don't try to fix it I'm saying it works better than your bullshit and the soreboard so reflects. Empathy is calling the members of your fucking species who were murdered for being successful, wearing glasses, or just being ethnic minorities of inconvenience to a homicidal regime

parasites who never worked a day in their lives

You are not empathetic you are homicidal and there's no reason to think your beliefs lead anywhere but the killing fields. Your desire to gamble with human life because you believe it will further benefit you is nothing less than repackaged greed.

Your ignoring the context of New Mexico earlier discussed. Your comrades aren't imprisoned- they are making the choices that make the most sense for them. Make a successful commune- your superior ideas will surely do so much better that you will defeat capitalism by being the better alternative. Since your bullshit is so fucking great all you have to do is be better and win. You don't entertain this as a possibility- instead you want to plunder what capitalism has created the things you know in your heart of hearts your ideology is incapable of producing. You can't build a better Meta you need what Zuckerberg built under capitalism.

This is to say nothing of the fact that the working class aren't your allies and they don't have your values. They're a bunch of fucking Trump Supporters. The Working class are the ones worried about immigrants, CEOs aren't the ones saying immigration is stealing their jobs. When a state makes a show of fucking with transgender youths who do you they're playing to? If the workers rise tomorrow the first thing they're doing is building a wall around mexico and hanging transgender kids from it. I truly truly hope that your revolution never comes and so should you. Even assuming you achieve ideological purity within your little club there are a bunch of motherfuckers with guns and bunkers jerking off imagining the day they get the moral justification to cut down liberals. Whether the realization of your homicidal power fantasy are wearing red hats or not I hope that day never comes and suspect it won't but you know- who cares? As I've said before ideological concerns are less important than what works and the scoreboard requires no justification. If that day comes whose humbled is going to be far less important than whose armed so blather and bluster about the inevitable but if you don't have a gun in your hand it's probably not going to be a great day for you.

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

Your desire to gamble with human life because you believe it will further benefit you is nothing less than repackaged greed.

wait, I thought exploitation and greed were good things. I guess that only applies when it’s a system you agree with.

[Sordhau]

There is NO moral case for billionaires.

Probably because it doesn't matter, it isn't moral or immoral to have wealth.

Actually it is. It is quite literally impossible to become wealthy without committing immoral deeds, unless you're inheriting someone else's wealth or digging up buried treasure but most people don't get wealthy that way.

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

[Make a successful commune- your superior ideas will surely do so much better that you will defeat capitalism by being the better alternative. Since your bullshit is so fucking great all you have to do is be better and win. You don't entertain this as a possibility- instead you want to plunder what capitalism has created the things you know in your heart of hearts your ideology is incapable of producing. You can't build a better Meta you need what Zuckerberg built under capitalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Zap ... cipalities

here’s a libertarian socialist state in rural mexico with,
$44,000,000 in exports
high-quality universal healthcare (with higher vaccination rates, higher maternal support, way, way less tuberculosis, more frequent cancer screenings, practically no maternal deaths, etc)
massive schooling
better sanitation and more common toilets
strong environmental protections
support of feminism and queer persons
a self-reliant economy

i dunno man, that sounds pretty nice considering it’s in some rural region of southern mexico. perhaps socialism has failed because it hasn’t been properly tried or allowed to succeed.

[Grinning Dragon]

Probably because it doesn't matter, it isn't moral or immoral to have wealth.

Actually it is. It is quite literally impossible to become wealthy without committing immoral deeds, unless you're inheriting someone else's wealth or digging up buried treasure but most people don't get wealthy that way.

So it's the action of getting there and not so much the wealth itself, then again morals are subjective, what you may consider immoral acts, I may find that it wasn't/isn't an immoral act.

[Des-Bal]

wait, I thought exploitation and greed were good things. I guess that only applies when it’s a system you agree with.

1) Actually I described them as metaphorical waste and the darkest parts of human nature 2) whether or not I like them is immaterial, this person is saying they're in opposition to them.

[Des-Bal]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Zap ... cipalities

here’s a libertarian socialist state in rural mexico with,
$44,000,000 in exports
high-quality universal healthcare (with higher vaccination rates, higher maternal support, way, way less tuberculosis, more frequent cancer screenings, practically no maternal deaths, etc)
massive schooling
better sanitation and more common toilets
strong environmental protections
support of feminism and queer persons
a self-reliant economy

i dunno man, that sounds pretty nice considering it’s in some rural region of southern mexico. perhaps socialism has failed because it hasn’t been properly tried or allowed to succeed.

That's not an argument, if it works better do it better no discussion necessary.

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Zap ... cipalities

here’s a libertarian socialist state in rural mexico with,
$44,000,000 in exports
high-quality universal healthcare (with higher vaccination rates, higher maternal support, way, way less tuberculosis, more frequent cancer screenings, practically no maternal deaths, etc)
massive schooling
better sanitation and more common toilets
strong environmental protections
support of feminism and queer persons
a self-reliant economy

i dunno man, that sounds pretty nice considering it’s in some rural region of southern mexico. perhaps socialism has failed because it hasn’t been properly tried or allowed to succeed.

That's not an argument, if it works better do it better no discussion necessary.

what?

[Des-Bal]

what?

The metric of a systems superiority is success. "This particular place isn't as bad as some shitholes" isn't a badge of honor and "it hasn't been tried" or "it hasn't been allowed" is bullshit. If you have a competitive advantage in the macro you can expect to win and if you can be stopped it's because somebody else was better.

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

what?

The metric of a systems superiority is success. "This particular place isn't as bad as some shitholes" isn't a badge of honor and "it hasn't been tried" or "it hasn't been allowed" is bullshit. If you have a competitive advantage in the macro you can expect to win and if you can be stopped it's because somebody else was better.

1) that particular place has relatively prospered and become much better than what it was before. that sounds like success to me.
2) the US is an established power. if the US decided to invade the Zapato-controlled regions, they would win easily. not because their system is necessarily better, but because they have more resources and have more weaponry. if the nazis won WWII, would that make their system better?

[Senkaku]

This is to say nothing of the fact that the working class aren't your allies and they don't have your values. They're a bunch of fucking Trump Supporters. The Working class are the ones worried about immigrants, CEOs aren't the ones saying immigration is stealing their jobs. When a state makes a show of fucking with transgender youths who do you they're playing to? If the workers rise tomorrow the first thing they're doing is building a wall around mexico and hanging transgender kids from it.

I know the whole "the GOP is now the party of the working class" narrative is very popular among certain media outlets but it's not really borne out all that well in actuality; like yes there are working class people who support them but studies have pretty consistently shown both the most extreme wing of the party and the mass base of its support are not, in fact, primarily comprised of people who can be defined as "working class" in any reasonable way, but rather of petit-bourgeois professionals and business owners. "The working class" is a much bigger and more politically diverse group than finger-wagging right-wing sophists or rabid left-wing revolutionaries would have us believe.

"This particular place isn't as bad as some shitholes" isn't a badge of honor

Then why do you keep portraying it as one lol

[Des-Bal]

1) that particular place has relatively prospered and become much better than what it was before. that sounds like success to me.
2) the US is an established power. if the US decided to invade the Zapato-controlled regions, they would win easily. not because their system is necessarily better, but because they have more resources and have more weaponry. if the nazis won WWII, would that make their system better?

1) Like Nazi Germany
2) Yes. If Fascism was so much more efficient that it supplanted every other system it would in fact be better. That would suck.

[Des-Bal]

I know the whole "the GOP is now the party of the working class" narrative is very popular among certain media outlets but it's not really borne out all that well in actuality; like yes there are working class people who support them but studies have pretty consistently shown both the most extreme wing of the party and the mass base of its support are not, in fact, primarily comprised of people who can be defined as "working class" in any reasonable way, but rather of petit-bourgeois professionals and business owners. "The working class" is a much bigger and more politically diverse group than finger-wagging right-wing sophists or rabid left-wing revolutionaries would have us believe.


Then why do you keep portraying it as one lol

I mean obviously no group is univocal that's actually kind of the problem- they will not act in unison and if they do the areas where they can be mobilized are going to be ones a plurality agrees on and it's more likely the common ground will be they took our jobs or think of the children than everybody let's share.

I'm not.

[Umeria]

the US is an established power. if the US decided to invade the Zapato-controlled regions, they would win easily. not because their system is necessarily better, but because they have more resources and have more weaponry. if the nazis won WWII, would that make their system better?

Yes. If Fascism was so much more efficient that it supplanted every other system it would in fact be better. That would suck.

I saw two people playing a game of chess. The black player won, so black must be the better chess color.

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

1) that particular place has relatively prospered and become much better than what it was before. that sounds like success to me.
2) the US is an established power. if the US decided to invade the Zapato-controlled regions, they would win easily. not because their system is necessarily better, but because they have more resources and have more weaponry. if the nazis won WWII, would that make their system better?

1) Like Nazi Germany
2) Yes. If Fascism was so much more efficient that it supplanted every other system it would in fact be better. That would suck.

1) I’m 90% sure the Zapato region hasn’t genocided anyone
2) no, because there are indicators of success other than economic, social, and military ones. I just didn’t mention them because they weren’t relevant in that case.

[Des-Bal]

I saw two people playing a game of chess. The black player won, so black must be the better chess color.

If black universally wins and out of all possible combinations of players this remains true then yes black is better chess color. If you were designing a game looking for patterns like that would be part of balancing. The reason this doesn't happen is because black is not in fact the better chess color not.

[Des-Bal]

1) I’m 90% sure the Zapato region hasn’t genocided anyone
2) no, because there are indicators of success other than economic, social, and military ones. I just didn’t mention them because they weren’t relevant in that case.

It's not about the genocide it's about Nazi Germany v. Pre-Nazi Germany. Nazis turned things around clearly nazism is great by your logic.
There's no metric better than survival.

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

1) I’m 90% sure the Zapato region hasn’t genocided anyone
2) no, because there are indicators of success other than economic, social, and military ones. I just didn’t mention them because they weren’t relevant in that case.

It's not about the genocide it's about Nazi Germany v. Pre-Nazi Germany. Nazis turned things around clearly nazism is great by your logic.
There's no metric better than survival.

1)

there are indicators of success other than economic, social, and military ones.

2) the funny thing is that you're claiming I said a thing, and then immediately saying it yourself. I never said economic performance was the only factor. you said that. you're the one who has claimed that if the Nazis survived WWII, fascism would've been proved right.

[Umeria]

I saw two people playing a game of chess. The black player won, so black must be the better chess color.

If black universally wins and out of all possible combinations of players this remains true then yes black is better chess color. If you were designing a game looking for patterns like that would be part of balancing. The reason this doesn't happen is because black is not in fact the better chess color not.

WWII only happened once though

[Alcala-Cordel]

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.

Not on that post, you didn't. What you said was this:

Okay let's judge it by all the other ones. Communism is good at justifying mass murder and essentially nothing else.

That's whataboutism.

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

Interesting, because a lot of businesses are complaining about a "job shortage".

but the only reason they had the power to do this was because somebody else made the machine,

That person is in the same situation as the other worker, probably getting paid the same too.

somebody else designed the factory,

Somebody who also wasn't in charge. It's a collective effort by working people.

somebody else sourced the materials

And that most likely was not a boss

and the only reason pushing that button was able to generate value was because somebody else worked out the packaging, advertising, logistics.

Also working people who aren't paid the full value of their labor, but the real reason is demand.

Somebody else designed and oversaw a system that allowed this factory to interact with another,

The designer and overseer usually being different people, and regardless does not deserve so much of the value of the workers' labor. The concept of a billion is difficult to comprehend.

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,

Safety procedures didn't really exist until people started striking for it. Gilded Age machinery really didn't have much safety and even now it's far from unheard of for companies to cut corners.

established policies to maximize efficiency

...which they prioritize over the needs of the workers, often making their jobs more difficult. Also, they largely aren't doing a good job at maximizing productivity to begin with.

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.

*they had to get lucky, or usually be born into wealth. The vast majority of them have rich parents, and some of them just inherited the company.

There's so much shit happening here that is more complicated than pushing buttons and pulling levers

...the vast majority of which is also done by people working in various management positions, not the wealthy.

and there's this delusional idea that it's just not work.

CEOs don't really work hard, and aren't special. What's crazy is to think that the people collectively generating billions of dollars aren't entitled to the value of their labor.

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.

Not necessarily, most of us don't have tons of options and it's difficult to obtain the capital to start a business.

It literally is worthwhile to them if it wasn't they wouldn't do it.

We have to do it if we want a place to stay and food to eat.

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.

Coersion ≠ consent. You should know this.