discussion how much money you think someone should posess before it become indecent

[Lort]

In an ideal world, yes.
In a world that uses exploitative means to produce goods? Such as slave labour? Outsourcing? Then no. That money isn't going anywhere.
If money was funneled back into the economy - billionaires wouldn't exist. The fact that there are people with such an amount of wealth shows the system isn't working. I don't know how anyone can look at a system that allows for the amassing of such unbelievable wealth and say "Yes. This seems right". In any other system - and I mean, non-economic system - we would be scratching our chins and working out how to change that. If you had 1 program on your laptop, that used 99% of your RAM, you'd remove it, unless it was really, completely necessary to your system.

And if you're going to use Marx, lets look at one of his most famous examples... The ownership of a tree. The Capitalist owns a tree and hires someone else to carve it into a sculpture. The tree owner pays the carver, but then sells the sculpture for way more than they paid for the labor. The difference, or surplus value, is pure profit for the tree owner. Marx argued that this profit is actually the value created by the worker, which the owner unfairly pockets. Workers are clearly exploited in a system where they don't own the means of production.

Those exploitative things happen because the world is literally ruled by criminals, and yes the big players in the market will do everything they can, legal and illegal to be on top and destroy their competition, so it is true that the money isn't going anywhere until we destroy all those criminals, without a free market the poor can never become rich, and there will always be someone that is rich, billionaires will always exist even if that money, resources that the slave owners collected came back into the economy.

If you had 1 program using 99% of the ram you would remove it unless it is really necessary, and that is exactly how basic economy works, not saying it is how it works on our world since governments literally prevent companies from going bankrupt using stolen money, but that is how it would work, if they aren't needed they would be gone.

In that example the owner of the tree gave the materials, paid the carver and probably hired someone to sell the sculpture, so he added not only his own gain, but the cost of the carver, the cost of the seller and the cost of the material, the tree, that amount will obviously be bigger than what the carver received, was he exploited even though he was paid? He sold his work, so he owned the means of production and he sold it.
If you say that workers are exploited when they don't own the means of production then i propose giving them ownership of public owned corporations, give it to the workers, make all of them shareholders and make the companies private owned, it will be their property now and they can work together for their own benefit, it will be much better than governments controlling it, that is for sure.

 

[Monokuma]

Those exploitative things happen because the world is literally ruled by criminals, and yes the big players in the market will do everything they can, legal and illegal to be on top and destroy their competition, so it is true that the money isn't going anywhere until we destroy all those criminals, without a free market the poor can never become rich, and there will always be someone that is rich, billionaires will always exist even if that money, resources that the slave owners collected came back into the economy.

In that example the owner of the tree gave the materials, paid the carver and probably hired someone to sell the sculpture, so he added not only his own gain, but the cost of the carver, the cost of the seller and the cost of the material, the tree, that amount will obviously be bigger than what the carver received, was he exploited even though he was paid? He sold his work, so he owned the means of production and he sold it.
If you say that workers are exploited when they don't own the means of production then i propose giving them ownership of public owned corporations to the workers, make all of them shareholders and make the companies private owned, it will be their property now and they can work together for their own benefit, it will be much better than governments controlling it, that is for sure.

Again, I feel like you're talking completely in ideal world terms.

Looking at the tree example -
The Capitalist owns the tree. He has no other skill apart from ownership. Regardless of who he hires along the way - the artist to carve the tree, the reseller to sell the treet, etc etc. He has no skill beyond owning the tree. And yet, he is the one who pockets the majority of the money. Forget what he paid along the way, forget whether the artist got paid or the reseller got paid. The Capitalist is still profiting merely from owning something. And what does he do with that wealth? Buy another tree. And the cycle begins again. Change this to any other example - he buys a home, he pays for painters and decorators and architects, he resells the home by paying an estate agent. YES. The money is going towards these people along the way, but the Capitalist is still doing relatively nothing and walking away with the most money from the process. Now, times this by hundreds, thousands, millions. It's easy to see how money only flows to the rich.

In regards to "was he exploited even though he was paid" - Yes? Exploitation isn't just pure slavery. Getting paid does not mean you don't get exploited. When people work minimum wage and can't afford to pay for their families to eat or shelter above their heads, when they literally can't work enough hours or enough jobs in a week to make rent, are they not exploited?
Because Capitalism is about profit. And, in the tree example, if the Carver had said "No, I want more" the Tree Owner says "Never Mind, I'll go to Carver 2 who wants less". There comes a point where you can't value your own work, your own labour, because you get priced out. And until the Carver is famous enough to be able to demand whatever he wants, he will always have to compete with competition. Whereas the Capitalist doesn't have competition, he already owns the tree, he's already likely to profit.

So, why doesn't the Carver (or the reseller, or the painter, or the decorator, or the architect, or estate agent, or whatever) just buy their own "Tree".
Most likely, the Carver never gets enough money to "own" a tree, because what little money they have goes into living - Making rent, paying for groceries, supporting a family. Whilst the Capitalist, who own's the tree, has the wealth already to not care - their rent, their groceries, their support, whilst probably more expensive on paper, is more easily covered by the money they have. They're not living hand to mouth. Whilst the Carver is. And whilst the Carver is working SO hard Carving that 1 Tree. The Captialist, well, now he owns 10 trees and employs 10 carvers and makes 10x the amount of profit. Again, for doing absolutely nothing, BUT owning money.

This is why the money flows up, this is why inheretence hurts the economy. Because we don't live in a world where people start from nothing and work their way up anymore. YES it happens SOMETIMES. No system is absolute. There will be stories of someone who made something, or invented something, or worked their way up through something. But those are so few and far between. They are the exception. Most of the time, the poor stay power, because being poor is expensive. The rich get richer, continually so, generationally so, and will continue to do so.

Getting rid of criminals, however, you and me can totally agree on.

 

[Lort]

Again, I feel like you're talking completely in ideal world terms.

Looking at the tree example -
The Capitalist owns the tree. He has no other skill apart from ownership. Regardless of who he hires along the way - the artist to carve the tree, the reseller to sell the treet, etc etc. He has no skill beyond owning the tree. And yet, he is the one who pockets the majority of the money. Forget what he paid along the way, forget whether the artist got paid or the reseller got paid. The Capitalist is still profiting merely from owning something. And what does he do with that wealth? Buy another tree. And the cycle begins again. Change this to any other example - he buys a home, he pays for painters and decorators and architects, he resells the home by paying an estate agent. YES. The money is going towards these people along the way, but the Capitalist is still doing relatively nothing and walking away with the most money from the process. Now, times this by hundreds, thousands, millions. It's easy to see how money only flows to the rich.

In regards to "was he exploited even though he was paid" - Yes? Exploitation isn't just pure slavery. Getting paid does not mean you don't get exploited. When people work minimum wage and can't afford to pay for their families to eat or shelter above their heads, when they literally can't work enough hours or enough jobs in a week to make rent, are they not exploited?
Because Capitalism is about profit. And, in the tree example, if the Carver had said "No, I want more" the Tree Owner says "Never Mind, I'll go to Carver 2 who wants less". There comes a point where you can't value your own work, your own labour, because you get priced out. And until the Carver is famous enough to be able to demand whatever he wants, he will always have to compete with competition. Whereas the Capitalist doesn't have competition, he already owns the tree, he's already likely to profit.

So, why doesn't the Carver (or the reseller, or the painter, or the decorator, or the architect, or estate agent, or whatever) just buy their own "Tree".
Most likely, the Carver never gets enough money to "own" a tree, because what little money they have goes into living - Making rent, paying for groceries, supporting a family. Whilst the Capitalist, who own's the tree, has the wealth already to not care - their rent, their groceries, their support, whilst probably more expensive on paper, is more easily covered by the money they have. They're not living hand to mouth. Whilst the Carver is. And whilst the Carver is working SO hard Carving that 1 Tree. The Captialist, well, now he owns 10 trees and employs 10 carvers and makes 10x the amount of profit. Again, for doing absolutely nothing, BUT owning money.

This is why the money flows up, this is why inheretence hurts the economy. Because we don't live in a world where people start from nothing and work their way up anymore. YES it happens SOMETIMES. No system is absolute. There will be stories of someone who made something, or invented something, or worked their way up through something. But those are so few and far between. They are the exception. Most of the time, the poor stay power, because being poor is expensive. The rich get richer, continually so, generationally so, and will continue to do so.

Getting rid of criminals, however, you and me can totally agree on.

Not at all, you see, the reason why the carver can't buy a tree, the reason why his cost of living is too high, the reason why the richer gets richer and the poor gets poorer is simply because of the existence of the government, it might look insane but it isn't, look, the governments survive by taking your resources however they cannot take too much specially from powerful people because it isn't sustainable to them so they take it from the middle class and go climbing up as the government grows, eventually the upper classes become the middle classes and the poorer gets poorer, any society that have more people in the government taking from society will be poorer than others that aren't, rich people can just flee, circumvent these problems or even use other organizations to defend themselves.
I like to use a little story about a fisherman that used to fish to feed his family, but then the government came and regulated the lake, now he needs to pay a fee to fish, so he need to fish for his family and for the government, but then the costs of the fishing rod maintenance increase and he needs another to fish another fish to pay it, then his profession is regulated and now he needs permission to work so it is another fish he needs to get to pay for it, then they decide you cannot even sell the fish without permission so it is another fish... and this goes on and on, not only the fisherman needs to get more fish but everyone else needs more to pay them so everyone ends up not being able to buy as many fish so the fisherman not only earns less but have to pay more, then he needs a boat to fish on the sea to get that many fish, he have to get a loan for it, the government also regulate the boats, only a few companies can even buy the fish so they dictate the price and it doesn't get better.

 

[Monokuma]

Not at all, you see, the reason why the carver can't buy a tree, the reason why his cost of living is too high, the reason why the richer gets richer and the poor gets poorer is simply because of the existence of the government, it might look insane but it isn't, look, the governments survive by taking your resources however they cannot take too much specially from powerful people because it isn't sustainable to them so they take it from the middle class and go climbing up as the government grows, eventually the upper classes become the middle classes and the poorer gets poorer, any society that have more people in the government taking from society will be poorer than others that aren't, rich people can just flee, circumvent these problems or even use other organizations to defend themselves.
I like to use a little story about a fisherman that used to fish to feed his family, but then the government came and regulated the lake, now he needs to pay a fee to fish, so he need to fish for his family and for the government, but then the costs of the fishing rod maintenance increase and he needs another to fish another fish to pay it, then his profession is regulated and now he needs permission to work so it is another fish he needs to get to pay for it, then they decide you cannot even sell the fish without permission so it is another fish... and this goes on and on, not only the fisherman needs to get more fish but everyone else needs more to pay them so everyone ends up not being able to buy as many fish so the fisherman not only earns less but have to pay more, then he needs a boat to fish on the sea to get that many fish, he have to get a loan for it, the government also regulate the boats, only a few companies can even buy the fish so they dictate the price and it doesn't get better.

Believe me, I am no fan of the government, especially in its many forms.

But, at least where I am from, the Government and those who profit most from Capitalism, well, they're one and the same. The 1% own the media, the 1% line the pockets of the Government, the 1% get granted the most lucrative contracts based on their cronies in the government. In turn, get their pockets lined. It's a cycle of mutual benefit that leaves the rest struggling.

I really don't see how your story about a fisherman is a counter to my own, and I think it oversimplifies the complexities of real-world economies and the role of government. All those barriers you argue the government puts in place are easily transcended by the 1%. In many cases, the rich influence these barriers to edge out competition from markets they want to control.

You're right that the poor fisherman struggles against this red tape, but that doesn't remove the argument that those with capital can simply cut through it, parting it with their cash, and go on to profit at the end. Regardless of the system or government, the one with capital succeeds more easily than the one without.

If, overnight, we brought in a new, much more relaxed government that said "Lakes open, it's now a free for all," do you think one fisherman could compete against someone who can afford more boats, rods, and market stalls? The wealthy would simply outcompete him, buying up the best spots and equipment. The problem isn’t just the barriers; it’s the imbalance of power and resources.

The solution isn’t to open the lake, but to stop exploiting the fisherman. Regulations should ensure fair play and prevent those with capital from gaming the system. Instead of deregulation, we need smarter regulations that level the playing field and genuinely support small businesses and workers.

 

[Lort]

Believe me, I am no fan of the government, especially in its many forms.

But, at least where I am from, the Government and those who profit most from Capitalism, well, they're one and the same. The 1% own the media, the 1% line the pockets of the Government, the 1% get granted the most lucrative contracts based on their cronies in the government. In turn, get their pockets lined. It's a cycle of mutual benefit that leaves the rest struggling.

I really don't see how your story about a fisherman is a counter to my own, and I think it oversimplifies the complexities of real-world economies and the role of government. All those barriers you argue the government puts in place are easily transcended by the 1%. In many cases, the rich influence these barriers to edge out competition from markets they want to control.

You're right that the poor fisherman struggles against this red tape, but that doesn't remove the argument that those with capital can simply cut through it, parting it with their cash, and go on to profit at the end. Regardless of the system or government, the one with capital succeeds more easily than the one without.

If, overnight, we brought in a new, much more relaxed government that said "Lakes open, it's now a free for all," do you think one fisherman could compete against someone who can afford more boats, rods, and market stalls? The wealthy would simply outcompete him, buying up the best spots and equipment. The problem isn’t just the barriers; it’s the imbalance of power and resources.

The solution isn’t to open the lake, but to stop exploiting the fisherman. Regulations should ensure fair play and prevent those with capital from gaming the system. Instead of deregulation, we need smarter regulations that level the playing field and genuinely support small businesses and workers.

I wasn't trying to counter you, it is just a story to tell how it destroys the value of the work in society.

Of course the one that have more resources will gain more if they invest more on it, money literally is the representation of resources and that includes work, so more money means you have more "work", that is how people have jobs, they are hired and receive that value in compensation for their work, and the guy that paid all of them will earn a bit from all of them which together is a ton of money, you may think it is unfair but this isn't going anywhere, not even if you live in complete communism where all the value is administrated by the government, the only way for that rich guy to earn less is that if there is competition.

Regulations can't and won't ensure fair play, they exist to do the exact opposite, you may make laws to criminalize activities that hurt the economy and prevent small business from growing, but that is it, besides that politicians don't have any interest in doing that anyway because they can control big corporations more easily than small business

 

[Nastastic]

Not at all, you see, the reason why the carver can't buy a tree, the reason why his cost of living is too high, the reason why the richer gets richer and the poor gets poorer is simply because of the existence of the government, it might look insane but it isn't, look, the governments survive by taking your resources however they cannot take too much specially from powerful people because it isn't sustainable to them so they take it from the middle class and go climbing up as the government grows, eventually the upper classes become the middle classes and the poorer gets poorer, any society that have more people in the government taking from society will be poorer than others that aren't, rich people can just flee, circumvent these problems or even use other organizations to defend themselves.
I like to use a little story about a fisherman that used to fish to feed his family, but then the government came and regulated the lake, now he needs to pay a fee to fish, so he need to fish for his family and for the government, but then the costs of the fishing rod maintenance increase and he needs another to fish another fish to pay it, then his profession is regulated and now he needs permission to work so it is another fish he needs to get to pay for it, then they decide you cannot even sell the fish without permission so it is another fish... and this goes on and on, not only the fisherman needs to get more fish but everyone else needs more to pay them so everyone ends up not being able to buy as many fish so the fisherman not only earns less but have to pay more, then he needs a boat to fish on the sea to get that many fish, he have to get a loan for it, the government also regulate the boats, only a few companies can even buy the fish so they dictate the price and it doesn't get better.

Libertarian much?

Yeah, let's just get rid of all those pesky regulations and laws so everyone can just dump their waste in the rivers and the oceans and the air and put heroin in the food and whatever the fuck they wanna do and everything will be great because GUBERMINT BAD! TRILLIONAIRES GOOD! Let the rich rule directly so the rest of us can live in tar paper shacks with three generations in one room and anyone old enough to perform a task working 12 hours a day to barely survive. Neo-feudalism FTW! Until the planet becomes completely uninhabitable in a matter of years rather than decades, that is...

 

[Monokuma]

I wasn't trying to counter you

You literally started your reply with "Not at all, you see..."
If that isn't a counter, I don't know what is!

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[Lort]

You literally started your reply with "Not at all, you see..."
If that isn't a counter, I don't know what is!

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I meant that i am not talking completely in ideal world terms, and that the story wasn't meant to counter what you said.

Libertarian much?

Yeah, let's just get rid of all those pesky regulations and laws so everyone can just dump their waste in the rivers and the oceans and the air and put heroin in the food and whatever the fuck they wanna do and everything will be great because GUBERMINT BAD! TRILLIONAIRES GOOD! Let the rich rule directly so the rest of us can live in tar paper shacks with three generations in one room and anyone old enough to perform a task working 12 hours a day to barely survive. Neo-feudalism FTW! Until the planet becomes completely uninhabitable in a matter of years rather than decades, that is...

Yes, i am a libertarian and i understand that people can have those kinds of misunderstandings about what it is all about, but the core of it is really simple, it is all about the non-aggression principle, it is not about getting rid of laws and order, but ensuring that nobody violate other people's property, that people that commit crimes pay the equivalent price to the ones they damaged, destroying the environment can cause damage to others and they should get compensated for it, so as long as you are not causing damage to anybody you can do what you want, it have absolutely nothing to do with feudalism, libertarians don't believe a coercive system would ever work, that kind of government would always be a virus to society only working for their own benefit.

 

[User_75423]

It should be no limit but once you are dead, this money should be distributed and used for infrastructure, education and health care

 

[libre]

How much can you earn without exploiting others in some way?

 

[MattShizzle]

It's obscene that there are billionaires and working homeless in the same country. There needs to be more economic equality. It would be better if nobody could be a billionaire along with nobody could be very poor, regardless of job or lack thereof. It also shouldn't be a thing to make money just by having money.

 

[juustomestari]

As long as you earn those yourself, there is no limit.

 

[incognito2009]

As long you gain your money through legal and moral means I couldn't care less for how much money you have.

 

[Loliholic]

More then you need is pointless.
More then you can spend is disgusting.

 

[bingbear]

There are many issues surrounding very rich people, many of which Nastastic wrote above. But focusing on the holder of wealth along is not going fix the issues. We need to address the structure inequalities to improve outcomes and this will help level the playing field. Increase taxes on the highest earners, reduce the complexity of the tax code to prevent rich people from employing expensive lawyers and accounts to cheat on the system, implement wealth based fines (like Sweden), improve healthcare and education such that being poor does not result in your children being keep poor. So no, there is no such thing as too rich, but we have created a system that allows the rich to stay rich and keep the poor, poor.

 

[Tigerdiamonds]

There's a study on like that whole "money doesn't buy happiness" thing, and they figured out like about how much money it takes to stop actually helping your life improve. I forget how much exactly, so I'll just be generous and say $1mil.

When people use money to buy stuff other people will receive that money to produce it, if the rich waste their money on shit it doesn't matter because people will capitalize on that to earn money, it is not a waste or a bad thing, people having more money doesn't prevent others from having what they need, the entire supply chain of the product earns to feed their families with that money, the idea of Karl Marx that the economy works as a zero sum game is wrong, what is truly wrong is the way some rich people gain their money.

That's not actually how it works for people who are "actually rich"
The super rich stay rich by never actually spending their own money.
What they do is they get a really high "personal wealth value" (which can include assets and not just their actual cash)
Then they go to a bank and go "look at how much money I have, you should give me a loan, because you know that I'm good for it."
and then they spend that money, and then they take out a new loan to pay off the old loan, ad infinitum.

 

[goons]

As much as you can get honestly without fucking over others, so not a specific number but I'd say you probably fucked over a bunch of people to get to 1 Billion.

 

[Nastastic]

When you can buy your way into being able to be an unelected shadow president and given carte blanche to gut government agencies and programs in order to pay for tax breaks for yourself and your billionaire buddies, you have too fucking much money.

 

[Lort]

That's not actually how it works for people who are "actually rich"
The super rich stay rich by never actually spending their own money.
What they do is they get a really high "personal wealth value" (which can include assets and not just their actual cash)
Then they go to a bank and go "look at how much money I have, you should give me a loan, because you know that I'm good for it."
and then they spend that money, and then they take out a new loan to pay off the old loan, ad infinitum.

Although it is possible to do that it isn't ad infinitum, banks talk with each other and know how much in debt you are and the interest rate, so they make better precautions to make sure they don't make a loss as well as increase the interest rate, and in some cases it is true that the "actually rich" don't spend their money because all their money is invested working for them and producing stuff, paying employees, etc, so to actually have money in hands to buy stuff they take loans using their assets as colateral.

 

[Tigerdiamonds]

Although it is possible to do that it isn't ad infinitum, banks talk with each other and know how much in debt you are and the interest rate, so they make better precautions to make sure they don't make a loss as well as increase the interest rate, and in some cases it is true that the "actually rich" don't spend their money because all their money is invested working for them and producing stuff, paying employees, etc, so to actually have money in hands to buy stuff they take loans using their assets as colateral.

You are still trying to apply "normal people" rules to the rich.
Because the rich person does actually have the money to pay off the loans and all of the interest at any moment, they don't stop them.
Like, this is a real documented thing that they do.