To think billionaires shouldn’t exist?

[ThisIcyWriter]

No one earns a billion through hard work alone - it’s exploitation. AIBU to think billionaires shouldn’t exist in a fair society?

It’s something that I’m sure people like the world bank and world economic forums have whole teams of experts working on and lobbying for.

but it’s massively complex.

say for example, about 50 billionaires have made their money from hedge funds. Gambling on the value of something today vs in the future. That could be curtailed with regulation and legislation that simply curtails that level of hedging of commodities and accompanying behaviour

In theory, the options markets/derivitives if it was working at maximimum efficiency should be perfectly balanced anyway %3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY

The maths involved is immensely complex. The issue I have is that banks make a lot of money by taking "risks" but when it all goes tits up (2008 financial crisis) they are too big to fail - so actually aren;t the ones facing the consequence of their risk. Since then austerity has affected public services etc, but wealthy people have gotten wealthier. Its not just banks - large businesses often want assistance from the government (see the recent Astra-Zeneca deal that collapsed, or all of Elon Musks Ventures). It is NOT the case that these are people taking on immense risk only on their shoulders, so they deserve the rich rewards. We take on their risk too. Even the debate around employment rights in America is about the large business owners reducing risk - they want to be able to fire at will to be "flexible" in a changing market place. If their business doesn;t do that well the cost falls on the employees who lose hours/their jobs, not the companies profit margins.

To an extent, all of this is a necessary evil. e.g. if Gordon Brown hadn't bailed out the banks we would have been really in the shit. But lets not pretend the billionaires of the world are somehow carrying everyone else and that we are ungrateful burdens. The increasing gap between rich and poor is a symptom of a system that is sick. Either it is fixed somehow or instability grows. That doesn't mean every rich person is evil. But blaming immigrants/woke politics/feminism/welfare/avocado toast is an easy sticking plaster.

FFS! I am not bitter! For the umpteenth time, I don't want billionaires' money for myself and I am not jealous of them!

I just think it's outrageous that so few people have amassed so much.

Why are you so fussed? - I'll bet you aren't a billionaire and are nowhere near being one, no matter how hard you work

Unfortunately where capital exists, people will amass capital. That’s pretty much how capitalism works. Different social strata mean that some people will also have an advantage in how they start and are able to amplify their amassing.

making it “illegal” doesn’t really work- you can’t ban people from having money. You also operate deeply inside the law of unintended consequences when you try and pass laws against certain activities.

The idea that our society functions as it does because of our government is misleading- the deepest operators on our culture are cultural. You will be better off with a culture that encourages the wealthy to give generously than you will in a society where people are greedy (as they always are) and tries to punitively tax or take from those who are greedy what they have.

The problem is fundamentally not that people are wealthy- the problem is that people are greedy, and you can’t pass laws against that because it looks different for almost everyone. A society where people fear their own moral short comings and are routinely encouraged to be generous for the expiation of those failings will result in something much fairer than a legal framework for punishing greed.

I have no problem with people having billions of dollars or pounds, if they’re doing something good with it. I might choose to do differently, but it’s not my money. You could tax, but once you start taxing people, you encourage them to run their businesses and enterprises differently. No billionaire is on PAYE paying 45%+NI on everything over 125k upto the 400mil/year they’re making. Most of their wealth isn’t even liquid - it’s tied up in property, or shares and options.

its a real pickle of a problem, but I don’t think wealth, even extreme levels of it, is necessarily the problem. The problem is that for one reason or another they don’t feel like their wealth obliges them to extreme acts of generosity and so those who don’t have much see no benefit.

I do understand how capitalism works.

I just think at some point we will have to accept that it hasn't worked, any more so than communism did.

Eventually we will need to find another way.

Is it really about the inner workings of capitalism? The problem isn’t economics. Planned economies don’t work, for a host of reasons (with ample recent historical examples of the failure).

Capitalism isn’t a system that anyone adopts- capitalism is just what is. When you have money, you have the means of amassing capital. The problem is people’s behaviour. What would anyone care about the billionaires in our society if they routinely clubbed together and gave the NHS £50bn: they’d be considered a force for good. Our problem is cultural, not economic. That the systems we have are capable of amassing the sort of fortunes that exist today are because of the complexity and size of the societies that can be harvested, even if in real terms the ultra rich of today are not as relatively rich as the ultra rich of ancient times who literally owned people. The problem isn’t the system: it’s the people.

I think this issue really highlights our cognitive limitations generally, there is a ceiling on our ability to conceptualise what is beyond our experience. Really scary how vulnerable that makes us, AI will soon have the upper hand I fear.

Back in the 70s the ratio of worker compensation to CEO compensation was around 1:30, now it's 1:351

At the same time the value of wages has gone down, meaning that workers are being paid less compared to the cost of living than previously.

The CEOs rake in the money by exploiting the workers. In the interests of the stakeholders who, er, have a stake in making the most profit because that is the main indicator of 'success'.

Personally, I find that obscene.

Our views clearly fiffer. I think it's childlike and idealistic to not want any billionaires in the world. You could give everyone in the world the exact same amount of money. Some would spent it all, others save and others invest well. Before long no doubt you'd be upset because some have more than others and over time some would become billionaires. This is the nature of life in a democracy.

Nobody here is suggesting a total redistribution of wealth to ensure equality, just a little more equity than currently exists.
There have been some experiments with giving people a basic income, the results are interesting, leading to better physical and mental health for participants: Everywhere basic income has been tried, in one map: Kenya; Iran; Alaska; Stockton, California; and more | Vox

Thank you for this.
There are other ideas out there and Universal Basic Income is a great one.

It's not about making everyone equal, it's not about stopping some people from being richer than others, it's about a fairer distribution of what's available.

I wouldn't be upset that some had more than others, I am not advocating that every single person has the same.

I just think it's immoral for a very few people in the world to have so much when some have absolutely nothing.

I know it's idealistic to want things to change but I don't care.

After the second world war, most British people had a big increase in their standard of living. That came to an end and there has not been a big increase since. Some people say it ended in 1965, others in 1980 and others around 2008. They could all be true, depending on how you look at the statistics.

So I don't accept the argument that millionaires and billionaires are wealth creators. They create or accumulate wealth for themselves, and maybe they make the economy bigger. But they don't create a society where most people in the UK and similar countries gradually get wealthier.

I don't see an alternative to capitalism, but it seems to me there are different kinds of capitalism. There will be one that is best for most people.

Eventually we will need to find another way.

@Orangesinthebag what do you think would be the best way?

Trickle-down economics really hasn't trickled at all has it?

If they had any moral fibre at all they wouldn’t exist as they would give their money away. Some do to be fair.

Not even slightly, trickle down economics is a fallacy.

It's ridiculous how so many read the OP and immediately reply "so you're a communist, then!". Is there really no grey area between "everyone has the same of everything" and "some people have nothing whereas others have more than they could use in a thousand lifetimes". I mean come on now.

You say some have nothing, but some do nothing whilst others do a lot.

Without Bill Gates, who gives a lot to charity, many would be worse off. He's publicly stated he won't be leaving his DC a lot. Virtually all of his money will be going to his foundation charity.

I wonder how much the 'not a lot' he leaves to his kids will be?
I expect it will be an awful great lot for any normal person.

So you don't think inheritance is fair either? Should that all be divided up equally too???

I actually think I read once it was £100k each. Far less than a lot of parents leave their DC with a house sale.

Well why are you so fussed about it? This idea that you can just spread money about to even up inequality is simplistic in the extreme.

Bob Geldof tried to do it back in 1985 with Live Aid and raised millions for the famine in Ethiopia. At the time I tried to find evidence of where the money had gone and what it was spent on. I couldn't find any. Then reports came out that some of the money appeared to have gone to the corrupt Ethiopian government and for supplying arms.

Fast forward to the years and decades after Live Aid and nothing's changed in Ethiopia. The suffering is exactly the same. Giving people a load of money did bugger all in the long term.

The problems of inequality tend to come from the same things: a lack of education among the population; no contraception or an unwillingness to take it; a hostile climate, lack of infrastructure; corrupt governments, too much power among the military and rebel groups; cultural values that hinder progression especially among women.

Why would a billionaire distribute their wealth among people just to see those people remain in exactly the same situation?

There's a book about Bill Gates and his philanthropy. I was looking through it in the library. It is very critical of his approach. For example, he wants to boost agriculture in Africa but his solutions are all high tech. The author said they never go anywhere, for example golden rice. Genetically modified rice that produces beta carotene. Only one country grows it.

He's very dismissive of anyone who suggests other solutions, dismissing them as anti-science.

The author also suggests the reason why Melinda divorced him was because he saw so much of Jeffrey Epstein.

I think Bill Gates would have done more for the world if he had made his products a bit cheaper. Large numbers of people would have benefitted from that and he wouldn't have accumulated billions of dollars. He could charge as much as he did because when people buy computers they buy the computers and software that most other people have, even if they're not the best.