A couple of slices:
Extreme wealth disparity is not due to a lack of taxes, but rather a lack of competition. In a competitive market, profit margins are quite low. If any one company tries to set its prices much higher than the cost of production, rivals quickly undercut it. Unfortunately, large parts of our economy are blocked off from competition by laws and regulations. This allows monopolistic corporations to charge exorbitant prices.
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Therefore, it is important to understand how billionaires create and maintain these monopolies that allow them to amass such unfathomable riches.
And:
A lack of competition allows billionaires and their corporations to not make, but take wealth from everyone else. It is not enough to merely tax them on their ill-gotten gains. We need reforms to ensure that they can’t exploit and fleece everyone in the first place.
Do read the whole thing.
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Unfortunately, large parts of our economy are blocked off from competition by laws and regulations. This allows monopolistic corporations to charge exorbitant prices.
No, no, no, no. No. This is libertarian bullshit. Laws and regulations ideally force a fair playing field, and ensure consumer safety. Take away regulation, and “whoever is most unethical” scoops up mad profits until and if consumers catch on to the scam.
But even regulation can’t make a fair playing field when the market is dominated by megacorporations who have the economic power to prevent any new competition from challenging them, unless that new competition already has huge economic power itself.
The problem isn’t the lack of competition. The problem is capitalism.
No, no, no, no. No. This is libertarian bullshit
It isn’t bullshit, but there’s a lot of nuance missing. Majority of the economy works efficiently (aka low margins) based on this principle, but there are corner cases - particularly services with strong network effects that cause single provider to dominate the market
Is it possible they imply the WRONG laws and regulations are being made? We obviously still need law but when these rules make it impossible to stop monopolistic behavior, they need to be changed. Laws and regulations can instead be used to encourage competition and smaller businesses. Personally, I believe it should be much harder to maintain a huge corporation than a smaller company.
Yes. Nobody is saying that there should be no laws and regulations (not even the libertarians). What I am saying is that the current laws enable the rich to create and maintain monopolies and line their pockets at the expense of everyone else.
I’m not putting words in anyone’s mouth.
Rather than breaking up monopolies that will only ever reform themselves eventually, it makes more sense to fold them into the Public Sector, whereby their existing planning infrastructure can be better put to use in a more efficient manner. We need to move the clock forwards, not keep setting it back.
Billionaires and corporations should be taxed at 93% or more.
When someone wins at monopoly we pack away the pieces.
it is in their best interest to continue playing a game they have already won but we don’t have to keep playing.
Hear me out - Monopoly variant with combat mechanics.
This is already a PvP server
Did you know Monopoly was invented to show the evils of capitalism?
I agree with the sentiment and the message but the numbers in the article are off.
It states:
“The five richest people alone more than doubled their wealth from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020.”The five richest people are now collectively worth 1,289 billion or 1.289 trillion
