613
Almost every problem in the world would be dealt with meaningfully if we outlawed billionaires.
(self.showerthoughts)
this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
613 points (89.1% liked)
Showerthoughts
30679 readers
660 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- If you feel strongly that you want politics back, please volunteer as a mod.
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think humanity seems to have this need to centralize everything with just a few people. If billionaires are so bad, then people should not use the services that billionaires create and get rich off of and should decentralize, so things like Walmart should not exist and local grocery stores should exist. People should not use things like Amazon in favor of trading more peer to peer, but that's less convenient.
Centralization is not the problem. Centralization is one of the keys to efficiency. Grocery stores are a centralized solution. Decentralization of the food supply would mean we each grow our own food in our back yards. (Even that is centralization... True decentralization, we would forage for food in the wild, rather than growing it in a dedicated place near our homes)
The problem comes not when we centralized, but when the store owner decided to take a share disproportionate to the value he provides. When the efficiency of his operation saves production costs, but those savings never reach back to workers or consumers.
The next problem comes when he acquires enough power in the marketplace that he can dictate terms without worrying about losing market share.
The solution is to dictate back to him a "level of futility." A level at which any future gains are confiscated, so there is no benefit for squeezing workers and consumers any tighter. A confiscatory top-tier tax bracket was the solution to the Robber Barons of the industrial revolution. Abandoning that control has been an unmitigated disaster.
From what I have read, the profit of like a grocery store is something like 2%.