These days I believe the ultra-wealthy are just a fun scapegoat. Sure, they are guilty of many sins, but most of the time people mention them, there's never any concrete plan to make things better, other than a vague "eat the rich," which we all know will never happen. (And it's really unclear how eating the rich allows us to, say, move around without burning more gas.)
These rhetorics have a distinct feeling of "I found another out-group to which I will assign all the blame, which is very convenient, because I don't want to ever hear 'The earth is going to shit and I could have done something about it.'"
The top 0.001% has about 6% of the planet's wealth. ~60K people have a tremendous influence on politics, media and political discourse. Just a staggering amount of resources and power. Hardly an "out-group".
In addition to making us feel better, eating the rich takes them off the table and might allow democracy to slowly work again, whereby decisions are made by the people for the people. Lots of damage to undo ahead of any of this, though. And it starts with eating the rich... Or at least looking at wealth taxes, banning lobbying, getting money out of politics as best we can, etc.
We cannot solve/tackle climate change when we don't even have functional governments that actually try to genuinely support their citizens needs.
Look at the amount of wealth these people have: https://dreamagainusa.org/
The others are surviving
Wild to think that if you won the powerball right now and took the cash option, after taxes it would put you in the 0.1%, and they would all look down on you because you coasted up to the top and practically have nowhere to go but back down.
No one is required to have an answer to a problem in order to just identify that problem.
One nice benefit of eating the rich, is that we're then free to use the wealth they've hoarded in ways that benefit the public.
There is a pretty good chance that within a very short few years you'd have new people like that. It's a systemic problem.
Well sure, and if you only shower once, you’ll quickly get dirty again. Cleanliness takes constant effort.
That's a fair point.
It would, that's why a solution needs to be paired with an aggressively progressive tax system. Beyond some point, the tax rate needs to become 100% of all wealth above it.
About progressive taxes. That would make the super rich not super rich. But it would not fix state finances. (Also of course it's not realistic to think that the super rich will just give 100% of their money for nothing in exchange).
If the state needs money, it needs to take it from where it is, which is still with the masses. In Germany, at around maybe 90k EUR income is a particularly bad place to be. You are nominally considered to be a good earner. But at that point you already give around 70% on the next EUR you earn for various taxes and social security. If you are financially responsible not only for yourself but for other people (which is not reflected in lower taxes unless you're legally married), you can still get along fine, but it might not feel like you are a good earner. I was in a similar situation at one point in my life, it had taken me hard work to earn that money, and I have to say I was a little pissed about the tax situation.
I think I understand why progressive tax systems exist. Given our societies' structures, they probably _have_ to exist. But also I wonder if long-term they _contribute_ to income and wealth inequality. It reduces incentives for those who earn less to earn more (which of course for many people is not easily possible, but for some it would be, by working more, working harder, looking for a different job, etc.). It also allows employers to spend less on their workforce, meaning you could understand it as a kind of subsidiary for employers. Of course, lower salaries might be the only way for employers to even offer a product at prices the market wants to pay. But again it also reenforces inequalities in the income structure.
> That would make the super rich not super rich.
Tough... thoughts and prayers.
Probably reading something into this that I didn't mean?
Society idolizes the rich and then acts surprise when our society enables them.
If you call people out for their hypocrisy they act like a doomer victim.