How should we help the super rich?

[Narz]

That is not logic, it is a decision we have made as to the structure of the economy.

If someone has access to a resource they can gain more resources by enting it to others. Not sure how this could ever be fully abolished. Some cultures (iirc certain Eskimo tribes) have strong taboos against hoarding wealth but beyond sustenance there were also be at least slightly unequal surplus which will lead to better bargaining power for some over others

 

[Samson]

If someone has access to a resource they can gain more resources by enting it to others. Not sure how this could ever be fully abolished. Some cultures (iirc certain Eskimo tribes) have strong taboos against hoarding wealth but beyond sustenance there were also be at least slightly unequal surplus which will lead to better bargaining power for some over others

We have to have the legal and societal structures to take the fruits of the labour of the worker and give it to someone who owns the means of production. We have to have the implied violence if the worker takes the fruits for themselves, and the destitution if they refuse to labour for the capitalist to ensure that happens. All of which the collective "us" could choose to not provide.

 

[Narz]

I'm in support of changes guaranteeing better protections for workers, a better social safety net etc.

We can't really stop altogether people snagging resources and charging for then. Even female dung beetles except some crap for access to what they got.

 

[Yeekim]

That is not logic, it is a decision we have made as to the structure of the economy.

We have to have the legal and societal structures to take the fruits of the labour of the worker and give it to someone who owns the means of production. We have to have the implied violence if the worker takes the fruits for themselves, and the destitution if they refuse to labour for the capitalist to ensure that happens. All of which the collective "us" could choose to not provide.

Well, yes. Eliminating this, however, means eliminating private property as such, or at least mightily restricting how owner is allowed to use it.
Quite a bit more profound changes than I would read out from:

full employment policy properly pursued results in the reduction of real interest rates to zero

 

[Samson]

Well, yes. Eliminating this, however, means eliminating private property as such, or at least mightily restricting how owner is allowed to use it.
Quite a bit more profound changes than I would read out from:

Indeed, but it is not "basic logic" that dictates it but the structures of society.

 

[Yeekim]

Indeed, but it is not "basic logic" that dictates it but the structures of society.

Well, I edited my post.
Still curious what @Lexicus had in mind with his original comment about full employment policy and real interest rates though.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, I edited my post.
Still curious what @Lexicus had in mind with his original comment about full employment policy and real interest rates though.

It was Keynes' idea, not mine. His view was that the idle rich would cease to exist if the state kept regulating capitalism to the benefit of all for long enough. With hindsight I would say he was kinda wrong; give the rich time to react and they restore control and begin to get richer at the expense of everyone else again.

I do believe that a renegotiation of private property will be necessary, perhaps something on the order of the abolition of human property (slavery). The economy cannot continue to be a vehicle for making 12 people rich and everyone else miserable.

 

[H4run]

If someone has access to a resource they can gain more resources by enting it to others. Not sure how this could ever be fully abolished. Some cultures (iirc certain Eskimo tribes) have strong taboos against hoarding wealth but beyond sustenance there were also be at least slightly unequal surplus which will lead to better bargaining power for some over others

It's hard when we put a clear definition and prohibition for wealth accumulation, while at the same time we all know that it's a huge problem in itself. Assets/wealth accumulation, food waste, it's as much or more of a problem than that of overpopulation, but yes it's the RICH problem so it's always overlooked. When I know how much foods are wasted in Vegas daily, it's a spit to the face for anyone surviving and working for daily food, but it is what it is.

But we can tip the scale a bit I believe, take for instance look at the super-riches idles property. Peoples complaining over overpopulation and the ever rising of the housing and food cost, but in the other hand I see lots of empty land in the heart of the Capital here in Indonesia, I believe this also the same for most of other cases, the idle lands are just being there and barricaded by wall for decades accumulating capital by doing nothing and depraving its space for the community. These idle assets can instead be use for housing, retails, park and other necessary things for public, to let that assets idle are harm to the society.

If there are rules no assets should be keep idle for x amount of years, they should function it either by themselves or through business partner or with philanthropic organization with a clear contract, then I think we somewhat tipping the scale on making a better place.

 

[Hygro]

“Voting doesn’t matter,” was never my position

It is good to be wrong, but you can understand how loudly this rings:

I have become more pragmatic with age. But that pragmatism has led me precisely away from the naïve conviction either that there is much of positive use to be gained through voting or electoral politics

among other things.

Conviction in voting and electoral politics is more than pragmatic, it's a necessity. The gains we have lost were gains achieved first, and subsequently lost through electoral politics. What is necessary may not be sufficient, but an attack on the necessary for its disappointments undermines the effort.

I suppose some realism that voting alone won't do it, but when Biden does a thing no president did before and the response is "it wasn't good enough, I feel like Charlie Brown and Biden is Lucy with the football" then you are abating your role in reinforcing the good behavior. You, specifically you, are a person to lead. I'm not asking for perfection. But when it's like the doer of policy: ugh, my small good thing made you feel bad? I guess I won't continue down that path. When the good is never good enough, the doers will go seek approval elsewhere.

There is an obvious and deeply glaring hypocrisy in what I am saying, which I will make clear. We need to be celebrating victories when the occur, with enthusiasm. The fun needs to be over here. Biden signed a big mclarge huge infrastructure bill and the leftists over in antiwork a few months later are complaining we'll never have an infrastructure bill: a zillion upvotes. Um, hello, it just happened! But here I am complaining about the complaining, I'm not leading by example. I don't expect perfection from any of us but the past two years were some of the best legislatively. If that rate continues half the time with only half of it undone the other half the time, we're going to have something quite incredible in 20 years. Compound interest is the most powerful... And while some Xs to the dangerous and radical Kings helps shift things, a bigger more dedicated wing of "Yes, this, more this" is going to make the machine learn to please those people.

But yes I was wrong you aren't advocating for not voting.

 

[Narz]

leftists over in antiwork

That's a forum or a reddit?

How does one not work? Even a side hustle is still work or they're homesteaders and minimalists who want to produce all their own stuff?

I'm all for pooling resources, co-housing, reducing consumption but I don't get how one could give up working altogether (unless one I'd a child or has a large inheritance).

And not interfacing economically w society one grows out of touch and bored. Iirc unemployment pretty tightly correlated w suicide.

 

[Angst]

That's a forum or a reddit?

How does one not work? Even a side hustle is still work or they're homesteaders and minimalists who want to produce all their own stuff?

I'm all for pooling resources, co-housing, reducing consumption but I don't get how one could give up working altogether (unless one I'd a child or has a large inheritance).

And not interfacing economically w society one grows out of touch and bored. Iirc unemployment pretty tightly correlated w suicide.

r/antiwork is complicated. a lot of it imo is not useful and i get where hygro is coming from, but its name is poetic in an unfortunate way. a not insignificant part of it makes sense.

it helps going past the name/branding and looking into what they talk about.

it's not about not working, it never really was. it's about current american work culture being destructive and, well, innately anti-worker. a bunch of them are just marxists that wish for a restructuring of the work environment to more appropriately align with workers' interests. most of the upvotes on there aren't about infrastructure and more have to do with sharing workplace abuses for upvotes. businesses sidelining contracts and asking for work past what the contract asks for, businesses compensating with shallow displays of teambuilding rather than just, y'know, raising wages. and the point that the disposition that you should work above what your contract demands is not only ideal, but an assumed normal; if you want a raise, you have to work beyond what you're asked to do, which actually doesn't incentivize businesses raising your wages, and causes interworker competition and cannibalization. it's stuff like that. they want to work, but they want to work in a system that's not abusive

like it's anti-work; but anti-work in the way that we understand work. the idea and definition of work has, according to them, been monopolized by some pretty toxic interests, and i can't say i disagree with that very basic observation.

 

[Farm Boy]

Iirc unemployment pretty tightly correlated w suicide.

It's isolating, since you don't see people. It destroys your social status, because money is God, further alienating social prospects. Then you're just a mark for whatever nickels you might scrape together, or for cops needing make-work, or the sort of neighbor that doesn't think HOAs are straight up malice and evil. Suicide becomes way more attractive in that situation whether or not there is employment, as such.

 

[Hygro]

To be clear I’m a fan of antiwork, but there’s certain common tropes of shared ignorance there.

One thing I realllllly like is they don’t complain about inflation much. Democracies will contain so much stupid and still trend smart to their own shared goals.

 

[Narz]

r/antiwork is complicated. a lot of it imo is not useful and i get where hygro is coming from, but its name is poetic in an unfortunate way. a not insignificant part of it makes sense.

it helps going past the name/branding and looking into what they talk about.

it's not about not working, it never really was. it's about current american work culture being destructive and, well, innately anti-worker. a bunch of them are just marxists that wish for a restructuring of the work environment to more appropriately align with workers' interests. most of the upvotes on there aren't about infrastructure and more have to do with sharing workplace abuses for upvotes. businesses sidelining contracts and asking for work past what the contract asks for, businesses compensating with shallow displays of teambuilding rather than just, y'know, raising wages. and the point that the disposition that you should work above what your contract demands is not only ideal, but an assumed normal; if you want a raise, you have to work beyond what you're asked to do, which actually doesn't incentivize businesses raising your wages, and causes interworker competition and cannibalization. it's stuff like that. they want to work, but they want to work in a system that's not abusive

like it's anti-work; but anti-work in the way that we understand work. the idea and definition of work has, according to them, been monopolized by some pretty toxic interests, and i can't say i disagree with that very basic observation.

Ok thanks. Still seems like poor branding (catchy but will push away more than it will suck in)

Yeah working for big corps is miserable. My elderly mom still has a mentality that it's better/safer than working for a small business or doing something for yourself.

I can understand fiscal conservativism but the idealization of big business (the biggest tax dodging, incentive/welfare/bailout sucking parasites) is just idiotic. There's not meritocracy there anymore than giving someone 20 properties and lawyers who can change the rules @ whim at the start of a game of monopoly would lead to merit based dominance.

The only good thing about a corporate job is it incentivizes you to exploit the company as much as you can to keep your morale up (to avoid feeling like a total sucker do give so much for so little) which is also depressing as then you become just like them.

 

[Angst]

Ok thanks. Still seems like poor branding (catchy but will push away more than it will suck in)

Yeah working for big corps is miserable. My elderly mom still has a mentality that it's better/safer than working for a small business or doing something for yourself.

I can understand fiscal conservativism but the idealization of big business (the biggest tax dodging, incentive/welfare/bailout sucking parasites) is just idiotic. There's not meritocracy there anymore than giving someone 20 properties and lawyers who can change the rules @ whim at the start of a game of monopoly would lead to merit based dominance.

The only good thing about a corporate job is it incentivizes you to exploit the company as much as you can to keep your morale up (to avoid feeling like a total sucker do give so much for so little) which is also depressing as then you become just like them.

you're right, but wanted to give a small note - r/antiwork also often deals with behavior of small businesses. the problems in work culture extends beyond the abuses of large corporations

it's some pretty basic stuff that's also often seen in small businesses - decline of pay, arbitrary firings, assigning work to people beyond their obligations, or expecting them to in the case of the latter, weird politically ranty emails from bosses about stuff, the gig economy, illegal instructions, so on and so forth. i'll say that even with my experience with work in denmark, limited as it is, there's been atrocious behavior, even with my work at a prestigious arthouse publisher for like five years - i have since mostly severed connections to that place

what antiwork asks for ranges in different ways, sometimes it's explicit marxism, but other times it's basic stuff. allowance of unions, contracts that mean anything, and a shift in culture away from the structurally toxic "work above your wage" to "pay people for what you want them to do"; and severing work from the centre of your life, allowing people a work/life balance (this is more present in denmark, in spite of my qualms with contractual abuses, pay decline, harassment etc; we tend to have our social life completely detached from the workplace)

 

[Plains-Cow]

Probably the same, although she is not as political as I am (I am a socialist)

You are a socialist who hates the income tax?

 

[Caesar of Bread]

You are a socialist who hates the income tax?

Well, the income tax only hurts poor and middle-class civilians. I suggest an income tax for people that make at least somewhere between 3 and 10 million (don't know the exact number).

 

[Plains-Cow]

Well, the income tax only hurts poor and middle-class civilians. I suggest an income tax for people that make at least somewhere between 3 and 10 million (don't know the exact number).

You made it sound like you hate the concept. Most socialists want more taxes that escalate with income to improve government services with better funding.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

You made it sound like you hate the concept. Most socialists want more taxes that escalate with income to improve government services with better funding.

I want taxes, just taxes on the rich.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I want taxes, just taxes on the rich.

No taxes for a middle class? Where is your cutoff?