I don't think it's unreasonable to limit a person's total wealth to, say, 100x the median person's lifetime earnings. In America, the median income is about $50k/yr. So 40 years as a wage earner means $2 million. With compounded interest, inflation, and wage growth, it's still under $10 million. So if we capped individual net worth at 100x that, it'd be $1 billion.
The fact that we live in a society where people don't bat an eyelash at people who have literally 100,000x the median lifetime earnings of a person (literally, 1000x what I personally consider reasonable) and yet want more says that our society has passed one of these absurdity tests and just suck down whatever stupid propaganda they promulgate.
Do you really think your world would be any better? Big corporations would still act under the same incentive structures as they do today (and in fact would continue to do so even if you forced them all to become workers’ cooperatives), you’d just find that these companies’ owners just try a little harder to hide their assets.
Complaining about billionaires instead of about greedy mega corporations just makes your objections seem like they’re based in jealousy, not fairness.
titzer · · focus · HN ↗
The fact that we live in a society where people don't bat an eyelash at people who have literally 100,000x the median lifetime earnings of a person (literally, 1000x what I personally consider reasonable) and yet want more says that our society has passed one of these absurdity tests and just suck down whatever stupid propaganda they promulgate.
YurgenJurgensen · · focus · HN ↗
Complaining about billionaires instead of about greedy mega corporations just makes your objections seem like they’re based in jealousy, not fairness.
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted]