3244

I can’t speak for others, but my personal pushback to your argument is that you seem to be saying "These men have had immense value because look at how much money they have, They wouldn’t have that money if they weren’t providing value to the people giving them that money. And because they are providing such huge value to the people giving them money, they deserve all of the revenue they take in.

One, I know it’s a bedrock principle of capitalism, but I reject the underlying notion that just because two people willingly engage in a transaction, it means they have come away equally enriched. Just because lots of people willingly use Amazon doesn’t mean that Amazon provides value overall to society or the earth. Even if you don’t put any stock in labor theory and don’t believe there’s unfair exploitation going on, there are enough environmental knock-on effects and effects on smaller communities that I think you need to show more work to say “these people with massive wealth are actually improving society and therefore deserve their wealth.”

Two, I reject the notion that the accumulation of wealth for its own sake is in any way good or moral. Past a certain point of wealth, each additional dollar has such diminishing returns in utility that it has no measurable effect on your life. Hell, there is a point where each additional billion dollars has no measurable effect on your life. If you have a single billion dollars, all of your earthly needs and wants will be met for the rest of your life, even if you sat on your couch and did nothing and gained nothing for the rest of your life. In the context we live in, where so many are homeless, starving, or otherwise just struggling, and that money could be life-changing to them, having that much wealth (much less dozens or hundreds of times that much wealth) is a moral failing.

The Great Man stuff is, to me, a sideshow I think we’re all getting hung up on. If it hadn’t been Jeff Bezos that made Amazon, someone else would have. It doesn’t matter, though. We’d be using that guy as our illustration for obscene wealth instead. Whatever. It wouldn’t change the argument that he should also be taxed.

3245

Yes, this. Let us all agree that Bezos ‘earned’ his fortune, and set about separating him from some of it, just as we do with the ‘fortune’ of everyday people.

3246

And yet… They didn’t. There were tons of people who had far more money than Bezos. Hell, you had the brick and mortar retailers he was going up against, who were giant corporations at the time. But they didn’t do it either.

Instead, you had a guy with a few hundred thousand dollars in loans, do it in his garage.

Like I said, you are free to fantasize about some alternate universe where someone else did it, but that’s all it is, a fantasy. Because that didn’t happen.

And yet, even it we are entertain your fantasies, then we are left with an alternate universe, where we are just here arguing about how Bizarro Bezos didn’t really do anything special.

If that were the case, then how did Bezos beat all those other people who had more money and established corporate infrastructure than he did?

Folks keep acting as though Bezos was some rich guy with rltons of inherited wealth, like Trump. That’s not the case. He sent into a market against huge corporations, by taking out loans and risking everything he had. If Amazon has failed, he would have lost everything. His parents would have lost virtually their entire life savings.

I’ve asked a few times now, who folks here didn’t start Amazon, somewhat rhetorically. Some folks like to imagine that they didn’t, purely because they weren’t lucky. But the reality is, they didn’t want to try to do that. They didn’t want to risk everything they owned on a long shot like selling books by mail. That sounds like a terrible idea!

I’m not even making that argument, although I think it’s valid, because that wraith is in fact a rejection if the emergent intelligence of the market. As others have pointed out, like Houngan, the tragedy of the Commons means that intelligence is by no means omnipotent, but it’s at least as good as the intelligence if any individual here in terms of evaluation of value to society.

But with something like Amazon, I can simply point to the fact that it’s a thing that literally everyone in this thread uses an the time. Pretty sure there are folks in this thread who are selling stuff on Amazon, as we speak.

To me, creating something with that kind of global ubiquity is amazing, and minimizing such an achievement by pretending that it was just based on luck, is ridiculous to me.

3247

Wot?!

3248

There are a lot of different angles being argued here, so I may be wrong in saying this, but I don’t think anyone is arguing that it’s based solely on luck. I think the success of billionaires in general, and Bezos and Amazon in particular, is based on a multitude of factors, many of which are unrelated to the material realization of that success.

But again, I think it’s an unrelated argument. Even if I granted that Bezos was truly singularly unique, the greatest among us, the king of men, I would still want his wealth taxed heavily, for reasons already stated.

3249

I’m willing to chalk this up to Timex’s infamous autocorrect (I’m guessing “minimizing” was meant), but if it was written as intended, I’ll just remark that using this kind of gendered language in 2021 is, like, mad sus, bro.

3250

Lol, I just noticed that one. Yeah, I think it was originally minimizing.

3252

That’s the thing, I’m very in favor of progressive taxation, especially for the ultra wealthy. I don’t think it’s a good plan to tax unrealized gains, but I’m totally in favor of removing tax loopholes, and increasing taxation on high levels on income and inheritances.

That last point there would alleviate a lot of the “unworthy” rich, who inherited their wealth and never really did anything for it.

Interestingly though, it wouldn’t have limited Bezos in particular, as his wealth is not inherited. But it would limit it at the end of his life.

3253

I keep hearing autocorrect learns, but I don’t think it’s nearly as smart as that implies or as these companies want you to think. It’s generally bad for everyone.

3254

It certainly has never learned that no, I didn’t mean to type ‘ducking’.

3256

It’s good to see you back Nesrie!

And yes, Google’s autocorrect is noticably worse over time, as it constantly wants to use words that I’ve never used, or works be far less common. Like it always wanted to use summer instead of some. I say “some” all the time. I’ve typed “summer” maybe once. Now twice.

3257

Leopold II is probably the best example. He was the richest man of his era, and of course he achieved his wealth by turning a large part of Africa into a slave hell. He managed to extract a lot of rubber, killed 5-15 million people, and destroyed countless human societies and cultures.

Leopold is a good example of what Timex is not understanding. To build a great fortune requires taking value from a large number of people. Maybe you skim a moderate amount off them like Bezos does, or maybe you take a much larger portion like Leopold did. But you do not earn a billion dollars off the sweat of your own brow or from your own achievements.

Contrast this to other endeavors that no one complains about. If you are a scientist and you have a genius idea, maybe you make a million or two from the Nobel Prize and patents. If you are a top level doctor, maybe you take home a few hundred K a year by combining talent, education, and hard work. People are generally fine with this.

3259

This is good.

3261

Yeah autocorrect absolutely pulls some random stuff out that has no bearing on what I use at times.

It absolutely is not 1:1 with regular user input.

Also welcome back! Hope you’re staying cool today.

I never want to type ducking, yet here we are.

3263

What I think you’re not understanding is that there’s a difference between what Leopold II did, which is taking large amounts of money from people by murdering and torturing and maiming them, and what Bezos did, which is owning a bunch of pieces of paper that say “You own a tiny percent of this company”. One is actually taking money from people, and the other is increasing the value of what you already own by improving the company.

3265

I think he worked his ass off, and risked everything he (and his family) had, and successfully executed a plan.

3267

Maybe it’s not that easy?

3269

Why can’t it be that? And sacrificed a lot of his own time. And had some good, non-intuitive ideas. And hired a bunch of smart people to execute his plan. And sacrificed short-term profitability for growth. And had goals that went far beyond just having a good ecommerce site. I think it’s all those things put together.

3270

Who cares? Tax him.

3272

I have the same problem, lol.