Comment on Three Australian millionaires say the nation’s super-rich should face higher taxes
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 5 days agoPeople absolutely do earn a billion dollars. If you “abolish” billionaires you abolish the drive, determination, innovation etc that creates billionaires who have made some of the most world changing things in history.
MisterFrog@aussie.zone 5 days ago
All of the world’s billionaires have amassed their wealth off other people’s labour.
If you can name me ONE billionaire who hasn’t, I’ll be extremely shocked. One billionaire who just worked for their money.
Selling something to investors is indirectly profiting off others labour, just in advance. You think the investors pull up their sleeves and generate billions? Lol. No no, they get workers to make whatever business profitable.
Some billionaires may have created something worthwhile (Taylor Swift, for example), even she has an army of workers who make her continued career possible. (Even though she definitely was a “self-made” billionaire starting without massive capital).
Billions is so much you can practically never spend it. And no one can work literally >1000x harder than someone else. Or generate something so worthwhile they deserve billions.
You don’t need the profit motive for people to create great things. The creator of insulin sold the patent for $1. And countries like Denmark (while still be capitalists) are proof that more people would be entrepreneurial if they have more of a safety net to try. We’re probably missing out of tonnes of innovation simply because the person hasn’t been given the chance through education or they’re in poverty.
And we only have poverty because we live in a system where you can amass unlimited wealth, on the backs of everyday people, instead of the workers sharing in the profits of their labour.
Without the labour of others, or the proceeds from the labour of others (advertising, investment, etc), it’s impossible to make a billion dollars.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 day ago
There’s nothing wrong with profiting off your employees labour though. You’re paying them to do a job for you. Do you not understand how jobs and providing services for money work?
MisterFrog@aussie.zone 1 day ago
I most certainly advocate for a better society where work is more democratic than it currently is (in general).
I’m well aware of how jobs work, just that I don’t think it’s a efficient or fair way to structure society (in general). It’s pretty hard to argue that the amount of money people have is purely, or even mostly, correlated with merit or how hard someone works.
Agree to disagree. I’m not having a go at any small business owners in particular, since they many don’t profit that much more than their employees anyway - just in general it’s not desirable and we ought to move away from capitalism.
Technically not communism specifically ,because I think money is a useful accounting tool, which allows people to choose what they value, and don’t think we need to get rid of it - but much of a much. Yes I am a socialist and not shy about it.