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points by snaking0776 1 day ago | 0 comments
Why is 2 a direction to be avoided? Is it really so bad to prevent an individual from having majority voting rights over a corporation which has power on par with most nation states? I’m not sure a billion dollar cap is the answer here but surely there must be some kind of reasonable ceiling. Is it so bad to think that one individual shouldn’t have majority ownership over a company dominant for the US space program? Or control over major international internet access that’s useful during conflicts? Or major social media platforms which provide algorithmic dials to tweak what information is visible?

I think there’s really only a few solutions to it which all involve some kind of divestiture, it just depends on if you want to target corporations or individuals:

1) a new wave of anti-trust ala Lina Khan and breaking up most major tech companies.

2) passing laws limiting the behavior of, and allowing for the punishment of corporations and group agents as a whole. There’s a lot of philosophical work about how to hold a group accountable for their actions, try searching List and Pettit Group Agency. There’s been a lot of development since then but I’m less aware of it.

3. Caps on decision making power (potentially measured via some weighted stock ownership, or wealth more generally) like suggested above. I agree there would be a lot of second order effects here which are beyond the scope of this comment but I think we’ve clearly gone too far in one direction where single individuals are now essentially funding national party midterms, have increasing power over real world conflicts, and any other of the myriad of corruption issues you can find out in the wild.

[–] _DeadFred_ 1 day ago
Every year I have to come up with the money to pay property taxes on my home based on an unrealized gains valuation. It's one of my largest expenses. I don't even really have the option of just selling some of my home to pay them. Even with this tax people still own homes.
[–] ksec 1 day ago
This thesis assumes all billionaires are holding on to companies that "has power on par with most nation states".

In reality majority of billionaires are in industries and companies that does not even remotely have the same benefits or power.

[–] Obscurity4340 1 day ago
Can everyone just reverse the damn burden and play People's advocate for one damn second?

Why is it normal that regular people would have to sell their homes just to have a prayer of paying their minimum nut but its aways "muh unrealized stocks" when it comes to billiionaires?

Why should they be exempt from a propoetionate burden to pay the societys on a from whom they are fundamentally predicated to be feasible?

[–] ksec 1 day ago
>Why is it normal that regular people would have to sell their homes just to have a prayer of paying their minimum

Because that is not normal and shouldn't happen either. And I dont understand why this is used as an example.

I dont expect normal people to have to sell their stock. Nor do I believe in tax on asset for anyone. Capital Gain Tax should just be Income tax.

[–] bigbadfeline 8 hours ago
> Because that is not normal and shouldn't happen either.

I would believe this if you had started fighting existing property taxes first and waited until you have finished that job before trying to prevent non-existent asset taxation.

> I dont expect normal people to have to sell their stock.

Selling stock isn't abnormal, it's done every day. More importantly, people don't have to sell stocks to pay taxes, instead they could use dividends or part of the income they normally use for buying more stocks. The current obsession with growth stocks is part of the problem.

> Capital Gain Tax should just be Income tax.

I wish a good economy could be built without any asset/property taxes but I don't think that's possible. As with everything else, asset taxes can be quite harmful if implemented the wrong way, but that's a different conversation.

[–] ffsm8 1 day ago
I don't think forcing majority stakeholders to sell their stocks over the years would have your proposed effect. The position of power here is mostly with the CEO of those companies. And that's not gonna change with this scheme.

Honestly, there isn't a clean solution to this problem- or at least none that doesn't come with unpredictable consequences. I think everyone can agree that companies growing too large inevitably become harmful for the society they're enabled by, but there are no previously established solution we can reach for... And every decision you can make will have trade-offs. Also, were pretty late game into free market capitalism. Any changes to the status quo will dis-/advantage someone, and they will utilize the tools available to them to stop you. So such deep cutting changes are beyond unlikely without first descending into complete chaos. Which would likely be worse for the majority of people...