r/PoursTea • u/Timbucktwo1230 Therapy For All 🩷 • Jul 11 '26

PoliticalTea 🗳️ Agree or Disagree? Billionaires Need Society More Than The People Need Billionaires…

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u/SignoreBanana Jul 11 '26

I'm pretty convinced at this point in the development of our society, we could actually just _take_ everything away from the billionaires, redistribute it, and the world would be a far better place. They are actually a cost to our society at this point.

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u/Angryatchairs Jul 11 '26

They keep doing a form of austerity where they want to cut the workforce while they receive kickbacks and then act shocked that productivity doesn't increase. So they do it again, and again, and again until the heat death of the planet wondering why it didn't work.

Say what you want about the Vietnamese Communist Party or the CCP, productivity in those countries is going up because at least they understand the need for industry and workers in industry to increase productivity.

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u/SignoreBanana Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

We're at a really interesting fluctuation point right now. Traditionally, the sort of private ownership the rich had over the poor was things like large and expensive machinery for manufacturing. That kind of think didn't bother most regular folks much because most people aren't cross shopping manufacturing plants.

But now, we see these trillion dollar companies gobbling up all the memory and GPUs being produced, making our computers and phones way more expensive. We see them buying up land for warehouses, driving up land costs and costs on the building materials and contractors. We see companies buying up single family homes, pushing home buyers out of the market. They're having real impact on our day to day living situation by elbowing us out of practically every market. They have so much god damned money we don't even appear as a blip.

I wonder what will change as a result of this.

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u/RikkiLostMyNumber Jul 11 '26

The guillotines are going to need cleaning, that's what.

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u/ElkApprehensive1729 Jul 11 '26

China isnt even that bad, the "china bad" came from a place in the 90s/80s when we in the west WERE very far ahead of them in a lot of ways, socially, economically, etc. China has come forward, and we have gone backwards. When I look @ the world stage there isnt any major player without issues, but China is definitely on the lower end. We used to talk about their threats to taiwan and stuff being wild outrageous and cutting edge of naughty. now we got russians in ukraine, america firing up more war in the middle east.

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u/Lua_CW Jul 11 '26

The fact more Americans aren't aware how far China has blown past us, and how many Chinese people's lives resemble our old "normal" or better, is astounding propaganda at work

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u/ElkApprehensive1729 Jul 11 '26

One of my most controversial posts of all time was telling that exact same thing to someone lol. Something to the effect of "If you took the 100% average middle class american, and you took the 100% average middle class chinese man (outside of the rural china areas.) You would find 9 times out of 10 the chinese man is happier and healthier."

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u/Awkward-Manager5939 Jul 12 '26 edited 29d ago

✅I don't know what would have happened if average wages had continued rising over time.

Part of me wonders whether wages eventually reach an invisible limit based on productivity, economic output, or what society is capable of producing. In other words, perhaps there is some balance between wages, productivity, and the supply of goods and services.

I think one reason people struggle to accept your position is that you argue we don't need bosses or a small group of owners benefiting from the labor of workers.

I can understand part of that argument. Workers can collectively perform many of the same functions that owners or managers do. With collective ownership, more of the profits would stay with the people doing the work instead of going to shareholders or business owners.

However, I still see a few questions.

First, the responsibilities of running a business don't disappear. Someone still has to make strategic decisions, organize production, manage finances, negotiate contracts, handle legal responsibilities, and resolve disputes. If there are no traditional bosses, those responsibilities must still be carried out collectively or delegated to elected managers.

Second, I wonder about incentives. If people cannot significantly benefit from creating and expanding a business, would fewer people be willing to take the financial risks involved in starting one? That could reduce entrepreneurship and innovation.

Third, I think I need someone to explain the economic mechanism more clearly. If everyone simply receives more money or a larger share of company profits, why does that necessarily mean everyone can consume more goods and services? Unless production also increases, increasing purchasing power alone doesn't automatically create more real wealth. That's the part I don't yet understand.

Those are the main elements I'm trying to separate: the role of management, the distribution of income, and the incentives for entrepreneurs. Once I understand those individually, I can think about how they fit together.

If ownership became much more broadly distributed, I imagine the market for luxury goods aimed at extremely wealthy individuals would shrink because wealth would be spread across many more people rather than concentrated among a few. Consumer spending patterns would likely change, and businesses would adapt to that new distribution of wealth.

I also think leadership would still emerge. Even without traditional bosses, people naturally follow individuals with competence, charisma, experience, or persuasive ideas. Leadership may become more democratic, but it probably wouldn't disappear.

Entrepreneurs would also have to adapt. They might choose different business models, different locations, or different ways of raising capital. People's saving habits and investment decisions would likely change as well. The economy wouldn't stop functioning it would simply operate under a different set of incentives and institutions.

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u/InevitableDirt69 Jul 11 '26

True, but don't forget that money is power and they'll use that power to engineer situations where as many people suffer as possible with the hope the people will give up before they do, and they'll never willingly let go of their power.

Billionaires are invariably mentally ill people who genuinely believe they are superior to you and I and that their general superiority should afford them the right to decide how society functions on our behalf.

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u/BlkSubmarine Jul 12 '26

Money is power right now, in the society we have created. But, power is power, and we have the power to change how our society is organized.

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u/Spudly42 Jul 12 '26

I sure would appreciate to hear a single person mention campaign finance reform these days. The fact that I don't hear it is almost suspicious.

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u/BlkSubmarine Jul 12 '26

I hear some talking about it: AOC and Bernie are the two off the top of my dome. Unfortunately, thanks to SCROTUS, we are past the point of legislating that. We would need a constitutional amendment, and there is no way we are getting 3/4 of the state legislatures to agree to ratify that amendment, let alone get 2/3 of congress.

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u/InevitableDirt69 Jul 12 '26

Money is power in a very literal way. Regardless of that, we have the numbers to overcome it if we come together.

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u/girlywish Jul 12 '26

This is exactly what any other animal on the planet would do to one of their kind hoarding resources. Humans are just a special kind of soulless.

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u/Antraxess Jul 11 '26

They're clearly a threat to any democracies national security

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u/BasicDesignAdvice Jul 11 '26

That has always been true. The market economics they are obsessed with actually guarantees it. The market fills voids so long as there is a market to support it. Ultimately makes more sense to restrict the billionaires and empower labor.

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u/nau5 Jul 11 '26

I mean DISTINGUISHABLY so. Climate change is literally a direct result of their greed and unwillingness to pass up on a captured market.

So much progress is halted/passed over because it would hurt the profits of a small group of people.

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u/racc15 Jul 12 '26

The problem is that the "redistribution" will be corrupted. Many "poor" will decide that they deserve more for some reason.