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Comment by etep | Hacker News Reader

If Bezos gave all his money to everyone in the world we would all get maybe $13 or so. If all the billionaires did the same we would all get $1000 or so.

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So you are saying the richest still have potential? I mean we can expect the average person around the world to be able to "yield" $500 for the richest person in this global era. That's like trillions for the worlds richest.

I don't speak for your comment's parent, but anytime I see these types of figures, it brings to mind Iain Banks' comment "Money is a sign of poverty" [1]. You'll see rants [2] against this sentiment, but I have yet to find a rant that doesn't essentially deify money. It's just a tool, and if it doesn't help us sufficiently move the needle towards greater human satisfaction (which I believe is very congruent with moving us towards post-scarcity factors), then it is upon us to find another, better tool.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Economy

[2] http://angry-economist.russnelson.com/money-is-not-a-sign-of...

Ah, the grand benefit of value - no matter what you call it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unincorporated_Man

I don't want their money. i want their companies.

Democratize their companies. control them by employment or by employee or government committee if they are too big. Make the big corporations work for the benefit of everyone, rather than shareholders and owners.

Running Amazon by government committee, in a couple of years will be requesting a goverment bailout.

This tends to realign the systems around serving the interests of that one large company, and historically has been a mixed bag. Finland's reliance on Nokia, Russia's on Gazprom and Saudi Arabia's on Aramco was good while it lasted.

For what it's worth US laready has large ownership stakes in such corporations as AIG, Amtrak, USPS, Freddie Mac, etc.

I would argue - especially for Jeff & Bill - that the majority of employees are both the shareholders & owners of said companies.

Most Amazon employees are non-shareholding warehouse workers (even if technically they go through a contractor)

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