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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

I would rather a rich person use their own money to change the world than the government seize wealth to change the world.

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And this is why we can't have nice things. People trust those who've amassed huge quantities of money for themselves and want to do more of that, instead of a body of the people specifically selected to improve the lives of everyone. Maybe the wrong people are doing it now, you can change that. America has lost so much faith in its government; it's sad.

The worst that can happen to the rich person is they go broke. The worst that can happen with the government is they turn the country into Venezuela, or devolve into mass killings like Mao’s China and the Soviet Union.

The sad thing about today’s society is that all the lessons of last century are being forgotten.

Tell that to the victims of Henry Ford's security forces. We have forgotten history, indeed.

I mean, one takes the point that companies can very much harm people, often in subtle long-term ways, more rarely with direct, brutal violence.

But if you stack up the victims of Ford's security forces next to the victims of various horrifying governments, you literally can't see the Ford victims.

Sure, but the point is that the original post claims that rich people are completely innocuous, which is just blatantly false. Anyway form of power, whether through private capital or public political, is worthy of critique and skepticism.

I think that you took an informal, slightly hyperbolic claim, and parsed it as a formal one.

Sure, but fallacious oversimplistic political rhetoric should still be called out. This is a board of reason.

Your lack of understanding of even recent American history is breathtaking. Do a little more reading on the gilded age.

Personal attacks will get you banned on HN, regardless of how wrong or ignorant another commenter may be.

Since you've frequently broken the site guidelines and ignored our requests to stop, I've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Yes, the worst that can happen to a rich person is they go broke, that doesn't mean they can't harm others along the way with little to no oversight. Union Carbide [1], Coca Cola killing union organizers [2], Nestle's use of child slaves [3] and of course, that time the Chiquita banana company started a 30 year long civil war in Guatemala [4] - then their CEO walked out of his 40th floor window in New York which almost seems worse than going broke ;) These are just recent.

Speaking of lessons we haven't learned, there's the British and Dutch East India Companies, deputized by their governments to run their own territories - and the slave trade. [5] And boy did the VOC do it well, returning a 20% annual dividend for over 200 years, the single most valuable company in the history of the world ($7T in todays money). And that's just some flagship examples.

Both are people or groups of people; companies don't have checks and balances - good government does.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr...

[3] https://www.confectionerynews.com/Article/2018/02/13/Nestle-...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27état

[5] http://theconversation.com/taboo-the-east-india-company-and-...

All of those examples pale in comparison to the atrocities by socialist governments, brought by, I assume, the best intentions.

OP point stands IMHO.

Mass killings under communist regimes - best estimates are 65 to 165 million people in 100 years

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communis...

> instead of a body of the people specifically selected to improve the lives of everyone

I doubt majority of people have time to go research credibility and vote for local politicians and other who you say “specifically selected to improve lives of everyone”

Nor is "improve the lives of everyone" likely even in the top 10 of most politicians reasons for running for office. Power is power, and whether it's in business or government it attracts people who like to wield it.

Hence checks and balances, which the wealthy attempting influence don't have.

How often do you get the opportunity to vet the credibility of rich people claims, let alone stop them? If you aren't electing people for the greater good why are you voting? What makes the wealthy any more likely to be credible?

I am not saying rich people are more credible. What I am saying is that people who were “selected” by voting have also an agenda to get rich and get power. At least rich people are already rich and are can not be easily influenced by somebody else, like young politicians are.

Thats the thing about money, nobody ever has enough. I'd even argue having a pile of it makes you more likely to be influenced as the risks of losing your job are smaller. Either way, the more compelling argument to me is politicians are subject to checks and balances.

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