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Comment by taurath | Hacker News Reader

I think wealth coffers are past the upper limit of what can be construed as reasonable even in the most anarchic of capitalist societies.

Just like on the monopoly board, one cannot win when all the spaces are already owned - that’s the situation we fundamentally have. A wealth tax is necessary.

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> Just like on the monopoly board, one cannot win when all the spaces are already owned - that’s the situation we fundamentally have.

Monopoly has a fixed game board with no possible means of expanding or changing the spaces the player can land on. The real world is constantly at risk of disruption from changes in technology and geopolitics that can substantially change the competitive landscape.

True, in monopoly those with nothing aren’t allowed to take back the means of production by force when all changes create further and further wealth inequality.

That doesn't work out in practice. "The richest families in Florence in 1427 are still the richest families in Florence" https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-14... The headline tells you what you need to know. The disruption thing is just a chimera to fool gullible people into thinking that rich people actually earned what they got and that the system is fair. It absolutely is not.

The richest families in the US are certainly not the richest ones from 1950 let alone 1427. The largest companies by market cap are Apple, MS, Google, Amazon, and FB... None of those businesses existed a generation ago let alone the technology that powers them or even their business models. At least some of the founders of those companies are immigrants. There is no reasonable extrapolation from wealthy families in Florence to "disruption is just a chimera to fool the gullible" in SV.

The three richest families in the US are (according to a simple Google search) the Waltons, Kochs, and the Mars. These three families were already in the 1950 very wealthy. I don't know enough to say whether they were among the richest, but for sure they weren't poor.

> The real world is constantly at risk of disruption

Only for workers being replaced by automation and such. For whole social classes - no.

All key indicators show how social mobility is not high in most countries and it's even decreasing in many.

Yes, and:

The never ending struggle between wealth and democracy. Same as it ever was, including the pearl clutching and feinting spells.

This was my introduction to the nuts and bolts, written by Kevin Phillips, Reagan's economist:

Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich [2003] https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Democracy-Political-History-Am...

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