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Comment by golemotron | Hacker News Reader

> The answer to so many of the problems posed by neoliberal capitalism - and the opportunity for a vastly better world - lies in placing a hard limit on the wealth that any one person can accumulate. Because nobody deserves to be a millionaire. Not even you.

It won't cure envy.

Nearly everyone alive today is a "millionaire" compared to people living a few generations ago in terms of standard of living. Absolute standard of living continues to grow but that is invisible if you compare yourself to your peers.

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It doesn't have to. The point isn't a perfect society, the point is to prevent resource hoarding and the accumulation of totalitarian power. When we allow wealth to accumulate we are also allowing power to accumulate.

When we allow the state to dictate wealth ceilings, we hand it absolute power.

The state is democratic, not absolute. When the state implements policies like this it is acting as a democratic expression of the community's will. We as a community are saying "We're not going to allow individuals within our community to accumulate undo influence over it."

The power of that community is absolute.

As it should always be. Not that it is currently, not with these pesky billionaires.

Look up the history of democracy in 20th Century Europe.

The majority community clearly doesn’t will this. This sort of thing only happens via violent revolution. Good luck with that.

> The state is democratic, not absolute.

Laughable - the state has been growing on a one-way trajectory: ever larger, ever more powerful. It is run by bureaucrats who look after their own interests first, and who have no feedback loop between their own performance and reality.

Think about this next time you go to the DMV or have to wait in line to see a doctor or deal with some kafkaesque snarl of paperwork. Your democratic will counts for nothing in the face of limitless state power.

Polls and studies for years have shown that what elected officials legislate and what voters want rarely line up. Modern democracy has long outgrown representing mere constituents.

It’s not that black and white.

What if those in power are elected? What if it wasn’t an absolute limit but harsh taxation?

It's just preventing the accumulation of a specific kind of power.

Relatively speaking this would increase the power of military generals, presidents, and criminals, for a start. Is that a good thing? maybe, but restricting power from a group needs to be assessed in terms of holistic power balance not naive platitudes like 'No one should be a millionaire/billionaire'.

And the answer to that is totalitarian control on wealth accumulation?

> When we allow wealth to accumulate we are also allowing power to accumulate.

Like the power of JD Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, which was much greater than any rich man today.... oh wait.. those went defunct too.

Honestly, the fact that their heirs, despite having untold wealth were unable to keep the business going actually shows that individuals sometimes do have merits on their own, independent of the amount of money they were able to collect.

It would be more accurate to look at the foundations they left behind.

Their foundations have done a lot of good, so if that's the metric, we should encourage it.

I wouldn't be surprised if society one day sees uber wealth similar to how we see hereditary monarchies. The idea that the uber wealthy "earned" their position has already begun to wither.

> Nearly everyone alive today is a "millionaire" compared to people living a few generations ago in terms of standard of living.

Ah so both literal millionaires and common people should be happy with a median wealth life. I agree.

> millionaire

Part the problem is that the word isn’t inflation adjusted.

‘Billionaire’ is probably a closer comparison to the railroad tycoon, millionaire of ye-olden-times.

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