Excessive concentration of wealth has destructive consequences.
In the context of just Silicon Valley, what are they?
The destructive and unchecked accumulation of wealth in SV is what allowed the creation of monstrosities such as the gig economy and massive surveillance.
At the present moment in time it even allowed some tech oligarchs to directly influence elections in their favor, gaining access direct access to the high levels of government to have nugde government actions inntheir favor, curb regulatory interference that might put checks in their companies, etc.
I am presuming younasked from a position of ignorance rather than finding all this desirable somehow.
Most SV politicos that drive living conditions in the valley don't take PAC money and aren't affected by Billionaires. There's a housing shortage and a cost of living crisis anyway (example: no matter how much you pay gig economy workers, they are not going to afford a home in the valley).
The issues you mentioned are because of Citizens United - a federal issue w/ consequences all over the country (not just SV).
Yes, this is done through the government. While the government as an institution should be scrutinized and not necessarily get blind faith, it at least has the pretense of looking after the needs of the population.
This is the same dishonest line of reasoning as "there are children starving in Africa". That doesn't give the wealthy the right to take food from my children for themselves (indirectly speaking).
But you know that. The point is not to make an honest argument, but to oppress. I'm desperate for us to evolve past the point of making these immoral arguments against innocent people, pushing and pushing and pushing until something catastrophically breaks.
The most despicable wealthy are those that earned it via government coercion - they literally robbed their fellow citizens
People can be manipulated so that they give you money "voluntarily", but I wouldn't call that noble. Probably trillions of dollars are spent trying to manipulate people in various ways to try to convince them to give their money to the wealthy. Some of the most brilliant minds of humanity are working on how to use human psychology and technology to get people to do what they want. When an individual is up against that, I wouldn't call it entirely voluntary.
> The capitalist system has brought all of humanity higher than ever dreamed of by the wealthiest kings in centuries past.
All of humanity? No, millions still die of hunger. That's because their needs are invisible in a capitalist system, while the wants of those with wealth get the attention of everyone.
It is. Informing people about solutions to their problems is good, but advertising as it exists today is nothing more than manipulation in most cases.
> the idea that starving people existing negates the entire system we have which has proven to be successful
You said that capitalism has lifted all of humanity, but that is clearly not the case, not even in countries considered capitalist.
Yes, it absolutely has, and there is no example you can provide of a capitalist country providing a worse life than a non-capitalist country
Anyway, just because capitalism is the best we've come up with so far doesn't mean we can't do better. Would you look at the fastest car today and say "there's no example of a faster car you can provide, therefore this is the fastest car there can ever be". No, we can do better, especially with the technology we now have.
There is no alternative to letting people trade, which results in successful traders accumulating more than others. That’s it. There is no other system because it goes against human nature
It restricts your freedom of robbing others, of killing people, of not abiding by a contract, there are many "freedoms" you don't have that are necessary for society to function.
As the other comment mentioned, markets != capitalism, capitalism is a specific system to exploit markets but it doesn't mean it's the best way that will ever be found to provide incentives to produce what society wants or needs.
Quite impossible actually.
Therefore, if society wants free trade and free markets, it needs to prevent this. And the easiest way to do so is by making unbounded capital accumulation impossible, by refusing to acknowledge it as legitimate property right past a certain point, and thus withholding society's protections for it. It doesn't mean that all property rights are gone.
You have come to the exactly incorrect conclusions
It is. It's exploitation of the human mind, like a drug. It exists to hit the right triggers to open the gates of a person's decision making.
It's like a backdoor. Except, not really. Because the human mind is much easier to exploit than a computer.
We can do it very obviously, maybe with nicotine. But we don't even need substances. Just some bright lights and a bar you pull is enough to get people to drain their entire savings. You can even tell them "this doesn't work, you won't win" - it doesn't actually affect the exploit, because the exploit is occurring on a physiological, survival level, and logic is at a higher level than that. It's like trying to stop an active rootkit with Windows Defender.
Advertisement is gambling, but normalized. The goal is to develop an exploit to compel humans to work against their interests, to actively harm themselves in hopes of something they require.
It's typically simple things like joy or love. They might appeal to the innate desire for socialization, the innate need to be recognized and respected.
But, actually, you don't even need that. Even just exposing a brand image, over and over again, with no messaging creates an exploit. Now, they are primed to buy from you as opposed to competitors. Not based on logic, or even emotion - no, something much more intrinsic, much more fundamental to how neurons operate. Pattern recognition.
The exploit is so effective and deep-seated that you cannot even be aware if it has occurred, nor can you undo it. Some people believe the point of advertising is to get people to buy things. No, not at all. The point of advertising is for people to buy things all on their own, and make them believe it was done on their own accord. That's the golden goose. Any idiot can hold a gun to someone's head. But true manipulation doesn't require a gun.
50,000 people died by suicide in the USA in 2023. 12.8 million thought about it. 3.7 made a plan for it. 1.5 million attempted it. https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html
105,000 people died by overdose in the USA in 2023. https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd...
In 2023 the average daily incarceration population in the USA was 664,000. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2023-s...
Average daily homeless population for the USA in 2023 was 653,000. https://nlihc.org/resource/hud-releases-2023-annual-homeless...
In 2023 only 86% of US households were food secure. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...
The majority of US bankruptcies (58.5%) “very much” or “somewhat” agreed that medical expenses contributed, and 44.3% cited illness-related work loss; 66.5% cited at least one of these two medical contributors—equivalent to about 530,000 medical bankruptcies annually. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6366487/
American police kill more people than any other country at 1100 people a year. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/
I’d rather live in a conclave of billionaires, under my current standard of living, than be the richest man in the country living under the standards of 40 years ago.
Now, if they could live forever with that wealth, I’d probably change my mind. But that’s just fiction. Rich people die, some of them younger than I am.