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Comment by kg | Hacker News Reader

This reply has very strong "the average human does not eat 10 spiders a day; the average was thrown off by Spiders Georg who eats 10000 spiders a day" energy.

Amazon does not have an exceedingly high profit margin, and my understanding is that a lot of it comes from stuff like AWS, not Amazon deliveries - correct me if I'm wrong here. So I'm not sure that "three amazon deliveries a day" - if this is even common - is why that man is personally rich. Even if it were a big source of revenue, that would go into Amazon's coffers, not necessarily his directly.

Another way to look at this: Even if Amazon is wildly successful, does that mean Jeff Bezos specifically should become filthy rich as a result, instead of all its employees and investors? How should the gains from successful entrepreneurship be distributed?

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> why that man is personally rich. Even if it were a big source of revenue, that would go into Amazon's coffers, not necessarily his directly.

Jeff Bezos owns 9% of Amazon. So 9% of the expected value of the money going "into Amazon's coffers" indefinitely into the future is counted as part of his current "wealth." It's not money under his mattress.

Is your argument that people shouldn't be allowed to own 9% of a company that they started?

People should not be allowed to accumulate capital beyond $X, yes. What natural law means they should? Society created the conditions for that person to be so successful; in fact, the person only had the minor part in that success. Once you reach $X, you get a certificate saying you won at life and society is really grateful, and society gets the rest of the rewards while they dedicate their life to philanthropy or torturing kittens or whatever it is they do as a hobby.

> People should not be allowed to accumulate capital beyond $X, yes.

The term "capital" is an abstraction that's not helpful here. The big "wealth" numbers are all about equity ownership in highly valued companies. Bezos owns 9% of Amazon stock. That's why he's "rich." What should happen to that stock? What happens to his voting control over Amazon?

The problem is people that rich don't own anything. It's all shell corporations and LLCs and money borrowed against those shares (so no need to pay any taxes). But they clearly have access to yacht money. We're not going to write an airtight law in the comments section. We can just ignore paper wealth and ownership stakes for the purposes of wealth redistribution.

The question boils down to a feeling that when the revolution comes, that no one person needs more than, say, $100 million for themselves, or not. Trying to distract the conversation into defining "for themselves" will only prolong your time before the firing squad, comrad.

> The term "capital" is an abstraction that's not helpful here

It was not so abstract when Musk came up with 44 billion to buy Twitter... The details are complicated but in the end it's still wealth.

> Bezos owns 9% of Amazon stock. That's why he's "rich." What should happen to that stock? What happens to his voting control over Amazon?

Presumably he would sell the stock to pay the wealth tax (or whatever mechanism is there to limit wealth)?

As for the voting control: when you're down to 9% this ship has sailed hasn't it? Anyway I don't think society has a moral obligation to allow individuals personal control of a trillion dollar company because they founded it (and if society disagrees with me, super-voting shares can be used as Alphabet does).

What is the value of $X?

> Another way to look at this: Even if Amazon is wildly successful, does that mean Jeff Bezos specifically should become filthy rich as a result, instead of all its employees and investors? How should the gains from successful entrepreneurship be distributed?

The answer depends on how should the losses from unsuccessful entrepreneurship be distributed?

Oh that's an easy one: that's societies' problem. Always has been. The same with pollution and all of the other stuff that can be externalized.

Can you be more specific? Suppose I put $1M into developing a business.

For whatever reason, construction hits a snag or revenues are not enough to cover expenses, how would it become “society’s” problem? Do I get made whole by the government giving me $1M, and the government takes posession of the property?

If so, I foresee a lot more opportunities for corruption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative

> For whatever reason, construction hits a snag or revenues are not enough to cover expenses, how would it become “society’s” problem?

You declare bankruptcy. Your vendors who extended credit get hosed. Your employees go on unemployment benefits. Each of these costs money, and each of these reduces taxable income.

Those are not socialized losses.

The aforementioned suggestions are a great way to kill any incentive to take risks and start a new business with one’s savings, further tilting the playing field to SP500 dominance.

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