this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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"It has to stop" I agree. But how do I make it stop? There's a lot of talking about what is the issue and its consequences, I say this also for climate change. But they don't say what can we do about it
A possible solution could be to limit the personal (family?) wealth, fortune, possession, etc. to for example 100 million. That should be enough to live a luxury lifestyle and give your children’s children a ‘care free life’. Everything above that amount goes to the aid of the less fortunate, public and social improvements, energy transition, solving pollution problems, etc. (worldwide). In exchange you get a certificate with: “Congratulations you won capitalism!”
P.S. When you ‘cheat’ you get 1 dollar (or equivalent) and may start over. In addition and not exclusive of all possible legal proceedings.
P.P.S. The above is just an example to illustrate that there are possibilities. But this doesn’t solve all problems of inequality or everything else that is wrong on this planet.
P.P.P.S. Too many people think the have the possibility to also collect wealth above the 100 million ( or think they are entitled to an amount above that). They will protest and vote against any such solution. (I’m not talking about those 400 Americans from the website graphic).
Reminder that the money is printed out of thin air and it's not really that we need anyone's stored wealth. Not even liquidating a mansion or ten from a billionaire, or from all billionaires, is going to solve our problems. Sure they are worth a lot to one person, but how much is a mansion worth to society in effect? Not much really.
The system is designed to have poor people. It must so that there is incentive to work. Otherwise we would have to force people to work. I'm not trying to justify the ways things are, I just don't see going after stored wealth as solving the problem especially when it is not their assets we need or their made up currency.
Ok tankie
Marxism has a rich history of thousands upon thousands of books, millions of adherents, influential thinkers across nations, disciplines and social stratae; it's not as if there is no-one with a solution on their hands. They are just being willfully ignored.
I think their question is more about how we would implement that. Marx believed that proletariat uprising would be the "how," and that it is an inevitability of end stage capitalism. But the nature of capitalism keeps people from attempting that. This is a system that we are forced to participate in if we want to survive. We need food and shelter and we don't want to get arrested and/or murdered by cops for revolting. With that in mind, we have to get to a point where we collectively have nothing left to lose.
With all due respect; do you think that Marx, let alone Engels and myriads of Marxist thinkers over the centuries overlooked the idea that people are dependent on wages and therefore not likely to throw their lives to a revolutionary effort? I think the historical intricacies of revolutions are perhaps the most studied part of history for Marxists.
That said, there is obvious truth in the fact that obviously people will not join a revolutionary mass movement today or even tomorrow in the world that we live in. The circumstances ought to be life-or-death for many of them to consider that much of a sacrifice; not that I advocate that at all of course, but revolutions have not historically been staged as fun and games for all those involved.
The sad truth is that the permanent solution to our woes is a revolution that can only really happen when things are already boiling.
Not to be fatalistic deliberately, but what can we do about it? If we try to take on the system individually, we face the Plucky Ninja problem. If we try to coordinate, it's too big a movement to keep secret, so the rich and powerful can subvert it before we get anywhere. (They're doing a pretty good job of it already.)
We have had the solution for hundreds of years. Most people, however, don't want to hear it.