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proud dog owner's avatar

well written post! i wasnt entirely convinced though.

the underlying assumption here is that different people holding different amounts of social power is a bad thing. if you eliminate wealth inequality, this problem isn't solved though. if true equality means everyone truly has an equally "loud" voice, then after solving wealth inequality, we need to solve the problem of some people... literally having louder voices.

some people are more charismatic than others. some people are more intelligent than others. some people have more wealth than others. i'm not american so i may mess up some details, but elon musk was giving away a million dollars to people that voted in Wisconsin, yet the guy he supported got dumpstered.

if any disparity in social power is de facto bad, it seems like wealth may be down the list compared to kneecapping people that are unusually charismatic? all the wealthy people are getting dicked down by tariffs, too. bill gates is much richer than donald trump, but i dont feel like his political impact has been any larger. donald trump and elon musk are just unusually charismatic people.

and i will admit it's entirely possible that a lower amount of wealth inequality is just better for a society, but i feel like this problem would be down the list. it may be nice if wealth inequality reduces as some vague long term goal, but we don't need wealth inequality reduced to pass tons of legislation that directly improves the lives of poor people right now. taxing jeff bezos a lot does effectively nothing for his employees.

i think it's politically ineffective too. people will hear "jeff bezos can spend X amount of money for X years and still have X left at the end!!!" and think "oh jeff bezos? the guy that created the company that gets me literally anything i want delivered to my doorstep in like 2 days? good for him i guess"

when people on the left say "the biggest problem we need to focus on is wealth inequality", it's like saying "im overweight and the easiest way to lose weight is to amputate a limb". let's worry about being healthy first, and the weight loss may follow.

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