Honestly gotten more left wing as my lower case-r republicanism streak has gotten stronger, precisely because of this - ThreadSky

unavaleable.bsky.social • 7 days ago

Honestly gotten more left wing as my lower case-r republicanism streak has gotten stronger, precisely because of this

The best reason to tax the crap out of the rich is to protect democracy.

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In Federalist No. 10 Madison warned us about "the mischief of factions"
"Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people."
https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-1-10#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493273

gamecreepr.bsky.social•7 days ago

Word on the street is that radical liberalism is hip again

tiredgenerally.bsky.social•7 days ago

Me historically: acktualy a broad tax base is both necessary for universal social programs and the most efficient…

me now: the democratic system is in a death struggle with every billionaire.

roland00.bsky.social•6 days ago

the death drive and creative destruction

means we must de-escalate billionaires from having access to great sums of wealth, weapons of mass destruction, in case they have a death wish

gollyzilla.bsky.social•7 days ago

Both can be true at once!

azery.bsky.social•7 days ago

i've moved away from billionaires being too evil to allow and onto the broaded; they're too stupid to be allowed

deaddropholiday.bsky.social•6 days ago

It's the democratic struggle against the excesses of Capitalism which have enriched our existence - not Capitalism itself.

daddyweasel.bsky.social•6 days ago

For like two hundred plus years, no schnook was allowed to be richer or more powerful than The United States Government. Not anymore.

jajajaboo.bsky.social•7 days ago

100% this era has made me small r and small c conservative - basic common values and community minded.

This the real retvrn we need

50’s era tax rates on the wealthy

Enough to fund crushing societal problems for the masses (housing, childcare, eldercare)

Enough to fund big ambitious infra

jajajaboo.bsky.social•7 days ago

Adam Curtis and Century of Self was also a mind expander on this

nicholeforscience.bsky.social•7 days ago

O' e been writing about coming to progressive policy decisions based on conservative foundations and I think people think I'm nuts so far.

joi-itos-jibo.bsky.social•7 days ago

“Heritable wealth that has undue control over society” oops we reinvented monarchy.

tobias-drundrige.bsky.social•7 days ago

Meanwhile I find myself more agreeing with the NeoCons on foreign policy (as ideals, not their actions).

unavaleable.bsky.social•7 days ago

Economic inequality makes political equality unsustainable and that's Bad

zachrabiroff.com•7 days ago

I think, in retrospect, we all could have done a better job of making the case that enormous accumulations of wealth weren't just a taxable resource, but were in fact a loaded gun pointed at democracy and personal freedom

peppermintjack.bsky.social•7 days ago

in a system where money = speech concentrations of wealth are incompatible with democracy

reallukem.bsky.social•7 days ago

liberalism is a good or at least acceptable answer to the political question, but if you leave the social question in this wretched state liberalism withers on the vine as well

schnorkles.bsky.social•7 days ago

Someone who is sufficiently rich, as @internethippo.bsky.social says, becomes everyone's problem.

rjbkain.bsky.social•7 days ago

They use far more of the commons than they pay for.

unavaleable.bsky.social•7 days ago

Like someone who is sufficiently rich has the resources and the time and the advantage of not having to deal with coalitional collective action problems that gives them undue influence

turnitup5000db.bsky.social•7 days ago

Over-mighty citizens have been the downfall of every fallen republic that I am aware of. Wealth is like the One Ring for republics - unfathomably powerful but a bane to you in the end.

minimallycrazy.bsky.social•7 days ago

The other thing is, these people drive an outsized share of confidence schemes and fraud. Both the ones perpetuated by the very rich (who have more resources to create convincing scams) and the ones hoping to snare rich victims (who are not less vulnerable, but much more lucrative marks).

bencates.bsky.social•7 days ago

"Advantage" here seems highly dubious from the outside. It does not seem mentally healthy to be that immune to negative feedback. Like, I'm kind of coming around to an argument that extractive wealth taxes are among other things a humanitarian intervention for the poor benighted billionaires.

palecur.bsky.social•7 days ago

i referred to it as "psychic scurvy" earlier this week and i stand by it. missing an essential component that makes everything else fall apart.

rll534.bsky.social•7 days ago

The older I get the more I support simple measures that do like 70% of the job vs 14-step programs that do 90% of the job. Taxing the shit out of the super-rich won’t solve everything. But it is straightforward and it sure would help. 1/2

rll534.bsky.social•7 days ago

By the time you make your first billion you’ve had your one Good Idea. As a society, we already got the best out of you. Feel free to fuck off to Dubai or Sealand and jar your urine in another jurisdiction. 2/2

souper-deluxe.bsky.social•6 days ago

Concentration of power is bad, whether it's public or private.

weel.bsky.social•6 days ago

same. i obviously care about how policy affects the poor, but income inequality per se isn’t the problem. until there’s politics. and then it is.

jeninmotion.bsky.social•7 days ago

If the last 20 years have taught us anything, it's that in fact, liberal democracy requires a maximum level of wealth even if the working class isn't dirt poor. Citizens United etc demonstrate that wealth beyond avarice is bad for our brains.

zetsubo.bsky.social•7 days ago

should be noted that liberalism was largely a project of the middle class' political ambitions and so a destruction of the middle class through wealth inequality basically means the death of liberalism too.

given capital's tendency to accumulate unless actively cut back, that's pretty unsustainable

ynot1989.bsky.social•7 days ago

Me in 2015: The US needs a higher tax rate on the top 1% of earners to preserve any version of a capitalist economy.

Me in 2025: Billionaires are a clear and present danger to democracy and the survival of all mankind. Nationalize everything they own.

sdmwrites.bsky.social•7 days ago

I think I was very lucky to have a leftist mum and a vaguely left of centre on some things father and so I never had a right wing moment in my life. My father’s side of the family was conservative but always voted Democrat (Black US Southerners) and my German mum voted Die Linke/SPD.

jeremyhammett.bsky.social•7 days ago

Same

danlooker.bsky.social•7 days ago

This was reposted by a billionaire. Because he (and a few others) knows no billionaires and their money is safe under a dictatorship. The rest of them will find out the hard way.

pseudoacacia.bsky.social•6 days ago

People liberalize with age as experience demonstrates circumstances outside our control matters more than good choices. It's not collective vs individualistic: it's how to assign blame. Left blames systems for injustice while right blames individual behavior as a justified outcome.

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