this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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We don't need to redistribute any wealth. We only need to disappear the wealth of the billionaires, and the billionaires themselves just to be sure they do not rise again.
I think part of the problem is that we confuse "wealth" as "money" and not "capital".
We don't need to raid a bunch of bank accounts and hand out big checks to everyone.
We do need to give workers equity in the companies where they work. We need to give them transparency with regard to how the businesses operate. And we need to give them lines of credit such that they can operate these businesses independently of the private banking sector.
That is the real wealth of the modern American economy. Not the Petrodollar.
You gotta grease the wheels. Americans are very self-centered, they won't put in effort for somebody else's profit (knowingly), but if they're told they themselves can get almost $500k they'll be more inclined to do it.
You're absolutely right and I wish we had an opposition party that knew how to frame this messaging. Liberal Democrats are stuck in "civility politics" and messaging that everything is fair and good and we need to all "do our fair share" and that slides off the backs of most self-centered people, which is like... all of them.
The right has won so much ground because they have both fashioned a selfish base, and nurtured them and sent them messages of what they're entitled to. Even if those entitlements are batshit and stupid, they still successfully got a loud enough segment of the population to make demands that we're now in a hostage situation where about 20% of us represent all of us.
That's the point of the message. You can't "redistribute wealth" in the shape it's in now without some kind of thanos gem.
But if more people understand that if they work and contribute to society, they are entitled to getting more of that back, we make small steps towards people understanding that their local representatives need to attach themselves to making our labor actually count for something in our lives.
We work more than ever and have less to show for it than ever. This is something we could change if wanted.
Even so, this is a good way to illustrate that the typical person is well below the average amount of wealth.