Guillotine talk is all about moving the Overton window…maybe.
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He did say .1%, but he also said REITs, so he’s talking about rent seeking whether it’s coming from a billionaire or anyone with a 401k.
Whether or not something can happen isn’t really a good way to determine whether or not it’s worth serious discussion here. A better metric would be whether or not WE can do anything by talking about it, in which case none of this “what should the Democratic Party do” stuff is worth serious discussion either. I’m not sure what was worth serious discussion aside from something like how the site was involved in producing and distributing 23 worker/artisan produced T-shirts. And of course lots of people have helped others with personal decisions and problems and learning new things in programming or fishing and stuff.
Also, you really react like you’re terrified of your head literally being on the chopping block, but heavily taxing the rich IS the battle line for class warfare. Just ask the rich about that. And that’s also something that’s not going to happen.
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Edgelording is NBK’s thing. You treating that as normal makes this discussion pretty much impossible.
This is worth repeating. Fundamentally I think property is theft, especially land. Practically I wouldn’t have society completely do away with it, but limiting the amount of property/wealth a person can have (something like no more than $5M, but could be a bit higher) would be good and completely fair imo. For wealth below extravagance, I’d be relatively laissez-faire. But, that doesn’t mean I think the rich are necessarily worse people than the poor outside of the fact that they are hogging natural resources which shouldn’t really be anymore ownable than the air. I would have it taken back (just have the state stop protecting it) without any other negative consequences for them.
Good for them? No. See what happened when Obama brought up income equality as a defining issue.
Good for us? Yes. People could stand to be more class-conscious.
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Fair enough but if you are going to edgelord all day don’t be surprised people don’t take your serious suggestion as worthy of real discussion.
I don’t want to jump to conclusions. What do you mean by “pure class warfare”? What makes it unworthy of serious discussion?
I find it interesting that you declare that it won’t and can’t happen. How did you arrive at this conclusion?
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Like all things it matters that we clearly define what we are talking about. This thread began with me pushing back against NBK when he was talking about seizure of all assets above $200k and bringing out the guillotines. That is just silly nonsense not worth discussion.
If we are talking about real policy like massive tax hikes, reframing the profit incentives of corporations, some kind of restructuring of housing for profit etc then count me in.
The Democrats are lying about being the party of the worker to some extent but nearly as bad as republicans. There clearly Democrats who care deeply about the working class. It’s just their party doesn’t listen to them enough.
OK, then. So, iyo guillotines and seizure of assets above $200k is silly talk. Happy to grant that, so we can move forward.
Let’s do the class warfare where we seize the assets of the REITs and landlords. We can live in a world where rather than treating housing as a commodity who’s function is sucking money from the working class to the owning class. Instead the homes belong to the people who live in them, and who’s rent was paying for the housing anyway. No guillotines necessary. This way we don’t have to figure out the ideal tax rate to impose on income derived from economic rent extraction, or reframe the REITs profit incentives, because we’ve rid ourselves of the systems, major institutions, and actors doing the extraction. Are you on board with that?
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Nope for reasons we already covered in Sabo’s long thread in the topic.
And those reasons were?
How does this look?
I know you’re not asking me and this isn’t really the right thread, but my feeling is it is about the issue of whether land should be ownable at all. I think it’s fair for society to recognize ownership of a reasonable amount of land per individual. If they rent out some or all of their share, I don’t see anything wrong with that. A lot of people simply don’t want to own or be tied to property, so it serves a purpose and I libertarianishly don’t think it’s anyone else’s business provided no one is unduely hogging natural resources or spoiling the commons.
REITs are another matter altogether. Corporations should only ever be granted any rights when it serves a clear public good.
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If we wanted to compare landlording to arby’s then we’d compare the extraction of profit by the absentee owners of the arby’s to the extraction of profit by absentee landlords. Your re-write of my post isn’t a proper comparison because you’ve left that part out, and it’s the most important part as it pertains to our discussion because it’s the part where the class warfare is going on.
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The point is you and others make an arbitrary distinction between renting and all other forms of capitalist extraction.
Sounds like no one should have been charged with anything.
Sounds like no one should have been charged with anything.
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I see your point micro, and it’s in line with what I would view as equitable access to the resources, in this case land.