this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
421 points (94.7% liked)

Leftism

2056 readers
112 users here now

Our goal is to be the one stop shop for leftism here at lemmy.world! We welcome anyone with beliefs ranging from SocDemocracy to Anarchism to post, discuss, and interact with our community. We are a democratic community, and as such, welcome metaposts that seek to amend the rules through consensus. Post articles, videos, questions, analysis and more. As long as it's leftist, it's welcome here!

Rules:

Posting Expectations:

Sister Communities:

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Solarpunk memes [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

To put it simply, if I could sell a penknife with a force-field blade to a nobleman, it would be to his interest to force laws that would allow him to use it. Put that baldly, it sounds silly, but it is sound, psychologically. To make strategic sales, at strategic points, would be to create a pro-nucleics faction at court. -- Isaac Asimov, Foundation

The problem is billionaires are going to put their resources into manipulating legislation and regulation so as to allow billionaires to exist, and to exist without being taxed or otherwise harassed for owning so much.

This was a problem with the train barons and industrialists (who believed the Great Depression was a fine time). We need to stop them before they have armies of AI-managed armies of killer robots with which to defend their fiefdoms.

I don't know how to do that. So far, nobody knows how to successfully tax them or otherwise get them to reduce their personal power.