Ive often seen individuals on the left talking about how billionares shouldnt exist etc., but when probed on how that could be accomplished the answer is usually just taxes or guillotines. I dont think either is great.

What if instead, corporations were made to be unable to be sold or owned. Initially theyre made to default to popular election for their board, and after that they can set up a charter or adopt a standard one, ratified by majority vote of their employees.

Bank collapse would probably follow, how could that be remedied? Maybe match the banks invalidated stocks with bonds?

  • Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    I don’t get how you can think Taxes aren’t the answer but removing stocks are. Billionaires exist because they have a lot of money in some form and are able to reinvest that money to get more money. If you remove stocks, they will find another way to have a lot of money, whether that’s owning a lot of business, buying up properties etc. Start applying a sort of wealth tax, disallow financial influence in election (putting actual limits on spending), fix the loophole for passing on wealth to children with little to no tax, etc. There really isn’t a simple solution, but a wide range of changes that need to be done in my opinion.

    • bonus_crab@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 days ago

      Well, if you want to tax billionares out of existance u need a wealth tax, aka unrealized gains.

      taxing unrealized gains is just going to force individuals to sell their business to liquidate the cash to pay their taxes. Institutional traders will buy them up, so youre universally taking control out of the hands of people and giving it to banks and hedgefunds, which will just end up owning eachother.

      I dont think any billionares exist that made their money in some other way than selling stocks in a business they acquired at a lower value, aside from inheritance or divorce.

      Maybe you do implement a wealth tax anyway though, but you do it after abolishing stocks, just to catch the loopholes.

      • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        You’re overthining. There aren’t enough billionaires for abstracts like this. Just create specific teams fir evaluating each individual billionaire’s due.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        2 days ago

        In theory, the banks and funds in question should themselves be owned by ordinary people. As it stands, ordinary-ish people own most things anyway; even as grotesquely rich as billionares are, there’s only ~2000 of them known.

        I do kind of wonder if you could have a group of companies that buy back all the shares external entities own in them. I can’t say if it’s ever happened, though.

          • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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            16 hours ago

            Because it’s their money……

            So? There’s lots of restrictions on what you can do with your money. Most people agree this is a good thing.

            It has also already been taxed.

            Kind of the same answer. Governments can legislate whatever they want, including tax number n+1 in addition to the n you paid while alive.

            Are you against having a government at all? Do you believe in a certain natural right that would restrict inheritance tax specifically? You came in here with a bombshell take and it feels incomplete without some context, haha.

      • Chee_Koala@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Power accumulation in families would be through the roof. I get that it feels crude when you can’t pass on all your wealth to your children, but it would widen the wealth gap so so much in just a couple generations. Is there another reason you think it should be untaxable?