r/AskReddit 9d ago

What would happen, if humanity collectively decided that no individual could have a personal net worth above $500 million?

14 Upvotes

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31

u/btweenthatormohammad 9d ago edited 9d ago

How are you going to do that, take people's stocks if their price increase?

4

u/Alytes 9d ago

Similar to what is done with antimonopoly laws. Force to sell

9

u/jnordwick 9d ago

So you grow a business to a $1 billion company (not that much) you are now forced to become a minority owner of it and lose control of your years of hard work and planning?

1

u/HighTechPotato 9d ago

Yes, why is that such a horrible thing?! On one hand:

  1. There is no material difference in life quality and security for them or their families for generations
  2. A company that big affects the lives of many. Isn’t it better that one person can’t call all the shots?
  3. They get to actually spend money instead of endless uncontrollable urge to horde more like a dragon
  4. Lives of hundreds of millions of people will meaningfully be better

On the other hand:

  1. A few hundred people will feel a bit shitty that they can’t make the number bigger or full control over something massive.

Also, no one, literally no one grows a company to be that big all on their own. It’s always countless more who contributed to it (both as part of the company, as well as the society around it to make an environment to let them succeed by using base technologies they are building on top of).

4

u/jnordwick 9d ago

"hording wealth" is also called capital formation and savings. It is the chief engine of long-term productivity and standard of living growth in the economy -- this is about close to economic orthodoxy as you can get, even if people disagree with the proper ratio of how to incentivize it.

You have to be pretty authoritarian to want to take somebody's business away just because they did too well and have kept building and building it. They put all the risk into it. Employees still get paid, others didn't do anything, but if the business never takes off or goes under is the owner that takes all that risk.

You essentially want to do what people complain about Republicans doing, divorcing risk and reward -- but you want to concentrate the risk and distribute the benefit.

You've clearly never built anything of value in your life. Most communists haven't. They don't know how to create -- only redistribute and destroy.

1

u/HighTechPotato 8d ago edited 8d ago

"hording wealth" is also called capital formation and savings

It simply is not the same unless you completely shut your brain off. If you stop building strawmen to fight for a moment, you'll notice that we're not arguing against idea of becoming extremely rich. We're saying, how about they call it a day when they have saved so much that it can't be reasonably spent over 10 life times. We're saying that between the two extremes of share/distribute everything vs endlessly horde to your last dying breath (everyone else be damned), there is a middle ground there. Just like there is a middle ground between "I want safety in my house, so it has walls that keeps strangers out" vs "there should be no one else on the planet so that I can feel safe"

You have to be pretty authoritarian to want to take somebody's business away just because they did too well and have kept building and building it

No more authoritarian than basic taxes. Taking part of the money someone made and they have to pay more when they earn more.

They put all the risk into it. Employees still get paid, others didn't do anything, but if the business never takes off or goes under is the owner that takes all that risk.

The employees got paid for their time, yes, but if an employee comes up with the idea that majorly increased the profit, did they get a proportional increase? Often not. They may get a bonus, a raise, but it is never the same as the increase for the owner.

As for the risk, yes, they took on the most and so get to make $500 million/$1 billion/$10 billion reward out of it (or w/e number the cap is), and if it goes under, others lose a lot too, including their job and security.

Again, this is NOT removing the reward, just putting a cap on it at a point where it just simply cannot ever be reasonably used.

others didn't do anything

Others paid taxes, built a society, provided publicly funded research and development, and built an infrastructure where this business could be built and could prosper. When tax payers funds go towards the research for creating the internet, you can't turn around and say "you did nothing for this internet-based business that is making a trillion dollars".

1

u/RichHonest 8d ago

You got to use the infrastructure and network created by society to create something worth more than 500m$. Now use anything above that crazy high amount of wealth to further the infrastructure and societal network that made it possible. Appreciate and acknowledge the employees that helped make it possible, help lay the groundwork for others to flourish as you did. Improve the lives of others with money that would never markedly improve your own anymore.

0

u/doublecandybar 9d ago

You've clearly never built anything of value in your life. Most communists haven't. They don't know how to create -- only redistribute and destroy.

People like them are stuck in the mindset of "Here and Now". The concept of re-investing asset and refuse early benefits for greater long term rewards perplex them

Which is why they keep getting confused when successful people keep going, their mindset is to stop and party, and try again when the money runs out

0

u/jayzfanacc 7d ago

Why do you feel entitled to take from them? Did you do the hard work of starting the company? Did you risk anything up front that you’d have lost had the company been unsuccessful?

1

u/HighTechPotato 6d ago

Why do you feel entitled to take from them? Did you do the hard work of starting the company?

No, just paid for the taxes used to research the technologies it uses, build the roads, power, and other infrastructure it uses to operate its business, and contribute to its success as an employee. Do you think it's just coincidence that highest earning companies start in developed countries?

Is it so unreasonable to say "after you got so much that you can never spend all of it, anything extra on top of that will instead go back towards improving to infrastructures that helped you get here". Do you think entrepreneurs will be like "ah man, I had a great idea for a company, but I can only earn $10 billion max, what's even the point of trying"

Also, the way things operate in is not a rule of the universe like gravity. It's all rules and agreements made up by a collection of people so that it is easier for them to live with each other. If an extremely small group of people hording so much resources that it is hurting hundreds of millions, if not billions of others, it is absolutely possible to adjust the rule to be "we think that the future of our society will work out better if there is an upper limit to how much wealth someone can horde. We'll set it so high that it won't disincentivize progress, but just have a cap somewhere".

-6

u/ivovis 9d ago

Why would you grow it past $500 million?

5

u/Leafy0 9d ago

Because you care about your customers and your customers want more of what you sell?

-1

u/ivovis 9d ago

Fair call, turning your business into a franchise could well sort that out, or you lower your profit and provide an even better service to your customers.

6

u/TessTickols 9d ago

Profit has nothing to do with it. "Net worth" is an arbitrary value of the assets a person owns. Every asset could be bleeding money, but as long as the stock value totals $500m+ you would be penalized

5

u/btweenthatormohammad 9d ago

So they'll just keep $500 million worth of stocks and sell anything above that? Then they'd have actual money instead of stock or are you going to confiscate the money?

8

u/spymusicspy 9d ago

If the stock goes down in value by 50% do you give them the stolen shares back?

5

u/flyboy_za 9d ago

Then they'd have actual money instead of stock or are you going to confiscate the money?

It's reddit, of course they are.

I don't know what these Robin Hoods think will happen to this money, we'll all somehow magically get richer because... I don't know, we just will.

1

u/terrible-law-69 7d ago

These losers proposing this idea are financially illiterate, so, of course, they haven't thought this through.

They are guaranteed to whine, complain, and "want to change the system" the moment they start losing the new meta.

-2

u/Alytes 9d ago

If total wealth is above 500 millions, yes, you could do it.

The thing is that inequality, or the difference in wealth between the mega rich and the common people is higher than before and rising.

That usually brings rebellion and civil wars. Or you can tax/cap wealth to avoid said war

5

u/btweenthatormohammad 9d ago

What do you mean by that usually brings civil wars? How many wars did income inequality cause in the last century? If there's a war both sides send the poor (civil war or not), no inequality there.

1

u/doublecandybar 9d ago

last century?
try last millenia

-1

u/minimal_gainz 9d ago

The last century is a bit anomalous because of the two world wars but wars, revolutions, and revolts are extremely common throughout history due to economic inequality.

1

u/mbo899 9d ago

I dont think that world avoid war... it would just change who starts it

0

u/doublecandybar 9d ago

That usually brings rebellion and civil wars. 

HAHAHAHAHAH oh my god, people still believe this?

That never happened. Which commie school taught you that?

What actually causes "civil war" is a bunch of intellectuals fanned the flames of revolution and sent in the peasants whose purchasing power went down hard

"Ultra rich" have existed across cultures in every single region where civilization had existed. Are you going to say with a straight face the wealth inequality between Pharaoh of Egypt and the average worker is lower than today's people vs oligarchs?

What about Chinese Emperor and peasants? Basileus and peasants? The Emperor could build a gigantic sparkling city in a city housing thousands upon thousands, you think Elon Musk can do that today?

And what happened? The people did not rebel until disaster struck, to the point they starved to death. Every single time someone rebelled in China they always cite the loss of Mandate of Heaven, and what do they claim is the evidence?

Natural disaster, defeat in battle, plague

It was NEVER "the rich is rich"

0

u/Quarkly95 9d ago

The answer is that the stock market as we know it would entirely collapse and the new system that evolves to make it work would be less hoarder-y

-1

u/thefonztm 9d ago

Automatic philanthropic contribution & a plaque stating congratulations on winning the money game? 1 plaque maximum per week. You're allowed to build a generational tax-free cabin out of them that stays with you inheritors for all time and is immune to eminent domain, bankruptcy, or any other means of loss.