cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/57305272
Total billionaire wealth in the EU reached €2.4 trillion by late November, exceeding Italy’s entire GDP of €2.2 trillion and approaching France’s €2.9 trillion economy, a new Oxfam report found.
Archived version: https://archive.is/20260118190308/https://euobserver.com/health-and-society/ara3abf5ee
The sky also happens to be blue. That gotta be news too.
Edit: Okay, having read the summary, it seems like they have proved causality between growing economic inequality and democratic backsliding. Which yeah, most people could have guessed, but now we have a fancy bunch of paper that says so.
So tired of this tbh - I just don’t understand how anyone thinks wealth consolidation to few could be a good thing.
Even if you ignore ethics and assume the billionaires are benevolent - it’s just a bad investment to invest majority of resources to a small number of investments. Does any successful large project hold 99% of their investments in few projects? It’s absurd.
It makes absolutely zero sense no matter how you look at it unless you’re truly full in on delusion that benevolent dictators exist and are impossible to corrupt or overtake.
“But what if it is me someday!!!???” - some guy with 5 kids making $30k/year.
I have seen comments like this thousands of times, but I’ve never seen a single example of anyone genuinely expressing this sentiment.
I don’t think they verbalize it in the same way. But you will hear them saying they don’t want to raise taxes, thinking it will affect them with their low income. Taxes can be targeted at the ultra-wealthy, but low-information people have been made to believe they will be taxed.
The ultra-wealthy have made a significant investment into making the sentiment that taxes are bad be overinflated. They also have successfully invested to make a lot of taxes specifically target the middle and lower classes.
But you will hear them saying they don’t want to raise taxes, thinking it will affect them with their low income.
You presume to know what they’re thinking, you mean. Have you never considered the possibility that they’re simply adhering to the point of view that you shouldn’t have to pay over and over for the ‘privilege’ of continuing to own what you own?
Taxes can be targeted at the ultra-wealthy, but low-information people have been made to believe they will be taxed.
You assume they believe that because they’re ignorant. But what if they just know their history? The income tax started with the exact same promise, a tax targeting only the wealthy, but somehow, we all have to pay it now, too.
The populace has every reason to be skeptical of taxes ‘targeting’ only the wealthiest among us.
You assume they believe that because they’re ignorant. But what if they just know their history? The income tax started with [the exact same promise](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/the-income-tax-in-1913-a-way-to-soak-the-rich), a tax targeting only the wealthy, but *somehow*, we all have to pay it now, too.
I addressed that as well. The wealthy have invested a lot in pushing taxes down to the lower and middle classes. They also have invested a lot to push their agenda.
“Ferengi labourers don’t want to stop the exploitation; they want to find a way to become the exploiters.”
Consolidation of wealth could be a good thing, but the people consolidating it are never good.
Same way a single benevolent godlike dictator could be incredibly efficient and good thing but completely unrealistic and would never happen and whenever we attempt this we get millions of people killed and set humanity back by decades. It would be such an easy fix though - we all low key want it.
Some strategies simply don’t work due to lack of self correcting and self correcting a few keys that control the world is very hard. This is exactly what’s happening today - social media gave us the power to express the need for self correcting some aspects of our society and people holding the keys have decided to not allow this. Yet again leading to conflicts that have millions of people killed and set us back by decades.
Yes. But it’s the same logic in different spheres. Just as you wouldn’t concentrate resources in one industry, because it amplifies your exposure to market fluctuations and creates greater uncertainty. So too, you wouldn’t concentrate resources in one person, because it amplifies fluctuations in their decision-making policy and… Creates greater uncertainty.
I love putting the eggs in one basket.
Even if you ignore ethics and assume the billionaires are benevolent - it’s just a bad investment to invest majority of resources to a small number of investments. Does any successful large project hold 99% of their investments in few projects? It’s absurd.
Small number of investments? Billionaires have shitloads of investments, what are you talking about?
I think they are referring to the fact that, ignoring the personalities who hold this kind of wealth, it’s just not a viable investment strategy for a project/organization as large as society to have all that wealth tied up with only a few assets (the billionaires).
Economics tells us that diversifying the investments (equality, if you will) is a safer bet for society in the long run.
I probably misread GP but hey, at least I tried!
We’ve been pointing this out ever since the concept of currency became a thing, but I’m sure we will learn our lesson this time and stop doing it. This can’t just be how it will always be until we drive ourselves to extinction stuck on this miserable rock, Right?
Structural issues make egalitarian economic systems difficult. Wealth and social influence compound once another in a virtuous cycle. Wealth has a strong hereditary bias, even in socialist economic models. And violence is historically a powerful tool for accruing wealth. Very difficult to establish universal deterrence against violence.
This isn’t a question of people being smart or stupid. It’s an elaborate balancing act that becomes exponentially more difficult as population size expands.
As a very wise Irishman once so eloquently said it: “People. What a bunch’a bastards.”
Hey, the rock is fine, we’ve made society a miserable place. The pack is calling me…
Not a very good actor, but seems like a good person and he’s funny. He worked hard to be where he is so sure “the rock” is fine.
We’ve been pointing this out ever since the concept of currency became a thing, but I’m sure we will learn our lesson this time and stop doing it.
I think that this became an issue even before currency. It happened as soon as agriculture allowed for accumulation of resources, power, and wealth. I sometimes think that that was really the point when humanity took the wrong turn.
“I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in human evolution. We became too self-aware; nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself."
Who would be surprised that concentrating most resources in a few is the opposite of the common good…
It’s not that they are rich, we’ve always had rich people. The problem is that we now have rich people with enough wealth to compete with nations, and they are getting even stronger. They are now starting to cut their own deals with nations that benefit them personally, with no regard to the nations, and millions of people that could be harmed by that policy. We’ve already seen Musk manipulate Starlink to steer a war in his direction, and unleash his hacking squad to rig an American election, just so he could use the opportunity to cripple all the government agencies that were investigating his crimes.
And it will only get worse. They are approaching Trillionaire status, and will be even more powerful. How long before multiple trillionaires form an alliance, and build their own personal military?
Eventually we will reach a point where it will become impossible to reign them in, and then we will all wonder why someone didn’t do something about them when it was still possible, like NOW.
And it will only get worse. They are approaching Trillionaire status, and will be even more powerful. How long before multiple trillionaires form an alliance, and build their own personal military?
Doesn’t Amazon or someshit literally already employ a PMC as their “loss protection” unit?
approaching Trillionaire status
Arguably long already there, when considering the bankers who control the fates (and [mis]fortunes) of all nations.
There already are private military. Black Water and alike are absolutely private armies. But that could be expensive, even for trillionaires. It’s a much better strategy to privatize the existing military and get it paid by the government. Watch it, it’s going to happen!
No shit!
Most of the words ultra-wealthy are verifiably sociopathic. Capitalism literally rewards those who posses the least empathy, the most.
ultra-wealthy are verifiably sociopathic. Capitalism literally rewards those who posses the least empathy, the most.
And so the fall to not only plutarchy, kleptarchy, oligarchy and monopoly ensues, but also already to malarchy and kakistarchy.
Thanks the corporation (and the unfortunately necessary sequel).
It’s more than that. It’s a feedback loop. Having distance from the consequences of your actions encourages sociopathic behavior. Power such as wealth is the easiest way to create that distance, even if you don’t want to
Sounds similarly damaging and dangerous psychology as that of totalitarianism.
You mean letting a small group of people consolidate power under themselves is a danger to a system designed to evenly distribute power? No way!
I would love to have that as a poster.
Well let’s get on it folks
deleted by creator
No shit bro for real?
I believe Plato pointed this out in The Republic.
He thought the richest citizen needed to have no more then 5x the wealth of the poorest citizen or you would inevitably slide into oligarchy.
We crossed that threshold so long ago that you can make 5x the poverty level and still not be able to afford a house.
Well 5x0 is 0 so yeah. This sounds like a good system though. Desperate for that Billion clout? Make sure everyone else has 200mil first.
0 isn’t real, it is a social construct created by big math.
You add by 0 and its still the same… what?
You subtract by 0 and its still the same… why?
You multiply by 0 and you BECOME 0, the heck?
You divide by 0 and its… big not even a number just a concept… sure buddy!
How strange that some Texas university was recently banning a professor from teaching Plato to students because it had too much “equality” in it.
plato sounded DEI to them.
No shit, Sherlock ©
Waiting for another news. Like water is wet and education should function well
Recent high-profile acquisitions include Jeff Bezos purchasing the Washington Post, Elon Musk buying Twitter (now X), and Patrick Soon-Shiong acquiring the Los Angeles Times. A billionaire consortium also bought significant stakes in The Economist.
In France, far-right billionaire Vincent Bolloré has transformed CNews into what critics call the French equivalent of Fox News. In the United Kingdom, three-quarters of newspaper circulation is controlled by just four wealthy families.
This is amazing. News and communication in the internet age was supposed to be democratised publication and agency to the voice of the average person, and it is to a small extent, but for the most part society was just like
I was a longtime reader of The Economist, but over time as I grew older and presumably wiser, I found it was not what it pretended to be.
It loves to cloak itself in the legitimacy of rigorous economic research and neutral data driven positions, but it is really thinly veiled opinion pieces driving ideological neo-liberal economics. It’s a mouthpiece for billionaires to persuade educated laymen on a particular brand of **politics under the guise of the certainty of rigorous economics, while practicing ideological pseudo-economics.
I cancelled my subscription a decade ago. I still read Public Library copies from time to time, but I find it obnoxiously disingenuous and dangerously lopsided with terrible conclusions. On rare occasion I find something ellucidating, I’m left to wonder if I can trust the source, or was it ideologically driven data fabrication or just a rare tossing the dog a bone for credibility.
Your post is a succinct summary of the “study” of economics. It’s just supporting a conclusion in exchange for taking a bunch of bribes and cherry-picking data to support your argument.
There’s a lot of Economics in Economics.
For example Behavioral Economics actually conducts experiments to determine how people tend to react to various situations (for example, they’ve actually discovered that at least for some forms of medicine the price when told to the patient can influence how well it works, effectively having a placebo and even a nocebo effect?), so it’s pretty similar to Sciences such as Physics or Chemistry.
The rest of Economics, not really, especially the stuff directly and indirectly linked to political decision making (so, Central Bank stuff, Think Tanks, Financial Press, “Economists” in the mainstream Press) - that shit is Politics using Mathematics as a Smoke & Mirrors to make the policy-supporting unsupported and unproven claims look like they’re actually the outcome of a rigorous scientific process.
The situation is so hilariously bad that when a guy from Behavioral Economics - Richard Thaler - finally got an Economics “Nobel” Prize (which is not a prize instituted by Alfred Nobel but actually a prize from the Swedish Central Bank “in honor of Alfred Nobel” which they convinced the Nobel Committee to endorse) they didn’t give it to him for his edifice of work that disproves that real humans behave as the theoretical homo economicus human model that supports pretty much the entire mathematical edifice for Free Market Theory, but instead they gave it to him for just his work on Nudge Theory which is all about how to influence people in aggregate to do more of what people in power want (so stuff like making the desired behavior - say, “donate organs when you die” - be opt out rather than opt in to get a higher percentage of people with that behavior).
All this to say that whilst most of Economics in the present era is a Shit Show of Politics passing itself as a Science, a little bit of it is actually Science, though that little bit is almost never the stuff the “Economists” in panels in the News or in Central Banks talk about to the public or politicians.
I couldn’t agree more and had exact the same experience.
In my case I was actually in the Finance Industry when the 2008 Crash happenned and seeing what was done (the state unconditional saving Asset Owners by sacrificing the rest, in constrast with the whole Free Market stuff I had been reading on The Economist for almost a decade) and their take on it, really opened my eyes to the complete total self-serving bullshit of not just The Economist but also the whole edifice of Free Market Economics (a skepticism further boosted by me actually starting to learn Economics - especially Behavioral Economics since it’s the only “Mainly Science rather than Politics” part of it and my background is party in Physics - and deepening my understanding of the Finance Industry as I tried to figure out the Why and How of the Crash).
That shit is Politics hidden behind a veil of Mathematics purposelly misused in a way eerily similar to how I saw pricing for over the counter derivatives being done in Finance: designing models so that they yield the desired results under certain conditions and further controlling their output by feeding them with cherry picked inputs and then presenting the output of the models as “Mathematical proof” that things are as as you say they are, so basically circular logic with some complex Mathematics in the middle to hide their true nature as unsupported claims.
It’s pretty insidious Fake Science stuff if you don’t have a strong background in Science and access to the right information to pierce through it.
Unfortunately, it’s true.
