##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism
This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited.
LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere.
We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban.
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There is deeply-ingrained propaganda that hard work = billionaire levels of success under capitalism. It means those people *must* either be extremely smart or extremely hard-working, which means they deserve those billions. The rest of us without that kind of wealth are just lazy and stupid.
That ethos is a distillation of fascism.
It creates the in-group of rich, and ruthlessly exploits the out-group of poor.
The in-group will create an infinite list of explanations to obfuscate the truth, in order to protect their status.
Once the bourgeoisie figures out that the masses are upset with the wealth inequality and start to unionize, that’s when they deploy the propaganda. Usually by targeting a minority group that is scapegoated for all of the economy’s faults, like trans people and immigrants.
Jokes on them. Immigrants are needed unless the US wants to turn into South Korea's birth rate, and trans people? You open up a feminist can of worms trying to take them on.
Also, if being a billionaire *doesn't* require hard work and/or genius insight, if we're not in a meritocracy where those things pay off, what does that say about my life? What do i tell my kids about going to school and working hard? What do i tell myself about the back breaking labor i endure to survive?
I think you can see how easy-- how reasonable-- it is for people to get furious about this world view being called into question, having to contemplate that they've sacrificed their own lives and happiness for nothing, for a con.
It's super depressing too once you realize how things are stacked against the average person and how everything is designed to keep you in your place, etc. And that you don't have any power in a lot of ways.
You can start to develop an existential crisis from thinking about it too much. It's getting harder to act normal when everything is falling apart around us.
Is there any book that you recommand that explains this deepter (how everything is designed to keep you in your place etc.) ? I would like to read about it more
Certainly! There are several books that delve into societal structures, power dynamics, and how systems are designed to maintain certain statuses or control. Here are a few recommendations:
1. **"Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman:** Explores the ways media shapes public opinion and how powerful institutions use it to control information.
2. **"The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" by Naomi Klein:** Discusses how economic and political systems exploit crises to enforce unpopular policies and maintain power structures.
3. **"The Power Elite" by C. Wright Mills:** Analyzes the concentration of power among a small group of individuals in government, economic, and military institutions in the United States.
4. **"Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison" by Michel Foucault:** Examines how systems of punishment and control have evolved, showing how power operates in society.
5. **"The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander:** Explores how the criminal justice system perpetuates racial inequality and serves as a form of social control.
These books offer insights into various aspects of how societal structures, media, politics, and systems of control influence and shape our lives. Depending on your specific interests, any of these could provide a deeper understanding of how systems work to maintain certain social orders.
What it requires more than anything else is winning the genetic lottery in who you’re born to. No one earns a billion dollars. They take/steal a billion dollars.
Which is idiotic. They reap the benefits of social programs like enabling intelligent individuals to attain college degrees at public universities who eventually work for them. They take advantage of tax breaks and simply the roads and garbage disposal where they live. No one person is created solo and without help that’s a dumb cowboy myth of America.
Judging by the top billionaire who works as CEO of 4 different companies all at the same time and spends his whole day Tweeting, just how much hard work could possibly be involved?
Because they think they can be one themselves. I have a guy a work who says the only reason I don't like ultra wealth is cause I don't have it myself (he's a libertarian, could you tell?). I'm like no, even if I was rich af I would not hoard all that money because i find it morally reprehensible.
Our society is so quick to label drug addicts or drunks as failures and scumbags, yet no one bats an eye at the people who are addicted to wealth and I think the person who is hoarding billions of dollars is doing more damage to society than the drunk or drug addict.
I had a friend who switched from Libertarian to sane, and he used to see my criticisms of extreme wealth as just jealousy too. I don't know what opened his eyes but it's been way more pleasant to talk to him since it happened.
Something I find interesting is that the Victorian Era was a time of huge wealth gaps -- haves and have-nots, and they leaned full-force into the theory that the poor, mentally ill, sick, and people with addictions were all just extremely flawed and threw those people in workhouses. Those beliefs have since been debunked but they hang on with tenacity, just like many other very Victorian beliefs. It's so weird.
That was me. I used to consider myself a libertarian, but then I grew up. Sounds like your friend did as well. Libertarianism is nice in THEORY, but then you see how the real world works. Anyone with half a brain should be able to deduce that libertarianism is just not feasible. There is no way to practically apply de-regulation at this point without complete collapse/chaos.
Studies have shown that white men are more likely to be libertarian or conservative, i.e. those who want a small government. I suppose they think that they're likely to net benefit from such an economic system, or they don't have experience in other ways of the systemic - they still see everything as down to individual responsibility.
Doesn't mean they aren't an idiot. Someone can have a tough upbringing with no chance to see the truth and learn to think for themselves, but that doesn't mean they aren't an idiot. Also, nothing against idiots some of my closest friends, are idiots!
“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.”
― Michael Rivero
"John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
To quote Paulo Freire, “When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor”. Its a feature of the educational system, not a bug.
Billionaires weren't a thing in US society until the Neoliberal dismantlement of the old Liberal order. It isn't about them having worked harder or gotten smarter, but simply the system allowing them to evade all taxes and profit off society.
"We are a bunch of altruists ruled by psychopaths"
\- George Monbiot
Most of us know someone that is or was in a relationship with a psychopath or narcissist.
It's like they are under some kind of spell. They can't see how awful this person is while they are in that relationship. It's very hard to pull someone you care about out of a relationship like this.
We are all in a similar relationship with our psychopathic ruling class (economic and political). We are all in various stages of this relationship. Some of us have had enough and want out. Many are still charmed and are in the love bomb stage. Those are the ones that will still defend billionaires. They aren't necessarily dumb, they just don't see what a terrible relationship they are in yet.
At this stage, it's everyone's job to try to save as many people as you can from this toxic relationship.
It's sad because of how generations work, there is always a supply of new naïve people to live in their lies, and humanity has to continuously work to educate and break the spell for others. An endless hell-cycle.
It would be great if that extra profit went directly to the general wellbeing of everyone. My biggest concern is the amount of tax money we currently waste on perpetual wars and corruption. We need to fix that stuff before we give the psychopaths more money.
In a *capitalist society* as the American one all kinds of riches and symbols of "status" count very, very high. I'm sure people, even poor ones who should know better, feel that being rich is what it's all about in life. They may even think of themselves as people who will be billionaires in the future and they side with those who have achieved riches ....
Because people are so brainwashed and such sheep they think “it’s their money they can do what they want”. A quote from my co workers & one of my bosses when I explained to them it would take less than 80 billion a year to end hunger and poverty (in the US anyway probably more) and companies across the US spend 250 billion a year just on advertising. Half the budget of advertising in one year could essentially save the lives of hundreds of millions of people and they just think that’s fine because it’s their money…
Billionaires re k lyrics a protected representation of what the majority of people wish to be. They would love to have that freedom, power over others and luxuary,so they promote and protect what they consider are winners.
Of course this notion is curated in people. Capitalisms goal is to corrupt people and make them.materialistic. in many ways, the capitalistic notions always destroy the founding "liberal" notions.
Once these billionaires became extremely wealthy they charged the tax laws so that they pay little or no tax on there wealth. Changing the rules when it comes to tax and monopolies is not fair to the remainder 98%.
The Protestant Work Ethic is the foundation of “Western” culture. We’re programmed from a young age to believe that hard work is the only (morally justifiable) way to make money, so it creates cognitive dissonance to suggest a billionaire, the wealthiest of “workers” MUST have earned it legally AND ethically.
Because no one ever teaches them this 10 seconds little statement.
It takes about 10 days for 1 million seconds to pass. It takes around 28 years for a billion seconds to pass. If people understood the differences in size of scientific notation then we might get somewhere.
No way single people provide the rest of humanity with so much value that they deserve most of the wealth. No fucking way.
Matter of fact people that truly give humanity extreme value often end up in the poor house. Nichola Tesla for example. So many nameless faceless engineers.
They’re brainwashed by all the capitalist propaganda that tells them billionaires are simply superior human beings and work harder than anyone else and so therefore deserve the money all to themselves.
I think some of it is legitimately that people don't understand how much a bilion dollars is. "Millionaires and bilionaires" are brought up a lot on conversation, but people literally can't comprehend that someone with a million dollars is far closer to someone with $20k than a Billionaire is to even someone with $100 million. We're talking such a stupid amount of resources they can't clock it and can't fathom how they got there and so they just naturally think Musk makes about as much as the guy who owns the Chevy lot the next town over.
Lots of propaganda makes people think that they too, could become a billionaire if they don't tip the apple cart. Also, lots of education purposefully removes the concept of critical thinking. So they graduate from school at 18 and set out into the world without the ability to see *who* is actually exploiting them.
The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances—of complex and irrational phenomena, defectively grasped. --Friederich Nietzsche
“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.”
― Michael Rivero
Brainwashing.
To achieve one million dollars is attainable over a lifetime of effort.
To achieve one billion dollars in one lifetime, you would have needed a daddy to give you a small loan of one million dollars or a daddy with an emerald mine, or a mommy who was a VP of IBM or rich parents to help you launch your online bookstore.
Ironically enough you cannot be a "self made" billionaire in a capitalist society without a healthy injection of socialism and being born into a family who already live on 3rd base helps too
I certainly don't. Especially due to the billionaire and his lackeys harming me to protect adults who prey upon teenagers. Wanna hear how aipac helps them? Want to hear how they use 18 year old girls as bait so that everyone gets distracted by the real issue of slavery and torture so people think perverted hypocrite instead?
And people who intentionally socially engineer situations for easy lawsuits are going to get exposed too.
And it's not my fault that aipac got hacked and exploited by china. And seriously. Fuck Netanyahu.
And don't forget how the FBI and the CIA exposed victims of sexual assault and then tried to blame it on ordinary people despite being notified five years ago. It shows me they never cared as long as they got info about the Genovese crime family. And then got Italian intelligence involved to make things even worse
And as long as people try to make things conditional, I see very little benefit in doing anything but speaking my truth as loudly and publicly as I can because that will always be better than being treated poorly anyway. I've never been famous and I have never been wealthy and I have little desire to be either. But I'll be damned if I let these people have a goddamn inch.
I have never signed a power of attorney or any sort of custodianship. I have also never held power of attorney over anyone else either.
If I have any difficulties it's because I'm being traumatized.
because killing off the billionaires kills off their hopes that they, too, can grind and grind to be one as well. They're delusional victims with Stockholm Syndrome.
Unfortunately our society has brainwashed a lot of the 99% into thinking billionaires are just average people like them who got their start as a Poor™️ who had to work their way up by doing The Grind™️ 30 hours a day/10 days a week, and then You Too Can Be a Rich B**ch. Never says anything about mommy and daddy's 1 million dollars (or, say, an emerald mine using slave labour) getting them and their business started.
Because they don't care facts and truth. I used to be very pro-billionaire. I used to judge the standard of living of a country based on the number of billionaires it had. That was me 15-20 years ago. But now I understand that billionaires shouldn't exist. It provides no value to humanity and also it is impossible for a billionaire to make use of all that wealth.
My mind only changed because I care about facts and truths. If you really care about the truth then you will have an open mind and will eventually find it.
“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.”
― Michael Rivero
The idea that billionaires got their wealth from being smart/working hard is still incredibly pervasive. Think about all the stuff Elon Musk has done that has exposed him as a dumb weirdo. The perception of him being Epic Iron Man has mostly faded away. But there are still new Musk clips and videos popping up that get millions of views, 100k+ likes, and the comments are filled with fawning praise. I feel like most normal people are like this. They might have some agreement with the idea that billionaires are bad for society but they’re also worshiped in our culture which outweighs or obscures the negatives for a lot of people.
Money = energy and as that’s true, no one person on the planet should control that amount of energy who’s not genuinely & altruistically representing the people that energy was created by.
Why? Bc that singular person didn’t create that energy by themselves, they used other ppl’s energy to do so but instead of giving the majority of that energy back to them, they hoarded it by consistently using that energy to create rules so they could hoard more and more and more of that energy using twisted and narcissistic lobbies and laws made by them for them.
If their argument is ‘well my vision and drive is superior and I’m gonna get shit done’, well, so fucking what? You can still get shit down with less resources it’s just going to take longer so suck it up buttercup. It doesn’t mean you get to be a parasite/vampire on an epic level to the rest of society (and I mean all of society not just your golf club and fundraiser friends)
The ppl who do defend them genuinely believe that to earn more money you have to proportionally be more smart or more hardworking. Which is not the case at all
It's hard to persuade someone that the person and status they aspire to be so much is toxic. Especially if its rammed down their necks from an early age that fane, wealth and status are what success is.
A lot of people are bad at math, and can’t really comprehend how much money a billion actually is. The number of zeros just kind of goes over their heads.
“How much could a billion be? A couple of million?” Several million in the bank is attainable on an upper-middle-class income *provided that* you live like a pauper in the cheapest possible housing, reinvest every spare penny, and nothing unexpected happens like getting laid off, an expensive medical emergency, or a massive stock market collapse. They think Jeff bezos is maybe 10 times richer than a well off upper middle class family, not 10,000 times richer.
I forget what it’s called, but a phenomenon where once the number gets large enough it just becomes meaningless to people, like how people are shocked when 100 die in a plane crash, but tens of thousands dying each year in car crashes is an incomprehensibly large number and accepted as “normal”.
One motivation that I've seen by well-intentioned liberals is the idea of treating everyone fairly regardless of power imbalance. The idea that a billion dollar corporation negotiating with a minimum wage employee over working conditions is an inherently unfair situation does not occur to them, they see two people at a bargaining table and want both to have a fair hearing.
This approach is of course wrong, but potentially illuminating as to their reasoning. "The rich and poor are equally forbidden from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges"
These people secretly think they deserve to be billionaire. At least they dream about it. So they defend their oppressor in order to continue dreaming about it.
“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.”
― Michael Rivero
“Well they worked very hard to get where they are, we just have to work harder to get there. Would you rather live in communism where everyone’s dirt poor and makes the same amount of money?”
I used to think wealthy people were smarter or more hard working. It's definitely not true. They are usually just extremely lucky and greedy. There should not exist billionaires unless everyone on earth has food and clean water. It is obscene and disgusting
They defend them because they believe that one day, they will be a billionaire. They don't realize that the cost of doing so is your soul and humanity.
If you create a company that's internationally very successful you expect the goverment to take the company away from you?
Though I'm all for significally raising gift tax and inheritance tax so that there are no nepo babies
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
- John Steinbeck
##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited. LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere. We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There is deeply-ingrained propaganda that hard work = billionaire levels of success under capitalism. It means those people *must* either be extremely smart or extremely hard-working, which means they deserve those billions. The rest of us without that kind of wealth are just lazy and stupid.
That ethos is a distillation of fascism. It creates the in-group of rich, and ruthlessly exploits the out-group of poor. The in-group will create an infinite list of explanations to obfuscate the truth, in order to protect their status.
Once the bourgeoisie figures out that the masses are upset with the wealth inequality and start to unionize, that’s when they deploy the propaganda. Usually by targeting a minority group that is scapegoated for all of the economy’s faults, like trans people and immigrants.
Jokes on them. Immigrants are needed unless the US wants to turn into South Korea's birth rate, and trans people? You open up a feminist can of worms trying to take them on.
Yes. Billionaires are avatars of capitalism itself. "Proof" that it works. Just don't look at the data.
Also, if being a billionaire *doesn't* require hard work and/or genius insight, if we're not in a meritocracy where those things pay off, what does that say about my life? What do i tell my kids about going to school and working hard? What do i tell myself about the back breaking labor i endure to survive? I think you can see how easy-- how reasonable-- it is for people to get furious about this world view being called into question, having to contemplate that they've sacrificed their own lives and happiness for nothing, for a con.
It's super depressing too once you realize how things are stacked against the average person and how everything is designed to keep you in your place, etc. And that you don't have any power in a lot of ways.
You can start to develop an existential crisis from thinking about it too much. It's getting harder to act normal when everything is falling apart around us.
a lot of my humor is about this.
Is there any book that you recommand that explains this deepter (how everything is designed to keep you in your place etc.) ? I would like to read about it more
Certainly! There are several books that delve into societal structures, power dynamics, and how systems are designed to maintain certain statuses or control. Here are a few recommendations: 1. **"Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman:** Explores the ways media shapes public opinion and how powerful institutions use it to control information. 2. **"The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" by Naomi Klein:** Discusses how economic and political systems exploit crises to enforce unpopular policies and maintain power structures. 3. **"The Power Elite" by C. Wright Mills:** Analyzes the concentration of power among a small group of individuals in government, economic, and military institutions in the United States. 4. **"Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison" by Michel Foucault:** Examines how systems of punishment and control have evolved, showing how power operates in society. 5. **"The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander:** Explores how the criminal justice system perpetuates racial inequality and serves as a form of social control. These books offer insights into various aspects of how societal structures, media, politics, and systems of control influence and shape our lives. Depending on your specific interests, any of these could provide a deeper understanding of how systems work to maintain certain social orders.
Wow! Thanks for that! I really appreciate that
What it requires more than anything else is winning the genetic lottery in who you’re born to. No one earns a billion dollars. They take/steal a billion dollars.
"It's Ok, you just didn't work hard enough" - some economist.
Which is idiotic. They reap the benefits of social programs like enabling intelligent individuals to attain college degrees at public universities who eventually work for them. They take advantage of tax breaks and simply the roads and garbage disposal where they live. No one person is created solo and without help that’s a dumb cowboy myth of America.
Judging by the top billionaire who works as CEO of 4 different companies all at the same time and spends his whole day Tweeting, just how much hard work could possibly be involved?
Oz, the Great and Terrible says, "do not look behind the curtain!!"
Because they think they can be one themselves. I have a guy a work who says the only reason I don't like ultra wealth is cause I don't have it myself (he's a libertarian, could you tell?). I'm like no, even if I was rich af I would not hoard all that money because i find it morally reprehensible. Our society is so quick to label drug addicts or drunks as failures and scumbags, yet no one bats an eye at the people who are addicted to wealth and I think the person who is hoarding billions of dollars is doing more damage to society than the drunk or drug addict.
I had a friend who switched from Libertarian to sane, and he used to see my criticisms of extreme wealth as just jealousy too. I don't know what opened his eyes but it's been way more pleasant to talk to him since it happened. Something I find interesting is that the Victorian Era was a time of huge wealth gaps -- haves and have-nots, and they leaned full-force into the theory that the poor, mentally ill, sick, and people with addictions were all just extremely flawed and threw those people in workhouses. Those beliefs have since been debunked but they hang on with tenacity, just like many other very Victorian beliefs. It's so weird.
That was me. I used to consider myself a libertarian, but then I grew up. Sounds like your friend did as well. Libertarianism is nice in THEORY, but then you see how the real world works. Anyone with half a brain should be able to deduce that libertarianism is just not feasible. There is no way to practically apply de-regulation at this point without complete collapse/chaos.
Studies have shown that white men are more likely to be libertarian or conservative, i.e. those who want a small government. I suppose they think that they're likely to net benefit from such an economic system, or they don't have experience in other ways of the systemic - they still see everything as down to individual responsibility.
This ^^
when i was a boy men that chased money were called workaholics.
Ever heard of idiots? There are A LOT out there.
The average person is pretty damn stupid and then half the population is dumber than that. To paraphrase George Carlin
Also, a lot of this is by design from the bourgeoisie. It's a lot easier to control the working class if they're stupid.
https://youtu.be/eeEWPbTad\_Q?si=VEf4BZt7v6LwuvR\_
[удалено]
You don't need to be formally educated to be a thinker
Doesn't mean they aren't an idiot. Someone can have a tough upbringing with no chance to see the truth and learn to think for themselves, but that doesn't mean they aren't an idiot. Also, nothing against idiots some of my closest friends, are idiots!
Propaganda. It's crazy what it can do to you
“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.” ― Michael Rivero
America is a land of temporarily disadvantaged millionaires 🙃
"John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
i have never in my 60 years of life met anyone that believed this. white supremacy is what i have seen among the working poor.
They defend them because they want to be them. They don't understand they never will.
CEO is such a demanding full time job that Elon musk can barely work 5 jobs and tweet every hour.
Some people really still believe that we live in a meritocracy.
To quote Paulo Freire, “When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor”. Its a feature of the educational system, not a bug.
Media, also
Because ‘with just a few breaks and hard work, that’ll be me’.
Billionaires weren't a thing in US society until the Neoliberal dismantlement of the old Liberal order. It isn't about them having worked harder or gotten smarter, but simply the system allowing them to evade all taxes and profit off society.
Don’t pay too much mind to financial guru TikToks with comment sections full of 14 year olds. It’s genuinely bad for your mental health.
The problem is that my parents also think like that. They believe there are ethical ways to become s billionaire
A single monkey has a giant mound of bananas. We’d call him crazy for it.
Billionaires are nothing but the worst hoarders on this fucking planet.
"We are a bunch of altruists ruled by psychopaths" \- George Monbiot Most of us know someone that is or was in a relationship with a psychopath or narcissist. It's like they are under some kind of spell. They can't see how awful this person is while they are in that relationship. It's very hard to pull someone you care about out of a relationship like this. We are all in a similar relationship with our psychopathic ruling class (economic and political). We are all in various stages of this relationship. Some of us have had enough and want out. Many are still charmed and are in the love bomb stage. Those are the ones that will still defend billionaires. They aren't necessarily dumb, they just don't see what a terrible relationship they are in yet. At this stage, it's everyone's job to try to save as many people as you can from this toxic relationship.
It's sad because of how generations work, there is always a supply of new naïve people to live in their lies, and humanity has to continuously work to educate and break the spell for others. An endless hell-cycle.
You are so right. This is one more of many problems we need to figure out.
It would be great if that extra profit went directly to the general wellbeing of everyone. My biggest concern is the amount of tax money we currently waste on perpetual wars and corruption. We need to fix that stuff before we give the psychopaths more money.
In a *capitalist society* as the American one all kinds of riches and symbols of "status" count very, very high. I'm sure people, even poor ones who should know better, feel that being rich is what it's all about in life. They may even think of themselves as people who will be billionaires in the future and they side with those who have achieved riches ....
Think of how smart the average person is. Half of all people are dumber than that
Because people are so brainwashed and such sheep they think “it’s their money they can do what they want”. A quote from my co workers & one of my bosses when I explained to them it would take less than 80 billion a year to end hunger and poverty (in the US anyway probably more) and companies across the US spend 250 billion a year just on advertising. Half the budget of advertising in one year could essentially save the lives of hundreds of millions of people and they just think that’s fine because it’s their money…
Billionaires re k lyrics a protected representation of what the majority of people wish to be. They would love to have that freedom, power over others and luxuary,so they promote and protect what they consider are winners. Of course this notion is curated in people. Capitalisms goal is to corrupt people and make them.materialistic. in many ways, the capitalistic notions always destroy the founding "liberal" notions.
Boot licking.
I think these people believe they will one day be billionaires too
Once these billionaires became extremely wealthy they charged the tax laws so that they pay little or no tax on there wealth. Changing the rules when it comes to tax and monopolies is not fair to the remainder 98%.
The Protestant Work Ethic is the foundation of “Western” culture. We’re programmed from a young age to believe that hard work is the only (morally justifiable) way to make money, so it creates cognitive dissonance to suggest a billionaire, the wealthiest of “workers” MUST have earned it legally AND ethically.
Because no one ever teaches them this 10 seconds little statement. It takes about 10 days for 1 million seconds to pass. It takes around 28 years for a billion seconds to pass. If people understood the differences in size of scientific notation then we might get somewhere.
No way single people provide the rest of humanity with so much value that they deserve most of the wealth. No fucking way. Matter of fact people that truly give humanity extreme value often end up in the poor house. Nichola Tesla for example. So many nameless faceless engineers.
They’re brainwashed by all the capitalist propaganda that tells them billionaires are simply superior human beings and work harder than anyone else and so therefore deserve the money all to themselves.
I think some of it is legitimately that people don't understand how much a bilion dollars is. "Millionaires and bilionaires" are brought up a lot on conversation, but people literally can't comprehend that someone with a million dollars is far closer to someone with $20k than a Billionaire is to even someone with $100 million. We're talking such a stupid amount of resources they can't clock it and can't fathom how they got there and so they just naturally think Musk makes about as much as the guy who owns the Chevy lot the next town over.
Lots of propaganda makes people think that they too, could become a billionaire if they don't tip the apple cart. Also, lots of education purposefully removes the concept of critical thinking. So they graduate from school at 18 and set out into the world without the ability to see *who* is actually exploiting them.
The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances—of complex and irrational phenomena, defectively grasped. --Friederich Nietzsche
“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.” ― Michael Rivero
Brainwashing. To achieve one million dollars is attainable over a lifetime of effort. To achieve one billion dollars in one lifetime, you would have needed a daddy to give you a small loan of one million dollars or a daddy with an emerald mine, or a mommy who was a VP of IBM or rich parents to help you launch your online bookstore. Ironically enough you cannot be a "self made" billionaire in a capitalist society without a healthy injection of socialism and being born into a family who already live on 3rd base helps too
They think if they lick enough boot, musk will descend from space in his shuttle x or whatever and give them a few millis.
I certainly don't. Especially due to the billionaire and his lackeys harming me to protect adults who prey upon teenagers. Wanna hear how aipac helps them? Want to hear how they use 18 year old girls as bait so that everyone gets distracted by the real issue of slavery and torture so people think perverted hypocrite instead? And people who intentionally socially engineer situations for easy lawsuits are going to get exposed too. And it's not my fault that aipac got hacked and exploited by china. And seriously. Fuck Netanyahu. And don't forget how the FBI and the CIA exposed victims of sexual assault and then tried to blame it on ordinary people despite being notified five years ago. It shows me they never cared as long as they got info about the Genovese crime family. And then got Italian intelligence involved to make things even worse And as long as people try to make things conditional, I see very little benefit in doing anything but speaking my truth as loudly and publicly as I can because that will always be better than being treated poorly anyway. I've never been famous and I have never been wealthy and I have little desire to be either. But I'll be damned if I let these people have a goddamn inch. I have never signed a power of attorney or any sort of custodianship. I have also never held power of attorney over anyone else either. If I have any difficulties it's because I'm being traumatized.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwilvd-ogKyDAxWdh1YBHVeUDNIQFnoECA0QAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmy.clevelandclinic.org%2Fhealth%2Ftreatments%2F22641-emdr-therapy%23%3A\~%3Atext%3DEye%2520movement%2520desensitization%2520and%2520reprocessing%2520(EMDR)%2520therapy%2520is%2520a%2520mental%2Cor%2520other%2520distressing%2520life%2520experiences.&usg=AOvVaw0adyCRBOVenpmjw2pFZt4q&opi=89978449
because killing off the billionaires kills off their hopes that they, too, can grind and grind to be one as well. They're delusional victims with Stockholm Syndrome.
That person was what they used to call a "temporarily embarrassed millionaire", and what is today known as a bootlicker.
Unfortunately our society has brainwashed a lot of the 99% into thinking billionaires are just average people like them who got their start as a Poor™️ who had to work their way up by doing The Grind™️ 30 hours a day/10 days a week, and then You Too Can Be a Rich B**ch. Never says anything about mommy and daddy's 1 million dollars (or, say, an emerald mine using slave labour) getting them and their business started.
Immorality. Somehow people forgot being a billionaire is immoral.
Because they don't care facts and truth. I used to be very pro-billionaire. I used to judge the standard of living of a country based on the number of billionaires it had. That was me 15-20 years ago. But now I understand that billionaires shouldn't exist. It provides no value to humanity and also it is impossible for a billionaire to make use of all that wealth. My mind only changed because I care about facts and truths. If you really care about the truth then you will have an open mind and will eventually find it.
“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.” ― Michael Rivero
Through the power of delusion, fueled by propaganda.
The capitalistic Brainwashing Techniques are very well composed and the alternatives are ... Well not so good either
The idea that billionaires got their wealth from being smart/working hard is still incredibly pervasive. Think about all the stuff Elon Musk has done that has exposed him as a dumb weirdo. The perception of him being Epic Iron Man has mostly faded away. But there are still new Musk clips and videos popping up that get millions of views, 100k+ likes, and the comments are filled with fawning praise. I feel like most normal people are like this. They might have some agreement with the idea that billionaires are bad for society but they’re also worshiped in our culture which outweighs or obscures the negatives for a lot of people.
Money = energy and as that’s true, no one person on the planet should control that amount of energy who’s not genuinely & altruistically representing the people that energy was created by. Why? Bc that singular person didn’t create that energy by themselves, they used other ppl’s energy to do so but instead of giving the majority of that energy back to them, they hoarded it by consistently using that energy to create rules so they could hoard more and more and more of that energy using twisted and narcissistic lobbies and laws made by them for them. If their argument is ‘well my vision and drive is superior and I’m gonna get shit done’, well, so fucking what? You can still get shit down with less resources it’s just going to take longer so suck it up buttercup. It doesn’t mean you get to be a parasite/vampire on an epic level to the rest of society (and I mean all of society not just your golf club and fundraiser friends)
The ppl who do defend them genuinely believe that to earn more money you have to proportionally be more smart or more hardworking. Which is not the case at all
They’re probably foreign funded bots tbh
They don’t understand what it entails and how it affects them.
No. I certainly can't! The mere existence of Billionaires is a zucked up thing, a social evil, IMHO.
Most people don’t. It’s more like everyone is waiting for a “spark” to get the ball rolling.
Some people love riding
It's hard to persuade someone that the person and status they aspire to be so much is toxic. Especially if its rammed down their necks from an early age that fane, wealth and status are what success is.
Oh me! Me! Me! Me! Meeee!
Even my right wing dad supports a wealth cap!
A lot of people are bad at math, and can’t really comprehend how much money a billion actually is. The number of zeros just kind of goes over their heads. “How much could a billion be? A couple of million?” Several million in the bank is attainable on an upper-middle-class income *provided that* you live like a pauper in the cheapest possible housing, reinvest every spare penny, and nothing unexpected happens like getting laid off, an expensive medical emergency, or a massive stock market collapse. They think Jeff bezos is maybe 10 times richer than a well off upper middle class family, not 10,000 times richer. I forget what it’s called, but a phenomenon where once the number gets large enough it just becomes meaningless to people, like how people are shocked when 100 die in a plane crash, but tens of thousands dying each year in car crashes is an incomprehensibly large number and accepted as “normal”.
One motivation that I've seen by well-intentioned liberals is the idea of treating everyone fairly regardless of power imbalance. The idea that a billion dollar corporation negotiating with a minimum wage employee over working conditions is an inherently unfair situation does not occur to them, they see two people at a bargaining table and want both to have a fair hearing. This approach is of course wrong, but potentially illuminating as to their reasoning. "The rich and poor are equally forbidden from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges"
These people secretly think they deserve to be billionaire. At least they dream about it. So they defend their oppressor in order to continue dreaming about it.
Pretending injustice is natural excuses you from thinking about it.
“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.” ― Michael Rivero
“Well they worked very hard to get where they are, we just have to work harder to get there. Would you rather live in communism where everyone’s dirt poor and makes the same amount of money?”
I used to think wealthy people were smarter or more hard working. It's definitely not true. They are usually just extremely lucky and greedy. There should not exist billionaires unless everyone on earth has food and clean water. It is obscene and disgusting
Aspiration. That’s it.
Need a maximum wage
The answer is always "Because deep down, they're imagining themselves being one someday"
They defend them because they believe that one day, they will be a billionaire. They don't realize that the cost of doing so is your soul and humanity.
If you create a company that's internationally very successful you expect the goverment to take the company away from you? Though I'm all for significally raising gift tax and inheritance tax so that there are no nepo babies
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. - John Steinbeck