[matachuan]

> If the West ever returns to the idea of democratic society where everyone should have access to education, housing and good working conditions. Where we run our countries, our infrastructure and invest in scientific progress together. And where we believe that running businesses in line with the values of society is better. Then they would want democracy as well.

In that matter, don't you think it's the financial status that pushes all the ideas back? There is a fundamental tradeoff between resources spent on individuals vs total resources.

[pjc50]

> There is a fundamental tradeoff between resources spent on individuals vs total resources.

Indeed. The world as a whole is heading towards a situation where a larger and larger fraction of resources is under the control of a shrinking number of extremely rich people.

[AnthonyMouse]

It's important to note that this is the narrative, but what's really happening is that a larger and larger fraction of resources is under the control of a shrinking number of extremely rich corporations.

The corporations largely have diffuse ownership (they're owned by a hundred million people's 401(k)), and the top level executives are generally "rich" but e.g. Tim Cook has less than 1% as much money as Apple Inc.

[pjc50]

And who controls the corporations? Shareholder activism is really limited; to a great extent execs can pay themselves what they want, hire who they want, and donate to the politicians they want.

[AnthonyMouse]

But that's a completely different dynamic. It's like saying "who controls the government" because democratic control is really limited in a two party system where both parties have similar (or equally problematic) policies on many issues, unelected administrative agencies have wide latitude to set policy (including ones that profit them personally through the revolving door), government employees and government employee unions are a large voting and lobbying block despite the obvious conflict of interest against other citizens, etc.

The problem isn't that Bill Gates has too much money, it's that we have institutions with too much power and not enough accountability, both government and corporate. And then they use that power to conspire together against ordinary people.

What we need is to shrink the size of all entities to be less monolithic and more local and manageable.

[dragonwriter]

> what's really happening is that a larger and larger fraction of resources is under the control of a shrinking number of extremely rich corporations.

Corporations are a legal fiction by which power is granted to people, so, no, that's not what is “really happening”. Corporations obscure the real distribution of power.

The reality is a ever narrower class of ever more wealthy (relatively as well as absolutely) people directs society.

> The corporations largely have diffuse ownership

Not so diffuse; the set of major capitalists is very small compared to the whole population, and the share of stock (and overall wealth) they control is quite large.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Corporations are a legal fiction by which power is granted to people, so, no, that's not what is “really happening”. Corporations obscure the real distribution of power.

The point is that corporations distort the real distribution of power. Apple's money nominally belongs to its shareholders, but in practice it's under the control of their executives, and they have many perverse incentives derived out of everything from personal enrichment at the expense of the shareholders to tax avoidance to empire building.

Moreover, even under the set of incentives they're "supposed" to have, it means that a significant chunk of the economy is set toward advancing the interests of the fictional entity Apple Inc. even if its interests are not aligned with any individual person.

> Not so diffuse; the set of major capitalists is very small compared to the whole population, and the share of stock (and overall wealth) they control is quite large.

It's diffuse even then. Jeff Bezos is the richest man, has more than a hundred billion dollars, most of that money is in his own company, and yet even then he doesn't have majority ownership of even that company.

An "ordinary" billionaire, i.e. someone with a billion dollars, could invest 100% of their money into Apple and still barely own 0.1% of it.

Moreover, nearly all of the wealth of the rich is invested in corporations. Those investments yield returns, but the corporations are controlled far more by their executives than the nominal owners. Most importantly, that wouldn't change even if there were less "wealth inequality" unless the corporations were also made smaller -- it would in fact get worse, because the ownership would be even more diffuse, leaving the executives with even less accountability.

[dragonwriter]

> The point is that corporations distort the real distribution of power

That's not the claim that was made, which was the corporations are the real holders of power, which was offered as an explicit denial of the claim that a narrow set of wealthy individuals hold power. That corporations are a vehicle by which the exact distribution of power among individuals may vary from what you'd think by looking at net worth alone does not change the fact that power is really held by a narrow set of wealthy individuals. (In fact, it concentrates power even more narrowly in the most wealthy by suppressing the effective power of the diffuse minority of wealth held by broad masses in a way somewhat similar to how FPTP electoral systems dilute the political power of diffuse minorities of votes.)

> Apple's money nominally belongs to its shareholders

No, it nominally belongs to Apple. Shareholders do not, either nominally or practically, own the assets of the corporation, they own a claim to a share of the liquidated net assets after satifying liabilities in the event of corporate dissolution, along with certain rights defined in law and corporate governance documents with regard to governance of the corporation while it is a going concern.

In practice, this increases the effective relative power of major (even if not majority individually) shareholders and reduces the power of small minority shareholders beyond what share of ownership alone would suggest.

[AnthonyMouse]

> That's not the claim that was made, which was the corporations are the real holders of power, which was offered as an explicit denial of the claim that a narrow set of wealthy individuals hold power.

That is a refutation of that claim, because the distortion takes the control away from any individual and constrains it within the path defined by "law and corporate governance documents with regard to governance of the corporation while it is a going concern."

Bezos can make himself CEO despite not holding a majority position, but if he gets cancer he can't decide to liquidate all of the company's assets (not just his personal shares) and then use it all to look for a cure. Because he's still not in control of it, the corporation is, which is different.

He also can't decide to purposely suffer major losses in order use the company's resources to solve significant social problems like climate change, even if he wanted to, without the consent of the other shareholders.

> In fact, it concentrates power even more narrowly in the most wealthy by suppressing the effective power of the diffuse minority of wealth held by broad masses in a way somewhat similar to how FPTP electoral systems dilute the political power of diffuse minorities of votes.

Yes, absolutely, but the thing causing that to happen is the incredibly large size of corporations, not the wealth of particular individuals. If Amazon was 10% its current size and correspondingly Bezos owned all of it, he would be in control of fewer resources than he is now despite having the exact same amount of personal wealth.

And then he could decide to use the company's resources to cure cancer or fight climate change, because he would be the sole owner, so there would be even less power bound up in corporate restrictions.

> No, it nominally belongs to Apple.

You can't have it both ways. Either the corporation is a legal fiction and the real power lies with some natural persons, who for a corporation are nominally ultimately the shareholders, or the corporation is a thing unto itself with its own rules and goals and is the owner of the assets, in which case the distinction between the corporation and the individuals is quite relevant precisely because it affects how the resources are used.