What disproportionate influence or dangerous concentration of power does Elon represent other than the power he has to motivate his employees to build rockets and cars?
I guess all I can do is grant you the fact that political science has had a difficult time proving the impact of money on policy in representative democracies.
But I also know it is not an accident that someone as wealthy as Elon Musk paid no federal income taxes in 2018 and pays very little in many years. As wealthy people concentrate more power, they bend the system to their favor - distorting both social systems and the markets.
Exactly. This is how the system works. It is not an accident that someone can accumulate wealth and find ways not evade taxation through measures not available to other people in society. Even if you consider Musk's "effective tax rate," it's a pittance.
Every single metric shows that the wealthy are increasingly effective at concentrating their wealth. This has been the trend in the United States since the mid-20th century. It's undeniable that they are deliberately and effectively doing this. The only question is whether or not this concentration of wealth is good for society or bad for society. Due to the complexity of societies, this is difficult to demonstrate empirically. I grant you this.
If you think that these conditions haven't generally lead to the formation of strong kleptocracies throughout history... well I guess we'll simply disagree.
There is no innuendo. I explicitly stated the lowest hanging fruit - he barely pays taxes - as a simple example of how wealthy people use their influence to distort social systems. If you don't think that his effective tax rate hovers around 5% is a problem - well that's fine. I don't really want to debate the qualitative impact of vast concentrations of wealth on social systems and markets.
Quantitatively speaking, we can see that people in Musk's category of wealth have been increasingly effective at consolidating their wealth over the last 60 years. At least within North America and Western Europe. It looks like a deliberate effort to accumulate power - but it seems that you see this differently.
This concentration of wealth is certainly not necessary to launch a car brand. It has happened too many times over the 20th century to be true.
> he barely pays taxes - as a simple example of how wealthy people use their influence to distort social systems
That’s an innuendo right there.
Even if you are right that there are wealthy people (which ones?) Who have ‘distorted’ social systems (‘distorted’ from what ideal?), it’s innuendo to imply that Musk is somehow doing this, unless you have some specific evidence about his actions.
The tax system may or may not be wrong in some way which we can discuss, but that isn’t about Musk and his businesses.
Casting ‘billionaires’ as a group as all somehow bad in this way is a meaningless way to think about this. Frankly this is just political disinformation aimed at creating animus towards people rather than solutions.
A parallel would be a statement like “Activists lies harm our political discourse and increase polarization”. Equally just innuendo, and equally meaningless although superficially ‘truthy’ looking.
But I also know it is not an accident that someone as wealthy as Elon Musk paid no federal income taxes in 2018 and pays very little in many years. As wealthy people concentrate more power, they bend the system to their favor - distorting both social systems and the markets.