[throwaway2331]

We could also simply do-away with level-headed discourse, and go back to the tried-and-true:

"Billionaires are not your friends. They don't know you, they don't care about you, and they can do nothing for you -- except allow you to live vicariously through their avarice, as if you're some sportsfan."

To seriously spend any time at all aligning oneself with the workings of reality-disassociated billionaires---much less as anything but a fellow billionaire!---is silly. There really is nothing good that will happen if Jeff Bezos does X, Y, or Z, except parasocial fans will be imbued with energy and celebration.

That's it.

Maddening. I'm of a mind of treating anyone supportive of unaccountable billionaires as enablers, or even missing some basic human faculties of independent thought.

[colechristensen]

Yes, the distribution of resources available to any particular person is governed by a power law. People complaining about it every time one of these people is mentioned just gets boring.

Everything Jeff Bezos does is going to attract people complaining about it and they would complain about it just the same if the wealth inequality in the world was divided by a thousand. It all reminds me of Obama eating a sandwich with fancy mustard was made into a scandal and I care just as much.

Unless you’re loving your life pretty radically different than most people, you’re “enabling” many billionaires in the very real sense of giving them plenty of your money, regardless of whether or not you complain about them on social media.

[neither_color]

"Billionaires are not your friends. They don't know you, they don't care about you, and they can do nothing for you -- except allow you to live vicariously through their avarice, as if you're some sportsfan."

While this is true, it's also true of anyone I don't personally know. They can't care about me. Dunbar's number.

[mandmandam]

I think you'll find that common people care a lot more about the common good than billionaires; in case you'd actually missed the point.

[rowanG077]

This isn't obvious at all to me. Why do you think this?

[mandmandam]

Really? The last few thousand years of history have been pretty illustrative; the last 50 especially so.

The uber-wealthy have no direct dependence on functional public services. They have no need (and even a preference) for corrupt legal and political systems. They (hire people to) work day and night to gut regulations that protect us, and they cover for each other and circle the wagons when anyone starts getting too close to breaking any part of the golden circle.

If people institute progressive tax systems, billionaires find a way to dodge or loophole their way out; going so far as to leave if people demand "too much". Modern billionaires find creative ways to exploit workers and demonize unions.

Compare all that to the decent and normal people you know, assuming you have something like a normal life. The people I know are happy enough to pay their share for the common good, and wouldn't dream of hiring some slimeball tax accountant to figure out how to hold on to as much as possible - see Pandora, Paradise, etc.

No one normal is paying politicians to break regulations, or writing legislation that allows for tax loopholes, or removing any possibility of accountability for "malfeasance" like oil spills or banking crises.

And billionaire owned media is happy for none of this to be in the national conversation. But once you start looking - it's pretty obvious.

[rowanG077]

So you are saying "normal" people don't hire accountants to ensure they pay the minimal amount of tax while wealthy people do? Normal people don't hire accountants for the simple fact that it isn't economically viable for them. The taxes they could save is much lower then the pay for the accountant. This balance is of course completely different for a billionaire. I'm willing to bet that if the cost of hiring an accountant would be 500$ and a normal person would pay 5000$ less in tax because of that then almost everyone would have an accountant at the ready. In fact you would be financially irresponsible not doing that.

The thing you talk about in your post is that billionaires have more power and use that power to their advantage. Not unlike what anyone really does. Except that billionaires have much more weight to throw around.

[mandmandam]

> So you are saying "normal" people don't hire accountants to ensure they pay the minimal amount of tax while wealthy people do?

Did I say that? Or did I specifically refer to slimeballs, loopholes, Paradise and Panama papers, bribing legislators etc. Do normal people do that, in your view? Because it seems pretty normal among billionaires. I don't remember any normal people paying thugs to bust up strikes, or paying to print anti union propaganda and rig unionising votes.

You seem to be saying, might makes right; and that we'd do those things above if we were in their position. Even if that were true (it's not), that would be all the more reason to change the rules that allow such consolidation of wealth and abuse of power to exist.

Going back to your original claim - that it's not obvious (to you) that billionaires care less about the common good than common people - here is a poem that has survived the last 250+ years.

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common from off the goose

.

The law demands that we atone

When we take things we do not own

But leaves the lords and ladies fine

Who take things that are yours and mine

.

The poor and wretched don't escape

If they conspire the law to break

This must be so but they endure

Those who conspire to make the law

.

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

And geese will still a common lack

Till they go and steal it back