Why does the proletariat, the largest class, not simply eat the bougouise?
Billionaires use violence all the time to get what they want. Just because they hide behind layers of abstraction that they’ve set up, doesn’t mean they aren’t using violence.
Don’t tease me like this.
I’m for giving them a choice. The guillotine or we take away their money and make them work a minimum pay position in one of their factories for the rest of their lives. I’m pretty sure they would take the guillotine after a week.
Can’t shake the feeling that swapping panels 1 and 3 would make more sense.
Clockwise from bottom left maybe
i think any order would work
3 2 1 then 4
That is the exact same thing…
the amount of billionaire taint licking in this post is depressingly high.
the hilarious thing about these apologists is that the majority of the 1% wouldn’t even piss on them if they were on fire. we are beneath them.
the hilarious thing about these apologists is that the majority of the 1% wouldn’t even piss on them if they were on fire. we are beneath them.
You’re 100% wrong and you should ask the burned and executed corpses of the original BLM organizers if they were beneath notice.
No, no, we can’t be mean to the rich, that will upset them 🥺
Yes, kill them, by taxing them out of existence.
This would be ideal but I’m skeptical that it’s actually possible. Bribes are cheaper than taxes, so I think they’d likely just prevent the taxes from happening by greasing the correct palms.
Well yeah, that’s exactly what’s happened for at least the past 50 years. In 1968 corporations were paying 53% of their profits in taxes, and billionaires were paying 94% around that time! Btw, if you’re making billions, paying 94% still leaves you richer than most…
Contrast that to today, where the system is so obviously broken during a time when Amazon is paying less in total taxes than a fry cook at McDonald’s.
It would need to be done with actually no loopholes, and meaningful enforcement of consequences for those who would try to cheat (perhaps the guillotine).
one big issue is everyone goes “you can’t tax stocks!” and then billionaires take a loan against the stocks with the unrealized gains as collateral. So we’d need to start classifying a loan as a realized gain of the collateral against this, with an exception for mortgages on primary domiciles, maybe also a “first million dollars are exempt,” calculated on the full debt of the borrower, not per loan. I can’t imagine anyone taking out more than $1M in debt against a properly they don’t live in is not the rich we need to be taxing.
Yeah. Virtually anything with an exception for the first million dollars will both lose almost no tax revenue (as a percentage), and never ever touch the rest of us temporarily embarrassed not-quite-yet-billionaires.
That’s an insightful point, and honestly taxing those loans as realized gains sounds entirely reasonable. It’s good for the lenders because of reduced risk, it’s good for the rich because it keeps them honest, and it’s good for the public because we gain increased tax revenue from those who can most afford it. Nice!
Contrast that to today, where the system is so obviously broken during a time when Amazon is paying less in total taxes than a fry cook at McDonald’s.
Wait…by percentage, or by dollar amount?
Mostly by percentage, but I wouldn’t be surprised for the other one.
Dollar amount for some markets and some years - big corps do accounting magic and end up net negative, which they can calculate against profits in another fiscal year under some circumstances, paying 0% tax
Don’t they already just avoid paying taxes by not having a salary and just using bank loans or something? So they have no actual money in the bank
they will just come up with another new deal to temporarily calm us down.
then work on better propaganda to keep us submissive in the meantime.
I think people would be okay with taxing them away, as well. It could be fine to give an either-or option to each billionaire, even.
Who will do this? Trump? Kamala? Superman?
This is not the way…
10% off (of their bodies)
Every healthy society requires a robust guillotine maintenance capability, ideally across all competencies.
I support this idea. Invite most of the world’s nations’ leaders, too. I think the Met-gala attendees and G20 summit attendees might be a good starting point all-in-all. Then seize the means of production etc., you know how it goes.
Oh yeah and then what. The Worlds 20st richest countries leaders are dead. The world is in chaos and you think communism would solve all problems, just like it did in China, the Soviet Union or Cuba. The people there have no problems right. Violent fanatism jippie!
final edit: I wrote some words here, quite a lot of them actually, accusing you of many things. Now that I’ve slept and am calm(er at least) I realize I am in the wrong here. If you got to read my message, I apologize for the words. Violence should never be the answer, because it breeds more violence most likely towards the innocents. That is the difference between this place and Hell, because in Hell there are no innocents. In any case, for what it’s worth: I am sorry for going rabid, and striving only to insult you while projecting some of my own insecurities on you. I don’t even know you.
Didn’t AOC go to the Met Gala?
Yes, although IIRC she was sort of sponsored to go. She didn’t pay for her seat or dress… I’m not sure we should hold that against her too much. Still don’t like that she went but when someone else foots the bill? Fuck it, go have fun.
Yeah, I mean, you gotta make some sacrifices for the greater good, you know? Plus she’s a politician, right? Sooo…
She wouldn’t like it, but she’d understand.
This whole populism trend is concerning to me. I agree that some folks are more responsible than others for the problems we face today. Even so, singling out and blaming a small group of people for the problems we face, then punishing them with legislation, is not the most productive way forward. We need real, serious solutions. “Get rid of X” rarely, if ever, works.
No, fuck X. Get rid of it.
“rarely”: so you admit sometimes the solution is “get rid of X” ? Then why would “get rid of billionaires” not be a solution for you ? To be clear I’m not saying we should kill them or physically hurt them in any way, we can simply reappropriate their wealth turning them into non-billionaire, also making it illegal for anyone to be a billionaire in the future. Why would that not work in your opinion ?
What we need to think about is how this works practically. A billionaire isn’t someone with a billion dollars in their bank account: it’s someone with a 50% share in a business with a market cap of $2bn. How do we address that fairly?
Now I’d say that a business with a certain level of profitability owes something to its employees, such that very few businesses would reach that level of capitalisation.
Actually doing this would not only be immoral but just treat the symptoms of the downfalls of capitalism, not the cause. We need legislative change that has a proper social safety net, not violence LARPing.
In a perfect world, that would be ideal. But for at least 50 years, capital has been buying the legislators and we’re backsliding even further from positive change. Without the threat, there’s no reason for them to let things change for the better for the rest of us.
You don’t need a mechanized execution machine to kill three people. You need it to kill the crowd of people.
And historically that’s what it was used for. It was used BY the rich AGAINST the poor.
It was pretty much just one of the options used for death penalty from what I understand. Then there’s the revolution bit but otherwise it was a state execution method used as late as 1977.
Whoever made this is needs help, murder is not good
Slaying dragons is self defense and defense of others, not murder.
Please don’t slander dragons by associating them with the filthy rich human cretins
I kind of agree with this type of objection. But note that the instrument of death is a guillotine. That hearkens back to a time of radical societal change, the French Revolution.
Additionally guillotines were seen as a more humane method of execution than the hangings and manual beheading of pre-Enlightenment France.
It’s called political satire.
I can imagine you’re a fucking blast at parties.
It’s hard to tell. Satire is usually funny. #justaprankbro
Seems like the people in the comments are rather fond of the idea
There’s an air of truth to that in that, I want them to be tortured first. Don’t build the wood pyres so high at the start. Make sure the fire slowly creeps up to their vital organs. We should also flash scenes of violence and poverty caused by their actions into their retinas as they boil into greedy little pools of charred carbon.
To answer the question you’re thinking, like a baby, every night. Zero issues.
Billionaires murder millions.
I like how you think this is a realistic scenario.
If you ever scoffed at the word ‘ableism’ observe it here being used as a weapon
The classic lemmy response:
“its not about the murder it’s symbolic of revolution”
“um it’s satire”
“murder is good sometimes”
all in reply to one comment
I’m sure in a future thread we’ll get a comment saying something like:
“No one on Lemmy is saying we should murder billionaires”
I am absolutely saying that, feel free to quote me.
Killing billionaires is both immoral and won’t solve the problem. We need to kill the capitalist system that allows people to become billionaires.
Do you think billionaires operate in a moral fashion? That their journey was one paved to the top by the ethical treatment of others?
Perhaps we need a new morality because I find that operating inside of prescribed moral bounds is shooting yourself in the foot when making this particular kind of argument.
You operate morally, they use every dirty trick in the book, including killing you.
Just because some of them indirectly kill people doesn’t make it moral to kill them. Maybe if it actually would make the world better, you could have a utilitarian argument for it, but as long as you just kill individual billionaires and not creating a new socialist system they’ll just be replaced by new billionaires. As I said, regardless of whether it’s moral to kill them, it won’t help.
All of them indirectly kill people. It’s impossible to be a billionaire and a moral person, as a moral person would spend that wealth to improve the lives of others. You can say that “oh but this billionaire runs a charity!”, but how much of their own wealth do they give to it? Would a moral billionaire rely on the money of others to make change in the world? Would they still be a billionaire if they truly wanted change?
Just to be clear, you don’t need to convince me there are no moral billionaires.
Maybe if it actually would make the world better, you >could have a utilitarian argument
I have no doubt it would make the world better if you kill them and distribute their money (in minecraft) to I don’t know social housing, public hospitals and schools (not claiming they will be used with %100 efficiency or %100 ethically but will be orders of magnitudes better than what billionaires are doing with them in maybe all cases). If it turns out to be a billionaire whose businesses we are currently addicted to (not gonna name names but you know), then there will be a period of inconvenience but we will get over it and adapt.
Obviously redistributing their wealth would be good. Killing them doesn’t automatically give you their wealth to redistribute, and redistributing without killing them is also a possibility you seem to be ignoring.
What if we don’t kill them, but just rob them instead?
- The moderate lemming
yes fair point. I am also ok to give them the following choices:
1- live in a poor country with minimum wage with no opportunity to change jobs and a wealth cap (your annual earnings from other sources should be comparable to annual earnings of a minimal wage job). I have the feeling that after a couple months they will commit suicide. for billionaires directly affiliated with arms companies, this should be a country which was recently a war zone.
2- trial by combat. no wait that is game of thrones got confused.
This extra punishment’s purpose should be to act as a deterrant
It will absolutely solve the problem,.
People dont want to die > People stop doing things that make others want to kill them > Success
It might have many unintended negative and positive consequences but you wont have any more billionaires very quickly if people literally killed anyone as soon as they amassed more than 1 billion dollars.
It would basically result in a voluntary 100% tax of anything over 1 billion because they dont want to die.
Sadly it will never happen because too many people would die in the process of getting there by the hands of people easily influenced by the billionaires money. (i.e. Police, Private Military, etc) But just a few martyrs would go a long way already and USAmericans have lots of guns.
All of this ofcourse only In Minecraft TM
Got it death penalty for all crimes
Well no, the answer should be prison, but the system is obviously corrupt because they are not in prison. If the system doesnt imprison criminals then sometimes the systems need to be circumvented.
It will absolutely solve the problem,.
People dont want to die > People stop doing things that make others want to kill them > Success
Edit if y’all don’t see how I’m being sarcastic, and this reply is about how the death penalty does not deter crime, I don’t know what to tell ya.
You can’t change the system while they own it and you can’t jail them when they own the prisons as well as the ones that should be putting them there.
What do you suggest?
Well, non violent seizing of the means via unionizing and community action via grassroots electorate driven by transparent mutual aid.
But once you sign on to get the executions starting, you better hope you’re in the “in group” all along. Else the violence will eventually come for you (not you you, hypothetical anyone)
And back to my point, the death penalty will just make them crafty, it won’t stop greed.
Okay so once you’ve non violently seized the means, and they come to violently take them back, then what?
Rust my bolts and call me the tin man, 'cause I’m standing next to the biggest strawman of the century, and he still has no brain. Dorothy’s probably on her way any second.
Sarcasm my dude.
Death penalty doesn’t reduce crime.
What I’m calling out is that the comment laid out the blueprint for authoritarian extrajudicial killings, they just don’t get it.
And that’s fair. I think, though, that they were pointing out that the violence in that case would be mob violence from the hypothetical revolution, not actually at the behest of an authoritarian ruler. The death penalty is not involved. They seemed to be arguing that, at some point, the measurable and visible harm a person or small number of people does or do to the world by their continued practices, combines with the risk of them using their power and influence to escape from justice should any real attempt be made to force them to reconcile with their crimes, and that this inability to enforce justice without death, combined with the inherent injustice of doing nothing, could be the fomenting factor for mob violence against such tyrants.
And billionaires are going to, what, just let us kill the system they run and are the primary beneficiaries of? Get your tongue out of the taint and look at the dying planet you’re on that they’re making.
The problem is that the billionaires perpetuate the system that supports them, and they effectively have all the power.
And hoarding money that would provide housing, food, and medicine while people are dying or barely living paycheck to paycheck for the lack of those things isn’t immoral? Lick the boot harder. They might give you a fucking dîme.
What? No, why would you assume those things about me. There are no ethical billionaires.
Now this guy worry about what’s immoral. How about hoarding wealth off the backs of labor, is that immoral?
Of course. However killing billionaires is still immoral if there are peaceful solutions to redistributing the wealth, and useless if the act of killing them doesn’t magically redistribute the wealth fairly (it doesn’t)
if there are peaceful solutions to redistributing the wealth
But that’s the whole point, there aren’t any.
The whole idea of being able to tax them fairly and properly is merely a pacifier so the people think they have a chance. And while they hope something might change, the rich actually use their power, money and influence to rig the system in a way that ensure they’ll never have to pay their fair share.
There’s no peaceful solution to the unethical and violent accumulation of wealth
What’s your larger point? Why hedge with “killing billionairs is immoral” instead of just saying what you really mean.
What do you think I really mean? Killing anyone, including billionaires, is unethical. Maybe it could be justified in a utilitarian sense if it was guaranteed to lead to wealth redistribution and there was no other way, but even that isn’t the case.
Do you understand why people use of the phrase “eat the rich” or their threats to bring out guillotines? Do you understand the historic relevance and the iconography. To me, if you did, there would be no reason to make the misguided statement, “that’s immoral.” Other than to create subterfuge.
Hey, it doesn’t all have to be work, work, work. Some fun is in order too.
Oh OK we’ll just do that then
Okay point to a success doing it your way.
Have you read the Jakarta Method?
No, but neither ways have succeeded, we still live in capitalist system. I’d prefer to try a method that doesn’t involve unnecessary killing and suffering.
i need you to answer the question I asked instead of spouting off about things you could easily know better about if you did some investigation into the topic.
but neither ways have succeeded
And you’re 100% wrong on this point. The other way has proven to work again and again. But only ever after your way fails and kills a shitload of innocent people. Just to say it explicitly: Every single violent revolution that has ever occurred on this earth began as a peaceful protest that was forced to become violent to protect themselves.
