this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
23 points (79.5% liked)

General Discussion

14417 readers
54 users here now

Welcome to Lemmy.World General!

This is a community for general discussion where you can get your bearings in the fediverse. Discuss topics & ask questions that don't seem to fit in any other community, or don't have an active community yet.

🪆 About Lemmy World

🧭 Finding CommunitiesFeel free to ask here or over in: !lemmy411@lemmy.ca!

Also keep an eye on:

For more involved tools to find communities to join: check out Lemmyverse!

💬 Additional Discussion Focused Communities:

Rules and Policies

Remember, Lemmy World rules also apply here.0. See: Rules for Users.

  1. No bigotry: including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
  2. Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.
  3. Be thoughtful and helpful: even with ‘silly’ questions. The world won’t be made better by dismissive comments to others on Lemmy.
  4. Link posts should include some context/opinion in the body text when the title is unaltered, or be titled to encourage discussion.
  5. Posts concerning other instances' activity/decisions are better suited to !fediverse@lemmy.world or !lemmydrama@lemmy.world communities.
  6. No Ads/Spamming.
  7. No NSFW content.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Jessica@lemmy.world
ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world
fubo@lemmy.world
23
Why do we applaud someone helping someone else but allow billionaires to exist? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 weeks ago by jaykrown@lemmy.world to c/general@lemmy.world
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] immutable@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 weeks ago

I have thought about this a lot.

I have a theory that most people are fine, let’s say 90%

Then you have 5% that are antisocial in a clear and violent way.

Then another 5% that are antisocial in a non violent way, they can never have enough, these people become billionaires (or try to).

I think most societies and economic systems try to control those 10% and under capitalism the system established two mechanisms.

For antisocial and violent: state sanctioned violence, police to arrest, beat, shoot and a justice system to incarcerate.

For antisocial and nonviolent: capitalism attempts to harness the unending avarice of these people towards constructive aims. The strength of capitalism is that this sorta works for a while, greedy people that want more and more and more end up making things of value for society. Not on purpose, not because they enjoy making valuable things, but as a means to their goal, accumulating more money.

The problem with capitalist systems is that the mechanism intended to control the nonviolent antisocial people breaks down. Witb enough wealth they can undo the competition that causes their greed to accidentally make value for society. They capture the power in the society and continue sucking up more and more, never satisfied.

I’m not sure what the solution is, but I’ve become convinced that you can judge any economic systems based on how it controls these two groups. European democratic socialism is fairing a bit better because they seem to still be interested in controlling the nonviolent antisocial group, but that group is happy to slowly accumulate more and more wealth and power and influence. A few well placed bribes, a couple key votes go their way, and bit by bit they will tear down the constraints. The problem with constant vigilance against a group of determined antisocial people is that they only need a handful of victories to change the rules in their favor and then it’s game over.

America should serve as a clear warning of what happens when your guardrails come undone.