this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
566 points (99.3% liked)

[Dormant] moved to !historyphotos@piefed.social

7351 readers
1 users here now

COMM MOVED TO !historyphotos@piefed.social

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 41 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

I really don't mind the principle of somebody owning a lot of stuff, but it should only be allowed after everybody else has at least a home and a decent life. The fact that everybody theoretically has a "chance" isn't enough. Go ahead and indulge your quest for endless acquisition all you want, just not when it makes survival harder for the rest of us.

[–] SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The thing is, those two sentiments are completely antithetical. If there's no limit to what one can own, how would there be a limit to what they want? Even if we can't stop people from owning too much, we at least need to make it as hard as possible. 90% tax brackets need to come back.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The thing is, it's hard to take you seriously when you refer to 90% tax brackets. That was income tax, which probably applied to like 8 people in the country. Wealthy people get most of their income from capital gains, which is taxed entirely differently. Go ahead and raise the top income tax bracket to 99.9%, it won't affect billionaires. LPT: wanting to "bring back the 90% tax brackets" is a dead giveaway that someone just repeats what they see in memes.

But anyway, what I said isn't antithetical because I don't have the attitude that possessing wealth is inherently evil. As I tried to make clear, it's only evil to me if other people are deprived. In a world where nobody is threatened by poverty or hardship, having a hobby of collecting diamonds doesn't hurt anyone.

[–] SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Wealthy people get most of their income from capital gains, which is taxed entirely differently.

Because we can't possibly change how it works so that we can tax capital gains too, right? Give me a break.

In a world where nobody is threatened by poverty or hardship, having a hobby of collecting diamonds doesn’t hurt anyone.

Keep living in fantasy land. How do you think something like that will be achieved, if people are allowed to hoard as much money as they want? What is the incentive to do any good if greed is celebrated and never punished?

someone just repeats what they see in memes

You're just a centrist neoliberal. What you're suggesting is literally what has brought us here.

it’s hard to take you seriously

The feeling is mutual.

Also, when someone starts to dish out personal attacks unprovoked, it's a dead giveaway that they don't actually have a point.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

Of course we can change how it works, but not by "bringing back" ineffective 1950s nonsense, or raging at me for calling out how silly that is.

[–] slaacaa@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I would not allow people two own this many houses. Laws should limit the number of residential real estate one can have, and maybe even the time of ownership, as many countires already do (e.g. the land remains the property of the state, and you own it for 99 years)

[–] sobchak@programming.dev 3 points 2 months ago

Money is power. The rich collect political power and business equity and use it to shape society. And, more often than not, their wealth is made by skimming off the top from the labor of their much poorer workers (the exceptions are highly-payed athletes and entertainers, and even then, a lot of their wealth comes from investments, which are usually profits from other people's labor).

[–] CoffeeTails@lemmy.world -2 points 2 months ago

This! I aggre 100% with this.

Like yes, I agree that different jobs requiers different salaries depending on how important they are for the people and how hard it is to not work on your free time. Like, cafes are very nice but we NEED hospitals. An blue collar worker rarely thinks about their job at the end of the day while a manager or higher often do.

[–] the_q@lemmy.zip 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not much has really changed... Or rather when it does some fuck-face comes along and rolls it back.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

We seem reluctant to preserve the gains we acquire against entrenched powers. I guess it's not as exciting as obtaining them in the first place.

[–] the_q@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago

Right? I mean if everyone's needs are met and equity is universal then what's the point?

[–] Kualdir@feddit.nl 11 points 2 months ago

History repeats itself? 😭

[–] CMahaff@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

It's funny because ""only"" 77 houses seems quaint for the billionaires of today.

I mean most of them are so rich they wouldn't even miss 1 billion of their fortune right?

Or in other words, they could easily buy 1,000 million-dollar homes without even making a dent.

[–] ceenote@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if they called it the Gilded Age at the time, or if that name came after? Our current age feels pretty gilded.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Gilded Age was actually before this - the Gilded Age ended with the first rise of Progressivism on the national stage in the 1900s and 1910s.

The 1930s is the Great Depression - while in part caused by still-unresolved issues of capitalist fuckery inherent in the system that even early Progressives weren't interested in (or able to) resolve, it was also caused, in part, by backsliding during the 1920s caused by the election of right-wing national leaders.

[–] chewables@piefed.social 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)
backsliding during the 1920s caused by the election of right-wing national leaders

...well, fuck. time is cyclical after all.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

"Those who fail to study the past are doomed to repeat it. Those who study the past are doomed to watch everyone else repeat it."

[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Time is a flat circle.