this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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No, Billionaires are always going to be a byproduct of capitalism. Saying that left vs right is inconsequential and just "fighting amongst themselves" is naturalizing and justifying billionaires. The left fights against billionaires and oligarchy while the right fight for them (even if they rhetorically hate "elites" like woke baristas).
You keep bringing this back to capitalism. It's greed. The answer is greed. Even in your communist paradise, greed ruins it. Even in a socialist utopia, greed will be there to remind you of the inherent evil that is ingrained in humanity. Focus on the greed and maybe you'll make more allies instead of blaming a social concept.
No, even if individuals will continue to have greed or bad traits, if you don't have a social system that allows accumulation of vast wealth or the use of the wealth to immediately control the labor and resources of society, you undermine the social detriment of these traits. This is why systems matter, it is what traits will be rewarded, and what is allowed to be indulged rather than resisted.
Since you have time to ponder philosophical ideals, why not come up with a new system that does what you describe and prevents, if not mitigate, tribal mentality? Bear in mind you've only been describing wealth distribution. You still have to decide if you want this system you come up with to exist under a variation of Democracy, a monarch, an oligarch, or something completely new that won't cripple your newly designed system of wealth distribution. Then you need to decide which "tribe" gets to run it without upsetting the other "tribes" . And here we are again getting the red tribe and the blue tribe to come to their senses and agree to something that doesn't screw the rest of us.
It is not merely wealth distribution, but the fact that in capitalism that wealth immediately translates to power over society and people's time in a more direct way than all previous systems. And sure, I am considering new systems, that is why I took exception to your framing of it not being "left vs. right". Nearly, by definition, Right wing is preserving a current society or regressing back to a previous system, Left wing is, by definition, about change and new systems. Left wing isn't necessarily being urban or having dyed hair or whatever conservatives try to obfuscate with. Being anti-elite is nearly always left wing and being pro-elite is nearly always right wing, right wingers try to obfuscate and channel that resentment with lies and bullshit. Like claiming a barista is an "elite" by having a bachelors degree and pronouns, despite making minimum wage, while a millionaire business owner is "working class" because he wears blue jeans and listens to country music in his pickup truck.
Let's just agree to disagree. It helps if you don't start with a negative in every response and we're going in circles.
Okay, I wont start with a negative. Left is anti-billionaire controlling all of society and right is pro-billionaire controlling society. So saying left vs. right is a false dichotomy is helping billionaires sabotage society.
I agree with your statement. However, the left also includes billionaires just like the right includes the working class. Left vs. Right helps billionaires survive by keeping the left and the right fighting and the focus off them. There are two pieces two this puzzle. Once these two sides amongst the "common people" stop fighting and agree that no billionaires should be in any control, I am willing to bet a change can be made in a positive direction, regardless if you believe in philosophical ideals. We can both agree that billionaires are bad for a society due to the concentration of accumulated wealth and the ability to shape social policy through money.
There aren't left billionaires in any significant sense. Liberals that are okay with LGBTQ people are centrists at best. Since Liberalism is inherently center-right and being left necessitates fighting against entrenched power structures, no George Soros or whatever billionaire is not "left" just because they aren't extremely reactionary. Concentrations of wealth (and therefore power) is inherently right-wing by definition. You are just treating right-wing propaganda as fact.
Had I known I was talking to someone with a .ML, hexbear, or lemmygrad mindset I would have quit ages ago. Re-evaluate your political spectrums and definition of propaganda. I am arguing for unity against the source and you are proving my point again by accusing me of spreading "right-wing propaganda" even after finding common ground. If you can't see passed the bullshit, you aren't going to make any allies in a cause that matters by just being the other side of the magat coin bouncing around in an echo chamber. Good luck to you.
"Had I known that I was talking with someone that knew what words meant, or that had object permanence, I would have surrendered ages ago". You need to evaluate your understanding of the political spectrum "centrism" doesn't mean you being right and "left" and "right" don't just vaguely mean "people that you disagree with" or "virtue signal" by having view points or beliefs. There are real reasons and definitions to these things! That is why believing that you can be not left and anti-billionaire or anti-elite is just fascism, because to be centrist or right-wing necessitates (since you are not against capitalist or representative democracy) that you are a not anti-elite. To claim otherwise requires a redefinition, such as elites being LGBTQ, Jews, or Finance capital rather than Industrial capital.
If you are willing to be a centrist or rightist means that you will be supporting pro-billionaire bipartisanship, like Biden because he is slightly less unhinged while supporting genocide and inequality. Or you support Kamala since she will build the wall faster and have greater amounts of ICE deportations, since she and her administration will fill out the paperwork properly.
It is not "disunity" you have to be some form of socialist or otherwise, in real material terms, anti-capitalist and anti-establishment if you are going to, in any real sense, be "anti-elite"
You do you.