How does she represent a broken system? People, of their own free will, pay money to go to her concerts. Are you saying they shouldn’t be allowed to do that?
I get the issues around for example Amazon and its algorithmic price fixing and monopolistic behaviours, or with oil companies destroying the environment. But all this woman does is go around playing music that her fans love.
Her concerts aren’t how she makes all her money, but even then her private jets are awful for the environment, and her band does not make anywhere near the money she makes.
She has merchandise, stocks, REIT, etc. All of those have their own baggage and unethical aspects. I’m so tired of you people treating her as an exception. Nobody can become a billionaire without exploiting the labor of vast amounts of other people, including Taylor Swift.
But even if you want to argue music, she’s not a sole instrumentalist and producer. She has a production team. She uses session musicians. All of those people are exploited labor.
Of course her fans should get to see her perform. She should not be allowed to be a human Smaug, and accumulate inconceivable amounts of wealth because of it, especially when the system begets even “individual producers” to exploit the labor of swaths of other people.
But the question is: how? If you look at every other system that has been tried you see the same results or worse. Many systems just end up picking a different set of winners.
I’d like to try LVT because the arguments for it are pretty strong but you never know until you try it and see what happens. I’m far more concerned about mass homelessness and people struggling to afford rent than I am about billionaires. Unless of course those billionaires are corrupting the political system like Musk and Bezos are trying so hard to do.
But those issues are connected. Even billionaires who don’t go as far as Musk are still sucking up the political oxygen and disempowering marginalized people. They are buying up finite resources like land or prime real estate in city centers or media time and space.
I agree that the how is an important question but I think there are many options and it’s worth it to keep trying despite some past failures. Extremely high tax rates, decaying currencies or negative interest rates are some possibilities. Or just build an alternative free economy that doesn’t involve money. I’d like to try as many things as possible to see what works best.
I think the main difference is she is mostly a billionaire via her own productivity. Everyone else on the list got there because they are capitalizing on other peoples labour, doing little to no actual work themselves.
She still reaps the benefit of other people’s work, but she is essentially still the product of her own labour.
No, not through her own productivity. At the start of her career, she had numerous song writers who were arguably exploited in that they are not getting a cut of her earnings. Even now, she doesn’t play every instrument on a track. She has a whole team of producers. In concerts, she plays with a band. None of those people are making a fraction of the ludicrous money she’s making for “her own product”.
But beyond that, like the other commentator said, she has tons of staff of whom are exploited at a paycheck.
And beyond that, all of the merchandise she puts out employs many, many different exploited individuals to make.
You asked the question with specific emphasis that sets it up to be easy to argue against.
For example using the words ‘perfectly fine’ when you should very well understand from their previous statement that they don’t think that to be the case, you exaggerated their stance in order to misrepresent it. This misrepresentation allows you to frame their position with a question that is easy to defeat instead of actually refuting their claim or answering their proposed question.
You also loaded the question, implying their position within your question and reducing their possible responses to extremes.
This is a high school debate club 101 straw man question, I was just letting you know, so hopefully in the future you can structure your arguments better.
For example, if I responded to you saying “so you think everyone who calls you out, just doesn’t understand what a straw man is?”
It’s exaggerating and purposefully misconstruing the point in order to ask a question that is easy to rebut.
And here’s the definition:
an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent’s real argument.
It’s a system where we’re free to give money to whoever we want in exchange for goods or services. Maybe you’d prefer a system where we all are forced to get the exact same thing!
Unless you’re talking about a 100% tax rate beyond a certain point, then you’re still going to have billionaires (or whatever other arbitrary number you want to choose).
I personally think we should abolish all these complicated taxes and go with land value tax because the increase in the value of land is unearned wealth and the current system leads to gross inefficiency, not to mention tax loopholes.
There are a large variety of ways to tax the wealthy. I am no econimist and will not be able to tell you which is best. But honestly, if they are paying more than billions in taxes, then I am OK with them still being billionares.
How does she represent a broken system? People, of their own free will, pay money to go to her concerts. Are you saying they shouldn’t be allowed to do that?
I get the issues around for example Amazon and its algorithmic price fixing and monopolistic behaviours, or with oil companies destroying the environment. But all this woman does is go around playing music that her fans love.
Her concerts aren’t how she makes all her money, but even then her private jets are awful for the environment, and her band does not make anywhere near the money she makes.
She has merchandise, stocks, REIT, etc. All of those have their own baggage and unethical aspects. I’m so tired of you people treating her as an exception. Nobody can become a billionaire without exploiting the labor of vast amounts of other people, including Taylor Swift.
But even if you want to argue music, she’s not a sole instrumentalist and producer. She has a production team. She uses session musicians. All of those people are exploited labor.
Of course her fans should get to see her perform. She should not be allowed to be a human Smaug, and accumulate inconceivable amounts of wealth because of it, especially when the system begets even “individual producers” to exploit the labor of swaths of other people.
The economic system should not permit such extreme wealth accumulation. It is damaging to society.
But the question is: how? If you look at every other system that has been tried you see the same results or worse. Many systems just end up picking a different set of winners.
I’d like to try LVT because the arguments for it are pretty strong but you never know until you try it and see what happens. I’m far more concerned about mass homelessness and people struggling to afford rent than I am about billionaires. Unless of course those billionaires are corrupting the political system like Musk and Bezos are trying so hard to do.
But those issues are connected. Even billionaires who don’t go as far as Musk are still sucking up the political oxygen and disempowering marginalized people. They are buying up finite resources like land or prime real estate in city centers or media time and space.
I agree that the how is an important question but I think there are many options and it’s worth it to keep trying despite some past failures. Extremely high tax rates, decaying currencies or negative interest rates are some possibilities. Or just build an alternative free economy that doesn’t involve money. I’d like to try as many things as possible to see what works best.
Ah so you’re saying that it’s perfectly fine to have billionaires?
If you can’t see what is wrong with a system that creates billionaires then there isn’t much left to talk about.
I think the main difference is she is mostly a billionaire via her own productivity. Everyone else on the list got there because they are capitalizing on other peoples labour, doing little to no actual work themselves.
She still reaps the benefit of other people’s work, but she is essentially still the product of her own labour.
No, not through her own productivity. At the start of her career, she had numerous song writers who were arguably exploited in that they are not getting a cut of her earnings. Even now, she doesn’t play every instrument on a track. She has a whole team of producers. In concerts, she plays with a band. None of those people are making a fraction of the ludicrous money she’s making for “her own product”.
But beyond that, like the other commentator said, she has tons of staff of whom are exploited at a paycheck.
And beyond that, all of the merchandise she puts out employs many, many different exploited individuals to make.
Just so you know, this is a textbook straw man fallacy.
Sounds like you need to look up the meaning behind what a strawman argument is because you’re way off.
You asked the question with specific emphasis that sets it up to be easy to argue against.
For example using the words ‘perfectly fine’ when you should very well understand from their previous statement that they don’t think that to be the case, you exaggerated their stance in order to misrepresent it. This misrepresentation allows you to frame their position with a question that is easy to defeat instead of actually refuting their claim or answering their proposed question.
You also loaded the question, implying their position within your question and reducing their possible responses to extremes.
This is a high school debate club 101 straw man question, I was just letting you know, so hopefully in the future you can structure your arguments better.
For example, if I responded to you saying “so you think everyone who calls you out, just doesn’t understand what a straw man is?”
It’s exaggerating and purposefully misconstruing the point in order to ask a question that is easy to rebut.
And here’s the definition: an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent’s real argument.
It’s a system where we’re free to give money to whoever we want in exchange for goods or services. Maybe you’d prefer a system where we all are forced to get the exact same thing!
How about a system where those who earn more pay their fare share of taxes? Eliminates the billionaires and still let’s swiftys swift.
Unless you’re talking about a 100% tax rate beyond a certain point, then you’re still going to have billionaires (or whatever other arbitrary number you want to choose).
I personally think we should abolish all these complicated taxes and go with land value tax because the increase in the value of land is unearned wealth and the current system leads to gross inefficiency, not to mention tax loopholes.
There are a large variety of ways to tax the wealthy. I am no econimist and will not be able to tell you which is best. But honestly, if they are paying more than billions in taxes, then I am OK with them still being billionares.