"The problem with the billionaire system is that it just so happens the notion that it is a virtuous and generative thing for fewer and fewer people to seize more and more of a system's resources by robbing and murdering everyone else simply isn’t true.

Paragone

@wdlindsy Was it Adam Smith, who claimed "trickle-down economics" was real??

it has never, ever, been real:

The reason that the wealthy are wealthy is because they concentrate wealth to themselves.

When you multiply that concentration-of-wealth, you multiply, among their "inferiors", poverty.

That is mathematical fact.

It's been discovered ( by someone who can do real math, not me ) that there is a mathematical rule underlying concentration-of-wealth..

No matter who the original circumstantial-winners of a chaotic economy are,
concentration-of-wealth/multiplication-of-poverty takes root,
& progresses from there.

Always.

*Without force-redistribution,
you get extreme oligarchy, no matter what.*
( that is the mathematical-rule they discovered:
different economic-paradigms only change the speed of it happening,
otherwise it's inevitable.. )

It isn't that that is human-nature,
it is that it is *economic* nature,
given opportunism & narcissism.

Add-in machiavellianism, sociopathy, & systemic-dishonesty,
& there's zero hope of getting any kind of economy which simultaneously rewards what ought be rewarded,
while forcing that all honest lives have a truly-fair chance.

---

The root-problem is that there are 2 fundamental curves, I've found, for wealth-paradigm..

Imagine 2 graphs..

1 of them has a dot in the horizontal-middle of it,
4/5ths up, near the top,
& the line comes from the bottom-left,
hugs the bottom of the graph,
except as it gets close to that dot,
it comes steeply up,
then drops steeply down to hug the bottom, again..

That is the *exclusive-wealth* paradigm, what it looks like, in a graph..

( the actual graph-representation would be numbers-of-people along the x-axis,
with 1-individual at the left,
& 100%-of-the-planet's-population at the right,
& the steep-curve would drop from the left-edge of the graph down toward the bottom, quickly,
so that by the time you've got below 10%-population, there's little economic-resource-per-person left,
real poverty for all,
& the right half of the graph would be nearly-flat, at the bottom )

The other graph?

put a dot in the horizontal-middle,
but low, 1/5th of the way up..

now make a curve which goes from bottom-left-corner to the dot to bottom-right-corner,
but make it like a water-droplet,
so it's convex, so it's "full",
& where it goes through the dot,
instead of coming-vertically-up-to the dot,
then dropping immediately vertically-down,
as the exclusive-wealth paradigm does,
it goes *nearly-horizontally* through the dot,
& very-gradually curves down to left & right..

That is the *inclusive wealth* paradigm..

The thing with the inclusive-wealth paradigm,
is that instead of greater-wallowing-wealth-for-very-few,
greater-success-for-many instead is..

more-good-people-employed-doing-good-work!

( no, this isn't communist-imperialism:
in communist-imperialism it is the communist-party which is the fascist-ruler,
& it's institutional-fascism,
right through.

Leninism's "proletariat dictatorship" on the left,
Rupert Murdoch's remapping of Leninism into "populist dictatorship" of the right.

This instead is meritocracy/meritarchy,
and *responsibilityarchy*, outright.

People who *won't* be upright *don't have any place in this paradigm*.

This isn't something which the state can somehow induce in everybody,
this is, rather, something that a not-for-profit keiretsu organization could, if it were engineered & run properly,
do to become a semi-autonomous-economy,
with everybody in it having sufficient means for living..

The people who couldn't/wouldn't be compatible with it?

Well, there's the *normal* economy for them, right?

Different keiretsu ( each doing this kind of thing its-own-way ),
& outside-of-them-all doing things the traditional parasitic-economy way.

The 2 kinds of economy competing against each-other,
you know? : )

Anyways, because the low-wide-curve paradigm is pinned on as-many-good-people-doing-as-much-good-work-as-possible,
instead of eradicating-all-wealth-from-as-many-as-possible-for-the-maximal-wealth-of-as-few-as-possible parasitism-paradigm,

it's simply a different culture/values-set underpinning it.

Both have their own economy,
on their values..

Anyways, see those 2 curves,
the pointy/narrow parasitism-curve
vs the wide/gentle enabling-curve,

& see it in academia,
see it in the money-economy,
see it in nutrition-throughout-a-population,
see it in responsible-authority-vs-irresponsible-dictatorship..

The contrast between those 2 graphs is profound,
& those 2 graphs *do* represent a contrast between many many different contrasts,
in many many different domains..

Monarchy, oligarchy, moneyarchy, narcissism, physical-bullying, communist-party-fascism, etc, all want the narrow/tall curve, with them at the top..

---

Oh, there's another dimension which needs to be identified,
xor I'm misinforming..

How much time is there for decision to be earned?

0..infinity, right?

the *less* time for a decision to be earned,
the more-vertical the command-hierarchy needs to be.

This is why military is sooo dang hierarchy-oriented, by default..

You *don't have* time to form committees, to allow them to evolve, to allow them to transform into other-committees, to allow them to eventually come to consensus, in some future-generation..
you need decision NOW, see?

Whereas, the *more* time for a decision to be earned,
the more-horizontal the decision-decider-structure can be,
& generational-consensus is about as horizontal as it can get..

So, the narrow/tall curve can pertain to the wealth-distribution xor to the authority-distribution,
*and they are independent dimensions to consider*.

Also, just because decision-making can be more-vertical doesn't automatically mean fascism:

Leaving piloting-this-jetliner to the certified/authorized pilots is vertical-curve, right?

Meritarchy..

Same with managing ecologies..

Same with any regulating-work or authority..

( Venn diagram intersection: )
Responsibility & competence & authority
need to be unitary!

NEVER divorced..

& the fewer there are, in any domain,
who are simultaneously all-3,
the fewer who ought be deciding, in that domain.

Anyone who betrays 1 of those 3 dimensions,
e.g. by driving/piloting while drunk,
*force-remove them immediately*,
to protect the lives of the rest of the people in the domain, right?

---

Anyways, *in the wealth dimension*,
the horizontal-curve produces a longer-term viability for civilization than does the vertical-curve,
by far,
at cost to all personal-narcissism.

In the decision-making dimension,
the curve needs to fit the context,
& amount-of-time-to-make-the-decision is part of what controls that context.

( as an extreme example,
if a decision can wait 1 century,
then *one hell of alot of education* can happen in the mean time, right?

So, the Competence dimension could get expanded by a factor-of-a-million, among our population, see?

Responsiblity & authority would still need to be tested & sorted,
but time's THE thing which changes the rules of how decisions are made,
among competent people )

---

Salut, Namaste, & Kaizen, eh?

_ /\ _

William Lindsey :toad:

"The choice is stark: We can have billionaires or democracy, but not both, not with these billionaires, not with our current campaign finance laws, and not with our thoroughly corrupt Supreme Court. ...

Every problem we face now—from the climate catastrophe to drilled holes in our safety net to the targeted scapegoating of immigrants and trans kids—is the result of massive concentrations of wealth."

~ Jason Sattler

#wealth #EconomicElites #rich #Trump #Musk
/3

Start by calling Trump's next tax scam a 'billionaire bailout'

We need to make it clear who we're fighting for—and against.

(thecause.substack.com)

Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her)

@wdlindsy this is an excellent, scathing, and damningly true article

lupus_blackfur

@wdlindsy

Can't have both...

And the steal-ionaires obv know this as demonstrated by their prevailing anti-democratic goals.

Robber Barons Unite!! In favor of unfettered capitalism!!

But they're the smarterer... Simply cause they have the money... Even if they didn't make that money themselves...

FFS.

🫏🫏

Sociopathic?

Jackie 🌹

@wdlindsy we don't have a democracy.

We never had a democracy.

At first, it was a slavocracy. Then, it was a white supremacist ethnostate. Now, it is a dictatorship of the billionaire elite.

Peter Butler

@wdlindsy

FYI, @JuliusGoat is on Mastodon and is an excellent follow

William Lindsey :toad:

@peterbutler @JuliusGoat Thank you — yes, I've been following him and agree.

William Lindsey :toad:

@burnoutqueen I think any honest and informed person knows that democracy in the US has been from its inception aspirational and unrealized — and deeply flawed. Facing that, we can either give up the democratic experiement altogether and succumb to authoritarianism, or keep fighting to realize what hasn't yet been realized.

William Lindsey :toad:

@lupus_blackfur Yes, I agree.

William Lindsey :toad:

@susankayequinn I agree!

William Lindsey :toad:

@Paragone Adam Smith created a system that Reagan and his cronies tried to turn into the trickle-down theory. And you're right: does not work.

William Lindsey :toad:

@GreenRoc Yes — many of us stand right with you in this experience and these convictions.