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Me_irl
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this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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me_irl
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There weren't as many billionaires influencing politicians because there were vastly fewer billionaires, and the value of the dollar was way higher. A 100millionare in the 80's would have, I imagine, had similar influence to today's billionaires.
Hell, Reagan had the "Kitchen Cabinet" that was all wealthy business owners.
Billionaires are a symptom, not the sickness. Yes, we need to rid ourselves of billionaires the way we rid ourselves of the robber barons, but they are not the problem no matter how hard you wish them to be. The problem is the system that allowed them to exist. Rich fucks were always around to exhert influence, but not like this. We had guard rails in place to limit their political influence, to break up monopolies, to set limits on political donations, to set limits on campaign finance, to set limits on media influence, etc.
By all means, break out the guillotine, but you cannot stop there. Saying "billionaire bad" is not enough. You have to have wholesale reform or you are going to end up in the same place, or much worse.
I can't even tell what point you're trying to make anymore...
I genuinely do not understand why my point was so hard to grasp. Billionaires are bad, yes I agree, but billionaires are the end product of a system that allow billionaires to exist. Do not only focus on symptom, focus on the cause.
The problem is unrestricted, unregulated capitalism. Get rid of the top 20 billionaires and others will take their place, just as bad or maybe worse. Regulation goes a long way to addressing many of the problems we are seeing in our world today. Is it the only solution? Definitely not, but having had most regulation gutted (started in the 80s and just getting more hamstrung from there) has escalated the problem immensely. Reintroducing strong business regulation is a good start because, contrary to what a lot of you all are hoping for, most folks aren't ready to seize the means of production and make a wholesale change to a socialist utopia.
Yes but the point is that billionaires/the 1% has been pushing the system that way. It didn't come out of thin air.