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- Hacker News
- The very rich have forgotten the lessons of the past.
They have forgotten that they also live in the very same physical world as the poor. Most of them don't even live that far from the poor.
Perhaps they don't consider the implications that nobody can fight a mob.
If they were as smart as they want people to think, they would think about these things and perhaps shut up (at least in public!) about making things worse for the poor.
by runako - It's an interesting idea only if you've never studied how democracy came to be.
The best definition of democracy that I've ever heard is that democracy is war by other means.
When you take away someone's right to vote, or make their vote less important than someone else's, you take away the only non-violent means they have to affect change.
Democracy is an agreement to put aside our weapons and resolve conflict peacefully. Take that away and you end up with violent revolution.
- Shouldn't it be the reverse? The vote of people who earn less (and are therefore more disadvantaged in society and rely on fair laws the most) should count more.
Tax and "money paid to the system" is a red herring only an entitled super rich person would think is relevant.
by tpoacher - Lutke is a German who has lived in Canada for decades. Why comment on American tax policy ? Seems out of his lane .by jchallis
- Oh boy! Can I play too? My system, which I call an expansion of antitrust, requires all people to keep their net worth under one billion dollars. Anyone approaching that number must give away assets to stay under. If you go over that, you must be broken up, by, say, beheading, or being drawn and quartered.
I'm not married to that number, if people think it should be half a billion, or 100 million, or whatever, I'll go along with it.
- > A reply from “Eric Thor,” who claimed to be a retired banking executive as well as “armchair economist and policy wonk,” proposed a sliding scale: zero votes for anyone who pays no income tax, one vote for those earning $1–100K, two votes for $100–200K, scaling up in that pattern to a hard cap of five votes for anyone earning $500K or more.
hell yeah, dude, I LOVE that I can lose my health insurance if my manager's manager decides he doesn't like the cut of my jib. Why shouldn't I lose my right to vote, too?
by pavel_lishin - The thing about this that's so distasteful is that it removes the basis of enfranchisement from being the inherent worth of a human life and moves it more to "what have you done for me lately". It's pretty gross.by taybin
- > one that would strip voting rights from anyone who pays no income tax
It could be an interesting thought experiment to consider the second and third order consequences, even if, from first principles this is a non-starter in a democratic society.
First off all, what percent of people do not pay any taxes on income? What portion of them are poor vs. hedge fund managers or other super wealthy people who have structured their income in a way as to pay zero or near-zero income taxes? Would the latter be disincentivized from continuing those regimes?
Regardless, if you work at Shopify, you should consider quitting. You do not have to work for a crazy person like that.
by andsoitis