What are the best steps to reduce the wealth of billionaires?

Tax the income of corporations not the profit. The same way you get taxed your VAT. That means that corporations can't tax evade: if they make income in a country, they get taxed. They can't go an declare the profit in the Netherlands or Ireland and skip paying taxes.

Create and use parallel institutions to allow society to thrive without needing to play the billionares economy game. Example: communication tools outside of a market involvement such as Lemmy, Element (matrix). Economy tools. Association tools. See the application of Dual Power by socialists, which is what you are proposing here, a redistribution of power and wealth.

Vote for those pushing for these.

Step 1: Slay the dragon.

Step 2: Redistribute its mountain of gold back into the community.

The last step into the guillotine generally does the trick.

A wealth tax does seem warranted for billionaires. I don't like the idea of taxing something inert but honestly that's how they make money. They borrow against thousands of shares at a time and pay zero taxes on the loan.

"billionaires" wouldn't be so bad if they just:

• paid the taxes expected, with no shenanigans

• were obligated to activate their cash in the economy. No hording, get that cash moving through the economy.

Through force.

The system is well and truly rigged, that there is no option for “democratic” means to counter it.

You don't need to do anything fancy, just make them pay taxes. No loopholes, no moving your money to tax havens, accurate income calculations taxed correctly, gangs of auditors making sure it happens.

If we're using history as a metric...

Guillotines.

Unapologetically behead every last one of them.

Lol you can delete our posts all you want.

The answer is unanimous. it doesn't need to be written down. We all know the answer:

G U I L L O T I N E S .

we should just Go aroUnd acting lIke they are the best ever Landlords on the pLanet and there is nOthing unusual abouT them beIng the oNly people on earth familiar with thE concept of happiness, right fellow captive serfs?

Education. Until the masses realize the tricks being used on them, we can redistribute all we want and it will still all funnel up to the top again.

Nearly all billionaires have unrealized wealth, meaning they own a large percentage of a giant corporation (ie Bezos, Musk). So taxing them for money they don’t really own won’t work. But there is a better solution.

There are 38 companies in the US whose yearly revenue is greater than 100 BILLION dollars. In fact, the total amount of revenue over 100 billion for these companies combined is a bit shy of the US government yearly budget.

No company needs to revenue that much. Tax the revenue (ie 5%) over 100 billion revenue. This has the added benefit of helping to prevent monopolies and “too big to fail”.

Here is the list and revenue in case you think these companies don’t need to be taxed lol. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_in_the_United_States_by_revenue

Edit: Extra easter egg: The tax rate that you set could be changed each year to meet the amount of the federal deficit (ie the amount the government "overspends"). This would have the added advantage of limiting excessive government spending because politicians would have to explain to the largest corporations why they are spending their money. And you get a guaranteed balanced budget every year!

Guillotines

Eat them

Shop local.

Oh, yeah...and guillotines.

Tax any loans using stocks as collateral. If they try to hide their wealth through an LLC, subject that LLC to a high wealth/business tax as well. Go full scorched earth on all billionaires.

So many thoughts on this. I'll try to parse some out, one post at a time.

Part of the problem is the standard of legality. Late-stage capitalism is defined by the state serving the ownership class rather than the public. It's why the state cares very little about wage theft, or addicts dropping dead from opioid overdose, or homeless freezing to death in sub-zero Minnesota but are arresting immigrants who are otherwise well-behaved (and paying their taxes) or raiding repair shops that fix iPhones without an Apple authorization. It's why media agencies are so worried about piracy even as they try to lay off their development teams if they can be replaced with AI software.

Laws and the legal system work for the ownership class, not the public. Any legal efforts to strip billionaires of their wealth, or even reduce their profits is going to quickly get neutered. This is why the protections afforded by the fourth, fifth and sixth amendments of the Constitution of the United States have been thoroughly gutted with carve-outs. It's why asset forfeiture is not only a thing, but takes more from Americans than burglaries.

And this is why law enforcement is already attacking mutual aid organizations based on licensing issues, because it's not actually illegal but facilitates other threats to the ownership class, such as labor actions. There is no rule of law in the US. Your rights go only as far as your lawyer's means to enforce them, and if you're depending on a public defender, they just don't have the time or funding.

The ownership class will (according to Marx) tremble before a communist revolution because we will have ruled out all other alternatives, though we may try a fascist autocracy and a massive genocide machine to dispose of all the underclasses, first.

And that's the problem. The Holocaust was legal too. Leaving workers hungry and cold to the elements during the Great Depression was totally legal, and at the time communism as per the Soviet Union was looking pretty good to those of our great grandparents who weren't Carnegie or Rockefeller. This is not our first rodeo. What the state likes (id est, what is legal ) is not a fair moral standard. Nor is what religious ministries like (id est, what is sin ). We have to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong, and if we're willing to die for our pacifistic standards when law enforcement decides we are intrinsically unlawful

This is why some are arguing the climate crisis warrants resorting to violent sabotage (say, blowing up oil pipelines) since the alternative is to let industry pollute us to global catastrophic risk (of extinction). If you want a sustainable civilization, if you want wealth and power distributed fairly, if you want a public-serving government, then you're going to have to give up on lawful action. And if you want to stay within the confines of law, you'll have to give up on equality, a functional state or a future.

Separate them from their heads. And wealth.

An upper income cap for individuals AND corporations. $250 million for individuals, $250 billion for corps. 90% taxes on revenue over $1 million. Tax idle stock at 1% per share, per quarter.

Unions.

Anti trust enforcement.

You know what's free?

SHAME. Shame these selfish fucks every fucking second they are in the public. I want to see a 4 year old give musk the finger. I want to hear a 7 year old shout "SELFISH CUNT" at bezos. I want everyone they interact with who's not on their payroll to roll their eyes and say "oh no everyone watch out, mr "I need to horde billions" is here. What do you fucking want?"

invective has always been a valuable tool against the arsehole polity.

Taxation (also unlikely)

I think this is the most feasible way, and it work relatively well in other Western countries than the US. They still have billionaires, but fewer due to higher taxation. If put in place through referendum, it also creates a basis for societal approval of stripping very wealthy people of their excess wealth, lowing the risk of widespread revolt.

Immediate impact:

• wealth tax.

Medium term:

• death tax.
• nonprofit land developments.
• redefinition of the goal of a public corporation from maximizing profit for shareholders to something that makes sense.

Long term:

• effective antitrust legislation, policy, and enforcement.
• worker owned co-ops
• civic education

Edit: I forgot unions and labour protection in immediate impact.

Convince them to take a trip to see the Titanic...

Voluntary donation or renunciation of wealth past a certain point (highly unlikely) Taxation (also unlikely) Seizing assets (illegal and would most likely set a poor precedent)

Part of the issue is that they see those as more or less the same thing.

As far as I'm concerned, taxation is the answer. Brackets seem to work pretty well. The issue is tax havens. Here in Norway, the current government raised taxes a bit on the wealthy, as one would expect going from a conservative liberal bunch to a center-left-ish one. A bunch of wealthy people promptly took their ball and fucked off to Switzerland, after bitching and posturing and whining in public, eagerly helped by the news media.

Unfortunately it seems that while I consider this obviously selfish parasitism, a lot of people... don't. After all if you're rich, surely you deserved it(!)

Guillotines > Taxes

we need to change the parameters of success.

the current "world's richest persons" list is actually the "world's greediest persons" list. we need to all start calling it exactly that. we need to, as society, understand that having those levels of wealth is more a symptom of a sick and twisted mind rather than a consequence of "business acumen".

the world's richest persons list should be recalibrated to what percentage of one's income has been given away in taxes and donations. think about it, if you can indulge in all your necessities, comforts, and luxuries on 10% of your income and still afford to give away the other 90%, are you not 9 times "richer" than you need to be?

separately, any company that turns an obscene profit has done so only by overcharging their customers. these companies should be vilified therefore, and not celebrated.

The best steps would be the ones taking them to the guillotine

All the people saying taxes or caps on income are missing the point. Who should impose those taxes or caps? The government is basically controlled by billionaires, it doesn't matter what the ordinary citizens want.

behead them with guillotines

I don’t think the crazy taxes need to be on obscene wealth itself, but on the very lavish and wasteful things people do with that wealth, things that have a very real impact to the rest of society.

For example, private jets or even private chartered flights should have some very steep taxes to offset the cost of all the FAA employees and stuff at all the small airports, all the carbon emissions, and everything.

Yachts, and very large properties also come to mind. Like total square feet of living space of all real estate owned - once it crosses like 10,000 sq ft the annual taxes just get higher and higher. For example 10k-20k sq ft costs $1/sq ft annually, 20k-40k costs $5/sq ft, etc.

The one i can think of and will work if everyone wasn't so wimpy is boycotting everything they sell . Like never buying anything from amazon even if the alternative costs you 10x , and not buying teslas even if they are the best cars around (they aren't) etc. etc . In conclusion if we refused to buy anything any billionaire is selling their stock will crash and burn and i don't think any of them have enough braincells at this point to turn it around.

Remember that company that made the base pay $70,000 for everyone. News was predicting (hoping) they would fail in a year. They didn't, and big surprise, they have amazing staff retention. We need more companies like that. Places that pay well where people want to work. They would eventually pull away all the talent from the horde companies and shut them down. It would be a long fight, but glorious to see the workers sip tea and watch their old companies fail. This is how you beat the current system, by making egalitarian companies that can actually compete with them, where people are proud to work and get paid a living wage.

Since this is AskLemmy, perhaps Lemmy should answer you.

Meat grinder

No need, I've been hearing that it's good when they get all the money shoved at them BECAUSE, and hear me out now, they may or may not choose to maybe trickle some of the wealth they don't obsessively hoard or burn on pleasure trips into space back onto the population.

They're bound to start doing that aaaaaany decade now...

To help our poor billionaires I will take one for the team and help them reduce their burden, for a small administrative fee, I will take ownership of 10% of their fortune, I'd imagine there are several other people who gladly would agree to help in slmilar ways.

Honestly? Nothing can be done short of violent revolution. The rich control the government and the government controls us. Voting is lauded as the common person's chance to have their voice heard, but it's a gerrymandered mess. The politicians are all liars who just want in for clout, power and money. It's a perfect system of control down to even allowing us right now to freely talk about it because they know we're too scared, too fat and too distracted to make any real change. We're prisoners here.

A recent study has shown there is little increase in happiness beyond $500,000 in annual earnings. Based on that I suggest a cap of $500k per year or $50 million lifetime earnings.

The former would be for most people, the latter is for movie stars or athletes who might have a few very high earning years and love off them the rest of their life.

Labor organizing, laws, and taxes. Same way we got what we have now but the work isn't done.

I hear what you're saying. I don't see the methods you listed working under our government as our system has this flaw where the laws enforced tend to depend on which party is in charge.

That being said, organize your workplace. I'm personally fond of the Industrial Workers of the World as we are the only union that has an anticapitalist stance and our industrial organizing methods make it harder for employers to create division amongst the workers of a workplace (ie: separate unions for school teachers and school maintenance staff).

To answer the question in terms of things you personally can do, I think the boring and realistic answer is to research organizations who align with your goals and who you think have effective methods, and get involved with them.

Personally I like represent.us - They're specific to the US, but their idea is to put anti-corruption laws into place that help remove the influence of money on the government. This would help get laws passed that favor everybody instead of just the rich. Their approach is to begin at the local level and get enough momentum for a national movement to have some power.

Here are a couple of videos they made, first about what the problem is, and second about how they are trying to solve it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A

Since force is a clear crowd favorite: What would that look like? Angry mod surrounds home of billionaire and guillotines them on their lawn? According to Forbes there are currently 735 billionaires. That might take some time.

Trick them into making poor investments.

Taxes! But different. This channel is very informative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEdx1BIb1x0

The first Episode of Sabrina Live! is called How the Rich Don't Pay Taxes. All the rich need to do is use three simple steps: "Buy, Borrow, Die." In this episode, Rich Kid attempts to buy a $50 video game after purchasing a $1 Pokemon card. He then leaves his Pokemon card to his son - Rich Kid II.

www.peoplestaxpage.org.

So for practical matters:

Lobbying takes time and effort, but it can be effective if done resiliantly.

Find out who in your local community has money and power. Find issues to reach out to other people and politicians on. Maybe there is a new school that would need to be build, butthe guy holding the land refuses to sell at a fair rate? Maybe there is an elderly women being kicked out of her house?

One problem is people havinga detached and abstract idea of super rich people and dont see how their immediate lifes are affected for the worse by it.

There is many people who look into the big picture, like we saw with the Panama papers and other investigative journalism. Did anything tangible come out of it? Why not? I think it is because people are not demanding for it politically. It is some abstract accepted injustice.

But through local action you can steer your community and by this you can force your political representative to adress these issues. That also means looking into the way they voted on issues and holding them accountable. Imagine they voted against an education spending bill and the next week there is a "moms for education" protest in front of his local office and it is all over local news.

Apply the pressure from the bottom up. No billionaire cares what John Doe from Springfield thinks. But they care what congress thinks. And congress cares what the members think. And the members care, what their electorate thinks. And that is where you, or everyone really, can make a difference.

Make wealth hoarders fear for their lives

Honestly I think the best means for changing things is right under our noses: voting. Not just federal, but also state and local. As it is now, in most places tax cuts that flow mostly to the wealthy are still a great political move that's an easy way to get votes. That's the first thing that needs to change.

There's all kinds of groups like the Center for Tax Reform and the US Chamber of Commerce that push for policies that tend to increase financial inequality - but as far as I know there isn't one for reducing inequality. Given how many people recognize the problem, maybe there should be one. And then politicians can start to fear that group as much as they fear the others. Of course it won't have a lot of wealthy donors, but as some politicians have shown small donations can do a lot.

Yes, yes. Guillotines. Come on, do you really think that could happen? I just don't think it is realistic.

After the recent news of several billionaires asking to be taxed more that seems like the most realistic and viable to redistribute some of the wealth. I think you could probably get unions and democrats (leverage ALL existing organizations) to help lobby for some sort of "patriotic wealth tax" or however you wish to spin it. Start small to get it established and then keep lobbying to increase it.

I would recommend staring with a tax on income (ANY income with NO deductions) over $1M/year, maybe 10%. And then tax anyone's assets over $1bn at 2% every 5 years. Then keep changing those numbers to increase the revenue.

Lol

Permanently Deleted

Focus on making the poor people richer instead. Then you’ll realize things are going pretty good.

Shoot them, at the very least if it happened regularly enough they'd increase spending on security thus parting with money. And if it was successful they'd leave an inheritance, unlikely to one person butif they do you just go back around.

Do it yourself, coward

I don't think movements succeed based on being organized. I think the core factor is people having nothing to lose.

Execute all the billionaires, starting at the top. Continue until the desired number of billionaires is reached.

Hypothetically.

2nd amendment

Guillotines. No, seriously: Long process. First step is ignoring them. Totally and ultimately. Second step: Tax 'em. You wanna live in a civilized environment - you pay. For others. You flee ? Wanted list. Losing citizenship. Step three: If it doesn't pay taxes, it pays with property. In short: hold them accountable, to the end. And when they lived for a few months on their super yacht in international waters, baking and shaking, they'll get miserable. There's a legitimate chance they buy their own country and then they walked into the trap. Imagine that: billionaires that are forced to deal with all the other ego junkies and maniacs: 'dis gon be gud!

They wouldn't exist if the currency wasn't worthless, maybe linking cash to reality again would fix it? The real terms richest man corrected, even today, was a Roman so just get us back on gold.