technocritWe Desperately Need Maximum Wage Laws
owenfromcanadaThe solutions aren’t complicated. What’s complicated is getting the solutions implemented when enough representatives are bought out by the wealthy.
Even simpler. If one’s wealth exceeds some function of GDP, the law no longer protects them.
As much as that appeals to some part of me deep down, those are the tactics being employed right now against vulnerable people in the US. If the law doesn’t protect everyone, it doesn’t protect anyone.
And honestly, I think the wealthy are more threatened by taxes than by having to hire their own protection.
I get that, but I don’t think they deserve the same protections as the vulnerable. The vulnerable cannot easily change their situation. The wealthy can. Beyond that, their cost to society is much much worse.
I don’t think they deserve it either. But when I advocate for due process and humane conditions for the worst people, it’s not for their sake–it’s for everyone else’s.
As soon as there is some class of people who are not protected by law or due process, it can easily be weaponized against the more vulnerable, even if that wasn’t the original intent.
For example, right now in the US, the government is denying due process to “illegal immigrants.” Doesn’t seem like a problem for anyone here legally, right? Except that without due process, what’s stopping them from throwing lawful residents into a van and hauling them away? They don’t get due process to prove their innocence. So anyone can now be defined as “illegal” and deported without any due process or recourse.
Lawfulness is for the vulnerable, even when applied to the less vulnerable.
I’m saying it isn’t a class of people that is not of their own volition. It could be looked at as similar to choosing the class of rapist or other criminal. By choosing to allow your wealth to exceed this point, society has deemed you to be in violation of the law; due process intact. You are therefore, no longer protected by the police, fire departments, emergency rooms, etc. It is one of the primary roles of society to determine what is acceptable and what is not.
I’m not sure what purpose revoking law has on anyone, including this group. In fact, the wealthy is often the group who advocates for privitization of these services, as they’re the only ones who can afford to pay for them out of pocket. Seems like an inconvenience at most.
If you want to make excessive wealth illegal, I’m all for that. But that’s not removing legal protections, it’s allowing the people to prosecute and reclaim wealth from those hoarding it, which seems more productive for what you’re trying to achieve.
If tomorrow’s wealth will exceed that cap, I’d like to see today’s priority be offload that money at all cost. That’s really all I’m suggesting with a partly tongue in cheek suggestion of making it scary to cross that line. But the point is simply to make a person approaching that line feel that getting rid of money with a quickness is integral to their wellbeing.