Yeah, I escaped communism as a child, so please excuse my potential bias. While I think that pure libertarians are just as silly as pure socialists, I do believe in the benefits of a well regulated market economy.
If the market economy indicates that a dev with particular skills can be paid even 10M per year, then heck yes. Good for them. If the companies who hire these devs could not pay that, then the market for them would not exist. They could, and conspired not to. This is why they settled the case.
I don't get this, why? Because I exist I deserve equal money as everyone else?
If I do succeed I will definitely buy toys (fast cars) but yeah I will help, as there is a cap to minimum needs. Also I don't like being a target eg. stealth wealth they say that I'm currently far from.
Alright then, if you absolutely must have a society were people get paid 10M a year, then let's agree to pay all cleaning staff, hospital staff, garbage collectors etc etc 10M and the rest gets enough to live a decent life. How about that?
Why, it's merit. A CEO can affect 20,000 people's lives/jobs.
Anyway I'm not trying to argue this. I do believe billions is excessive in money to have and also understand it's not liquid. But yeah I think I gotta get there, maybe I too will be an aho with that much money.
Even the small amount in comparison that I give away I have this feeling of "mine", why should I? (I have given away at least $70K to my own siblings)
Edit: I'm a mediocre person mentally so I doubt I'll get too high but I can get my fun cars they're under a million the ones I want. I have started to want land more than a car though, you can hit 200mph under $100K
Edit: I'm also a nice/meek person maybe that is why I'm poor ha
There just aren't that many countries that ever claimed to be communist.
You speak like a privileged person, so you're probably born somewhere in the western world. Judging from the current time, I'd say Europe. My guess is your parents left socialist (i.e. not communist) Eastern Germany when you were little and you keep telling people that this was your great escape from communism ever since.
Let us avoid the personal, and entirely inaccurate personal attacks on myself.
Instead, let's focus on openly provable facts:
> There just aren't that many countries that ever claimed to be communist.
Are you denying the agency of Russia, Cuba, China, and Vietnam as a few examples?
Are you telling me that these countries did not at one point, and most even today, declare themselves as "communist?" It's amazing how privileged you are to deny factual history. [0]
To be honest, I feel that you are agreeing with me that "communism" is just some theoretical panacea, as is "libertarianism." Both theoretical concepts which only ever existed in minds of true-believers, and nowhere else.
> Are you telling me that these countries did not at one point, and most even today, declare themselves as "communist?" It's amazing how privileged you are to deny factual history.
Many nations "declare" to be something they're not. North Korea is officially "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", for example.
Are we now going to evaluate how viable democracy is as a concept by looking at North Korea, simply because they call themselves democratic, or are we first going to analyze their actual political system to determine whether they're actually democratic?
I understand what you are getting at, however, your argument appears to fall into a logical fallacy under the category of "tu-quoque," sub-category "whataboutism." [0]
Instead of arguing against my point, you have raised another slightly related issue, as a deflection. Please address my initial argument.
While we ponder these significant issues, let's watch and listen to the most freedom-loving opening ceremony in modern Olympic history. This was a prescient broadcast to the entire world. (2024) [1]
That's not what whataboutism is. I don't care about democracy in North Korea for the sake of this argument, I'm just using it as an obvious example to illustrate the flaw in your own reasoning process, which boils down to: Just because a state claims to be communist, democratic, or something else, doesn't mean that it actually is.
It's even more disingenuous to try to use these inaccurate self-assigned labels as a way to discredit ideas those labels represent, but that's getting off topic.
Ok then. Let's get back to the original statement.
I accept that countries can call themselves whatever, and it's not accurate.
In that case, has there ever been a communist country? Is communism anything aside from a theoretical panacea, just like "free market" libertarianism? Has any country ever been either pure extreme? If not, what would you call them? Give me a few examples please.
I am not being snarky. I really want us all to get on the same page.
If the market economy indicates that a dev with particular skills can be paid even 10M per year, then heck yes. Good for them. If the companies who hire these devs could not pay that, then the market for them would not exist. They could, and conspired not to. This is why they settled the case.