• unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You are not understanding.

      The risk is artificial.

      Those who have the most wealth, the most capital, are not facing risk, compared to everyone else. Someone who has $10 billion in assets and loses $2 billions has not lost in the same way as a poor person who loses a car. The billionaire is completely insulated from the precarity faced by most of the population, because the billionaire privately controls the vast wealth of society. The losses suffered by the billionaire owe to the instability of the business and the business cycle, not to the trials of life.

      Those who are most wealthy face the least risk, and in fact impose the genuine risk on everyone else.

      If control over capital were shared, then no one would be precarious, nor need to use a home as collateral for a loan.

        • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You are being incredibly dishonest.

          You mentioned Elon Musk.

          I simply observed that most of the capital is owned by a tiny cohort of society. Small businesses, especially businesses worth approximately the same as a house, comprise a relatively small valuation of capital (which is not the same as the number of businesses, or the number of jobs).

          There is no reason why economic activity needs to be tied to someone risking becoming homeless. Such a relationship is a consequence of the system, the way that wealth is hoarded by the few and made available to the rest only under conditions that serve the private interest of the wealthy. A different system would not need to carry the same feature.

            • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              How did you prove that ownership of capital in terms of its valuation is not extremely heavily concentrated?

              You only gave the statistics relating to the count of small business and jobs in them.

              One business can be worth more than a thousand others.

              I suggest you review statistics on wealth distribution in various countries. Learn how much wealth as a share of the total is owned by various cohorts, and investigate questions such as how many individuals own half the wealth.

                • bane_killgrind@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  Elon has a lot of wealth. That doesn’t stop me from having lots of wealth.

                  Economies of scale mean that Walmart out-competes local small business general supply stores, and the corporate profits are then taken out of the community instead of being spent locally. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/walmart-effect.asp#:~:text=Walmart’s%20insistence%20on%20procuring%20products,choose%20to%20sell%20through%20Walmart.

                  So one party having a lot of wealth absolutely impedes other parties accruing wealth.

                  You are being evasive and dishonest.

                  • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Indeed. The narrative being presented is that people are shopping regularly, and obtaining most goods and services, at small businesses whose owners have listed their homes as collateral, in order to contribute generously to their communities.

                    It is a fantasy.

                    Neither the owners of big box retailers, or the owners of banks that are giving loans to new businesses, are “taking all the risk”.

                    Life is good if have hoarded capital, and the reason is because everyone else depends on it to survive.

                  • Neuromancer@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    I am not evasive at all. You’re not poor because Elon has billions. That is a tough cookie for some people to swallow.

                    If you want to end people like Zucker, stop using facebook. If enough people stop using it then he will lose billions.