Discussion

fenaer: And yet I feel I always come back to this:_What can I, as an individual, do to counter wealth inequality?_It feels like breaking my fist against a brick wall.

navane: There are very concrete actions an individual can take against wealth inequality of another individual.

HelloUsername: This was flagged in 2021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27145356

Raed667: I was 100% certain that there will be someone: "well actually, its not real money until ..."

bilekas: Well this is motivational /s

niek_pas: There’s not much you _can_ do on your own. Vote, get politically involved on a local level. Try to change people’s minds.

k_kelly: People shaking their fist at this on hacker news is weird.Yes there is growing wealth inequality in the world. Because we invented a way to turn capital in to more capital without humans.Bezos is just the first of many. He also has on average made other people richer than he has pocketed, he doesn't own more than 50% of Amazon, his investors (shareholders, pension funds, the US government) have all done incredibly well out of his vision and enterprise.I love Prime, I love AWS, I love that I can get rare books over night at a great price. Should he be wealth capped? Should he innovate less as he get's more? Not as long as the primary way he makes money is through computers, that would just be self defeating. As someone who lives in Europe, the tech sector is America's growth engine and has defined the gap between the two economies, we'd love a Jeff Bezos.

thousand_nights: i'm kinda jaded because it seems the type of people that get into politics do it to gain money and power.. so voting always feels like picking the lesser of two evils

carlmr: I think idealists often get into politics as well, but they're not cold, calculating and power hungry enough to get into the important positions.

wiseowise: Not saying that you shouldn’t vote or try to change things, but nothing short of starting massive revolution with military insurrection and enforcement is going to change anything.

JuniperMesos: I'd much rather live in a society where Jeff Bezos has more wealth than me and I can buy things on Amazon, than in a society where Amazon no longer functions as a company because it was destroyed by a military insurrection and also the leaders of said insurrection have unequal access to resources compared to most other people (because they're the leaders of a military insurrection; there's not a whole lot of equality in a military)

wiseowise: Supposedly you’ll be at the helm, Lenin style.Also, who said anything about Amazon? Why are you myopic? The whole system is rotten to the core when a single person can make it in a minute more than 99% of world’s population and not use the money to advance the world. And before you mark (ha, get it?) me as a communist – I’m not against wealth and personal ownership. It’s one thing to own a Ferrari and an expensive home, and is another to live in a cookie clicker world watching number go up and doing nothing with it but multiply the money.

haght: Honestly, I don't care how rich the rich are. The thing is, that for most part the poor become richer alongside the rich. Yeah, the gap widens, but what does it matter, if you also become more rich?

SanjayMehta: Human nature is so strange, we always look up at the oligarchs or sideways at the Jones, but we never look at those who are not doing as well as us.

smokel: What you can do depends highly on your skill set, your network, and your willingness to spend effort on this.If you feed this into a decent chatbot, or in an Ask HN, you might be surprised.

ricardo81: So basically the time it takes him to make a cup of tea he's surpassed the net worth of 99% of the world.

ruairidhwm: To be fair, I suspect he doesn't make his own tea xD

glerk: Why don't you start your own Amazon?

Sayrus: Let's assume he does and is very successful, he makes $1T. Then what? Giving it all away won't resolve growing inequalities. Using it to influence medias and politics?

glerk: Oh I thought he was throwing a tantrum because Jeff Bezos has more money than him. You're saying he is throwing a tantrum because Jeff Bezos and some other people other than him don't have the same amount of money.It's like instead of growing out of being a toddler, he just became an oversized toddler who can use language to make himself sound like an adult. Makes total sense.

general_reveal: Tech people don’t believe in God. They just think that wealth was given to them based on their own abilities.Hah. God pulls rugs. He rides a dildo up to space.

ukblewis: I wonder if instead of shaking their fist at the sky in anger with billionaires, we could run influence campaigns to:Collect enough money to run marketing campaigns for billionaires to give more money to charity. (I don’t super trust politicians to tax them more and I am not sure that taxing them would even be effective given that there are always tax havens and loopholes, but persuasion should be possible, not extraordinarily expensive and have a high cost-benefit IMHO)

wiseowise: > Collect enough money to run marketing campaigns for billionaires to give more money to charity.They’ll just counter it with an army of cheap tik tokers portraying you as soyjack and campaign of disinformation.

cronin101: Serious (but not easy) answer: You can move to a different country that more aligns with your moral standings or interests. You're (presumably) a valuable asset that will provide a net-positive contribution wherever you move, and a loss will be incurred when you emigrate.It's a huge undertaking, but you _can_ vote where your tax money gets sent. You can ensure it bootstraps a more equal system instead of propping-up an unequal one.I did this myself, and I feel good about having done it.

iso1631: People argue that UBI means people won't bother to workYet any billionaire can quite happily retire to a private island with every possible need catered for. Want to travel to Japan for a photo, just ask your PA and there's a helicopter waiting taking you to a plane by the time you put your shoes on.Anyone with a wealth of $10m can live the life of a very well paid worker ($500k a year)Anyone with a wealth of $2m can live like the average American.Anyone with a wealth of $500k can live "like a king" in cheaper locations.But people carry on working.

mcsnaj_znqc: So HN is 80% socialist who hates rich successful people and would like to tax the hell out of them.That's depressing and also embarrassing as a fellow dev

altern8: Cool website, but so what..?He risked it all and worked hard to start one of the world's biggest companies, he shouldn't be rewarded for that?I really don't get it.

banach: How much he worked has nothing to do with what he is earning - there are people working three jobs out there who barely make ends meet. The page illustrates the absurd level of inequality our society has reached, a level that pure numbers are useless at illutrating.

erikerikson: Speak for yourself

rglullis: At this scale, it's not about material wealth. It's about power.The issue is not that Jeff Bezos can buy an yacht and you can only buy an used RV for your weekend trips. The issue is that Jeff Bezos can buy a whole newspaper to shape public opinion and decide what laws get passed, and you can do nothing more than write a blog post about it.

altern8: Sure, but the website focuses on material wealth.

asdefghyk: When I was young my family was poor - but I did not know that at the time. I went to school with no shoes until I was about 13 Wore hand me down clothes from my siblings and others. Had jobs in the family business to do when i got home from school. I also did basic food preparation for the family meal at night. Light the wood stove cooking fire, peel some vegetables, cut them up and started cooking on the stove. Hot water for a bath was heated up in a washing machine. When I got older I had to jobs for at least an hour before I went to school. We had a old car that "blew smoke" and had a large rust spot on the boot.However our parents encouraged us to do well at school, always do homework etc. I was probably a bit above average at school, but certainly not at top of class. We also encourage to read books ( of all types) most importantly by personal finance authors and self development books, about how to buy a save , home how to manage money etc. This background and lifeline reading and education have got me out of wealth inequality. I still continue my self education in this field. Its a journey. Took significant effort. SoOme habits die hard, The several cars I have purchased over several decades are always second hand , in good condition at a low price. I just purchased my most expensive car ever, a 2015 Mazda for $15,000 . I still buy my clothes from 2nd hand shops and wear them out. Its certainly not been easy for me, to raise myself in financially level, taken continuous work.

Aeglaecia: I feel like a few people tried recently but they missed

dudefeliciano: so then let's just give up altogether?

wiseowise: And then what? Another bald head will replace them, but this time with an army of peons on their side to protect them president style, because for them it is much easier to buy loyalty of even 1000 men than it is for you to rally people to your cause.

iso1631: Given the number of assassination attempts on Trump, some which got very close, it makes me wonder how effective those peons can actually be.But yes, generally this is how druglords work.

wiseowise: That’s because Trump needs to show his face. If you’re making billions as a CEO you can protect your identity, there are billionaires in Germany that hadn’t shown their faces online in decades.

bell-cot: Start by just attending a some meetings of your local school board, city council, etc. Sit, watch, and maybe take notes. Compare the reality with local press coverage (if any) of it. Try analyzing the social dynamics. Talk to other ordinary citizens about it.If the only people paying real attention to gov't leaders are the greedy and power-hungry, then few decent people will run for office. And very few of those win.

wiseowise: Not only that, but one rotten apple can kill decades of work (see Trump, Putin).

FpUser: Few big dicks take over everything and as the result they buy media, they buy government / laws, and having less and less competition they also have way too much power over the employees. All for convenience of overnight delivery? Are you sure the can not be achieved without Amazon? And what are you going to do if Google, Amazon whatever else controls good chunk of your life cuts you off?No fuck it.

vmaurin: Money is not a good success metric https://ploum.net/2026-01-22-why-no-european-google.htmlBezos is making a lot of money. But it doesn't mean it makes the world better. Prime or AWS can still work fine without having Bezos making tons of money

wiseowise: I’m surprised tech bros still think they have the world by the balls when there’s an existential threat to their career, lol.

altern8: Same here.I don't get the outrage. Our system needs incentives to get people to do great work. If you do one-of-a-kind work, shouldn't you get rewarded proportionally?There is 1 Amazon. It's not easy to create Amazon from scratch.

gambiting: >> If you do one-of-a-kind work, shouldn't you get rewarded proportionally?Are you allowed to think that the reward that Bezos is reaping isn't proportional to his achievements?

altern8: You are.Who should decide what's proportional, though? Should there be a committee that says, Bezos is capped at X billions, and any money he makes after that gets confiscated?

wiseowise: There should be a committee that says if you have wealth in billions you should pay proportionally more in taxes than common populace.

altern8: Why punish success..?

danbruc: Let us ignore the specific case of Jeff Bezos and Amazon, let us look at a generic founder starting a company that turns into a billion or trillion dollar company making the founder a billionaire.The founder founded the company but the billions were earned by the thousands of employees working for the company. The founder alone would not have earned a single dollar without the employees and there would not be a company the be employed by without the founder.If you start a business, you create a company to isolate the business risk from your personal risk, if the business does not work out, the company goes down, the founder should be fine. You will probably risk some of your personal money as a founder in many cases, but how much of a reward do you want for that? If you risk a million and make a billion, is that not more than enough? Did you really start a business where you expected to fail with more than ninety-nine point nine percent?On the other hand, even if the founder would not get an oversized portion of the profit, because that money would get distributed to many employees or many sold products, the effect is relatively small, it would neither make all employees earn millions nor the product significantly cheaper. Bushiness owners making billions is just being in a position where you can take some money from very many others and that adds up.

altern8: Well, my main point was that he started one of the world's biggest companies.How many people can do that? Not me.

gambiting: Sure, but let me ask you this - do you think there should be any limit to how much wealth can one person own? Like, to take it to the extreme - say Bezos owned every single media corporation, evey factory and every farm in the US, buying it with his "hard earned" money - would that be fine? Like, he started one of the world's largest companies, why shouldn't be allowed to own everything, right? What if he(completely legally) starts giving hundreds of millions of dollars to politicans so they just start doing what he wants instead of what their constituents want? Is that ok too?I think we can both agree that hard work and one of a kind achievement like this should be rewarded. But I suspect we will disagree on whether the reward should have a limit or not. I don't want Bezos to give up his wealth and live on 50k/year. But I don't want him to be so wealthy he can influence politics both home and abroad.

altern8: No, there shouldn't be a limit. If there's a limit it means that somebody needs to decide what limit that is, and steal whatever is over the limit by force. I'm for freedom.Should he be able to won every single media corporation? He shouldn't and he can't, because there are laws to protect against monopolies. Same thing for factories and farms.Should he control politicians? No, but in theory people still control politicians since they can vote them out. If there's a problem where politicians are willing to get bribed, perhaps the solution would be to impose more transparency and harsher penalties for that.

TheOtherHobbes: I'd much rather neither, but apparently that's utopian.Dictatorship is an almost inevitable outcome of huge wealth inequality.At the very least political checks and balances erode rapidly, because most politicians, judges, and media people love easy money. If a billionaire throws money at them they'll do whatever they're told to do.There aren't many systems that protect non-compliers from negative consequences when they're surrounded by corruption.

gambiting: I don't know, but societies seem to determine these kinds of things just fine through democratic processes, usually - why is the tax system where I live structured such that everything below 100k is taxed at 40% but everything above is at 60%? How is that any different? These are just numbers we came up with.And yeah, I don't have the answer to what the number is for people like Bezos. Maybe there isn't one - maybe he can own whatever amount of money he likes, but every person with wealth above 1BN is banned forever for making politican donations, either personally or through proxies. Enjoy your life with your hard earned money, do whatever you like - but don't use it to influence politics.Again, I'm not seriously suggesting this - just saying that as societies we determine many things which are right for the greater whole already, why not this? And I really want the answer to be "because we haven't sat down to think about it yet" and not "because Mr Bezos gave us 100M last year for our campaign we so won't be looking into it".

samiv: Won't take long until the apologist come in defending the billionaires, how they create businesses and value and prop up the economy with their spending yadi yadi.When the process that skews the wealth distribution has run this course, the billionaires and their cronies own everything and you have nothing do you think they'll show up to pay your child's education or your health care or your elderly care? They won't.They'll kick you to the curb and remove democracy since any real democracy is a direct threat to them. Then they'll continue their lavish parties on their yachts while you and your family go hungry in the slums.

bpt3: Why are you assuming we're all dependent on the billionaires in the first place?I pay for my child's education and healthcare myself, and expect to continue to so whether Bezos is a trillionaire, a pauper, or anything in between. It ultimately has very little impact on my life.

samiv: It has very little impact on your life... for now. Maybe you're well off for this not concern you but as a direct example how about Amazon warehouse worker who is squeezed so hard for profits that they live in a car, work 7 days a week without healthcare or vacations or anything? Them being poor is what enables jeff to be rich.Generally speaking whether you realize this or not the economic system creates a competition between entities. And larger richer entities will subsume assimilate and destroy smaller entities when they're looking for that eternal growth with fixed resources.The argument to this always is that "it's not a zero sum game". Except that in practice it is. Economies are growing tiny few percent per year perhaps while the rich people are growing their wealth 10-20% per year. This is only possible by changing the wealth distribution making it effectively a zero sum game.That means wealthy individuals will outcompete poorer individuals for all resources such as housing, education, health care. Everything will be used to extract maximum wealth from the society until there's nothing more to take.

wiseowise: > proportionallyWhat is proportional? Shall we crown him god? Allow him to keep slaves? Put him on a pedestal? Do you even know how much is it: a billion? If you strip him off 95% of his wealth, he’ll still have more than you can achieve in your 10 lives. He is disproportionately well compensated.

dudefeliciano: What you are saying is you're happy with a trillionaire class, if it means you can be a millionaire. But then what does being a millionaire mean, if you can't buy a house for a million dollars?

bpt3: Good news, you can buy a house for a million dollars most places in the US, and basically anywhere in the US if you are a millionaire and employed.

dudefeliciano: yes and the trillionaire class is just getting established, let's think about the future just a tiny little bit?

wiseowise: So fuck whoever can’t buy them, right?

dudefeliciano: Taxes are not a punishment, a person earning exponentially more than the average person can also afford to pay more taxes, and it will not even begin to affect their quality of life. How is that so hard to understand?If you don't want to pay taxes i take it you don't want to live in a civilized society, then you are welcome to leave.

bronlund: The word 'made' is a peculiar one. If we are talking about creating value, then the definition of value is also kind of tricky. Does it add anything to the world or does it just move stuff around in a zero sum game.In any case, in my opinion, blaming Bezos for being Bezos, is looking in the wrong direction. The real issue is; who enabled this? And a good place to start, is to look at yourselves in a mirror.We did this. All of us.

Gigachad: That logic falls a bit flat when people like bezos have the ability to pay politicians and buy news orgs to push his way.Bezos and related are personally responsible for creating the system that allows this.

AdamN: What I always find peculiar about this is the wealth disparities even at the highest levels. Andy Jassy for instance, or David Solomon (CEO of Goldman), have less than 1% of the bulge bracket class and certainly have similar work demands and impacts.

maxilevi: It was never about hard work its about who owns the means of production. And it turns out the best way to amass huge amounts of wealth is creating something so you have ownership and working on growing it for decades.Jeff had similar compensation as jassy when he was ceo. It’s just that he is also the owner.

nephihaha: The "means of production" has been one of the clarion calls of Marxism. It is more about who controls those means than who owns them. They can be officially owned by a government (so called public ownership), a co-operative (or "people's committee"), shareholders or a board, but in reality controlled by an individual it or a handful of individuals. That pattern continues after revolutionaries "seize the means of production" as well.

wiseowise: I’m having serious trouble taking your comments as not a trolling attempt.

gambiting: >> If there's a problem where politicians are willing to get bribedThe problem is that bribery is completely legal in the United States, donating money to a PAC is completely legal and without a limit. I'm not talking about money under the table in a suitcase kind of thing - I'm talking about the situations like recent OpenAI donation of $25M to Trump's PAC - do you think after such donation he is more likely to do what OpenAI wants, or what his voters want? It's not even about Trump specifically - the entire American system is structured in such a way that this is allowed, billionaries from both sides donate to politicians to help them win and achieve their goals, this is the real power of the money they make and this is the problem I have with it.>> I'm for freedom.Someone already decides that you pay taxes on the money you make, and presumably will come and take it from you by force if you don't pay - the only difference is the percentage value. Or are you commenting from somewhere that doesn't have a functional tax system?

altern8: Sure, so influencing politics with money should be outlawed (or perhaps it is already..?). Why not.That's not the type of conversations I hear, though (including from you). People always seem to focus on punishing people that are more successful. And that can only happen by force, where somebody has to decide what you can and cannot do and then steal whatever you lawfully earned.

lwroo: Correct. It is not about the gap, it is about the lower end. It needs to be raised. It can only be done with the optimal social programs, not by "eating the rich".

dudefeliciano: Who is skirting taxes and commiting labor law and privacy violations? I did not do this.

general_reveal: ”Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” - ChristYou know, who said our lord doesn’t have a sense of humor? He could have said it any other way lol.I just don’t understand how we can not have a category in the DSM for wealth-fixation, because after … I don’t know, $100m, you have to be mentally ill to even be talking about, let alone pursuing, money. Shout out to Christ for being a radical pioneer on this issue.Tech needs Jesus in ways tech is too corrupted to understand.

kasey_junk: And yet someone much less rich than him has him kowtowing and has caused him to nueter that paper.If the last year has shown me anything, it’s moneys not all it’s cracked up to be on the power front.

dudefeliciano: and a dead guy with much less money and power that the guy you are referring to is still influencing his decisions

tasuki: > Tech needs Jesus in ways tech is too corrupted to understand.Fortunately Peter Thiel is really into Christianity, so we're good!

Garlef: > How many people can do that?The answer is simple: By definition only about 100-300 people.There's only 100 of the "worlds biggest companies" (assuming this refers to the top 100). And companies are usually started by 1-3 people.Similarly: There's usually only 4 participants in the top 4 of a tournament bracket.(The question is a bit: what does "can" even mean in this context and the answer im hinting at here: It's not individual skill that creates companies ex-nihilo. It's our economic system that produces companies.)

HardwareLust: Let's not forget, 50% of that goes to Boobzilla after the divorce.

wiseowise: Are those “poor become richer alongside the rich” in the room with us?https://www.epi.org/blog/wage-inequality-fell-in-2023-amid-a...

lostmsu: > bottom 90% wages have seen just 44% growthFrom the title of your page

wiseowise: > But top 1% wages have skyrocketed 182% since 1979 while bottom 90% wages have seen just 44% growth

bpt3: Think what about it?Is Bezos taking money out of my pocket or preventing me from buying food, shelter, healthcare, or other services I need or want?

butterbomb: > They'll kick you to the curb and remove democracy since any real democracy is a direct threat to them.Not a threat, these people rarely feel truly threatened, but an obstruction.

bpt3: Nope, they can just buy one of the millions of less expensive homes that are available.

bpt3: > how about Amazon warehouse worker who is squeezed so hard for profits that they live in a car, work 7 days a week without healthcare or vacations or anything? Them being poor is what enables jeff to be rich.Amazon warehouse workers are paid enough to afford shelter (especially if they are working 7 days a week), or they are welcome to find a better job.> Generally speaking whether you realize this or not the economic system creates a competition between entities. And larger richer entities will subsume assimilate and destroy smaller entities when they're looking for that eternal growth with fixed resources.Yes, capitalism is competitive; that's the point. If a larger entity can perform better than a smaller one, then the smaller one doesn't need to exist.> The argument to this always is that "it's not a zero sum game". Except that in practice it is. Economies are growing tiny few percent per year perhaps while the rich people are growing their wealth 10-20% per year. This is only possible by changing the wealth distribution making it effectively a zero sum game.It's not a zero sum game, and you just pulled those numbers out of your ass.> That means wealthy individuals will outcompete poorer individuals for all resources such as housing, education, health care. Everything will be used to extract maximum wealth from the society until there's nothing more to take.One person can't consume so much healthcare, shelter, or education that it prevents others from accessing it. Claiming otherwise is absurd.

soerxpso: No it's not. It's based on how much he "made" in the first half of 2020, mostly originating from gains in Amazon's stock, in a period specifically selected to inflate the number. If you actually want to display how much Bezos made since the user opened the page, there are many public APIs to get live stock data and you could show the actual live gain/loss. But that wouldn't really support the point you're trying to make, since there would be days where he actually loses more money than most people ever see.

lostmsu: "become richer alongside" == "become richer too"; by 44% according to your article

SanjayMehta: My father was a refugee who studied under street lights.I sold shaving cream door-to-door to pay for textbooks.I am speaking for myself and others like me.

sph: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”— John Steinbeck

krapp: “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” - LBJIf anyone wonders why class consciousness seems to be impossible in the US, this and the parent comment lay it out. The belief in American exceptionalism and capitalism as a moral force and the defense of systemic racial hierarchies in a low trust society override all other concerns.

Natfan: except for when a hurricane comes, then they will be left to die for "profits"

bpt3: You mean the warehouse that was built to code and was hit by a tornado?Is Bezos supposed to use his billions to build some sort of machine to control the weather?

erikerikson: Now, sure, but you also wrote:> ...we always look up at the oligarchs or sideways at the Jones, but we never look at those who are not doing as well as us.Which uses universal language to incorrectly declare the behavior of all humans. I assumed you were writing in good faith and reporting you find true and in my writing rejecting your claim.Maybe there's no one doing worse than you but I doubt it because here you are, with clear, well written english. Do you not offer them a helping hand?The real problem with your statement is that there are many of us who do look at and after those who are not doing as well as us (and some of those are quite wealthy). A group of us spend every Tuesday to collect food from stores with which to prepare a meal that we send to homeless encampments around town and then serve to anyone who shows up (usually around 100) for dinner. We provide a positive environment, build relationships, and help them to get clothes, toiletries, services, and emergency shelter. I and many others give substantial portions of our incomes to reduce poverty and disease across the world. I have been lucky to write software that has helped resolve the violence of genocide and open source software that has lifted businesses and made starting them more accessible. I have spent the core of my mind's considerations on trying to understand why the world functions as it does and how that can be improved, how we can move the standards higher, and how we can include everyone. In all of this there are many ways I have made decisions that make my wealth less, my comforts lower, and my time and mind more strained but I will not cease and I am not alone.So... When you claim that everyone only looks to those who are doing better I assert that you can speak for yourself. The belief that it's all every person for themselves and dog eat dog is false. It's bad for hope and bad for seeing reality.

keeda: Where do I submit a bug report? AMZN is down 2% today but that number still go up.To be clear, wealth inequality is absolutely one of the most critical social problems today, just that simplistic numbers like this stifle useful discourse.

UncleMeat: Aggregating so much power in a single person is bad for society. It allows individuals to remake institutions.