Elon Musk’s bid to take over Twitter is worrying users, employees, and shareholders. Social media has already returned us to the Tower of Babel, so I suppose one could argue that Musk can’t make things much worse.
But the billionaire’s grab for the bullhorn did get me thinking about wealth, power, and what we can do to keep those things from concentrating in too few hands. We tax wealth in part to redistribute money and the power and opportunity money brings its holders. We break up monopolies to prevent oligarchs from dominating markets, gouging consumers, and stifling competition.
What if we limited power by limiting how many companies one person can control?
Democracy depends on our having no master but ourselves. It depends on the government we create (the government that we are) always being just a little more powerful than any one individual or group or conglomerate so the government can protect our civil and economic liberties from selfish bullies. If one person amasses too much wealth or controls too many companies or resources, that person could flex that economic muscle, flout the law, and harm society for his own gain. The liberty one man enjoys in owning and operating multiple powerful corporations could cause many other people (workers, labor activists, entrepreneurs…) to lose liberty of expression and action. Just as we check and balance the branches of government, we check and balance the power of individuals with the power of the people, expressed through government, to prevent corruption and exploitation and maximize liberty for all.
So how about a power tax? Tax Elon Musk and the rest of us on the first company we own, operate, and make money on at the standard tax rate. But double the tax rate on the second, triple it on the third. Maybe cap the number of companies individuals can control and make money on: own and control however many companies you think you can handle, but your tax rate on company #2 and beyond will be 100%.
Of course, if we base such a power tax on the number of companies, Musk could formally merge Tesla, SpaceX, and later this month Twitter into one company (Musk Ox? MusKontrol? MuskE, with E for Everything?). Money is power, so maybe we need to tie the power tax to each company’s revenues. Perhaps one company can become too big—i.e., generate too much revenue, exert too much power—to be run by one person. Generate a certain amount of revenue, exert a certain amount of power over a certain number of workers and consumers and the marketplace overall, and a power tax—or, now, a power cap—could say your company can no longer be privately held (as Musk would do with Twitter). Control and ownership of the biggest companies would have to devolve to shareholders, and no shareholder would be allowed to own anything close to a majority of shares.
Taxes and regulations are all about balancing liberties, making sure that no one person becomes too powerful and unfairly constrains everyone else’s liberties. If one guy controls the companies that make your electric car, provide your satellite Internet, and connect you with news and community discourse, that one guy has a lot of power over you as a consumer and over all the workers making those goods and services. Maybe he’ll use that power for good, but maybe he won’t—and in a democracy, we don’t just let power fall into a few hands and hope that power doesn’t corrupt without putting in place some checks on that power.
Maybe let Musk buy Twitter… but tax the Twit out of him if he does.
According to most, Musk doesn’t have $43b in cash. Look at the damage the Kochs have done to democracy, what Bezos has done to retail and what Faceberg has done to divide the world into the bad and ugly. Letting racist white men control the planet is a deadly concept, indeed.
Corporate feudalism with Elon Musk at the helm. With a platform like Twitter, and Elon letting Trump back on, kiss this democracy goodbye.
Oligarchs are bad for freedom and democracy – whether in Wichita, Moscow, or Austin.
Parties that pander to oligarchs are bad for democracy – whether republican, russian (but I repeat myself), or democrat.
Corporations are NOT people. The number of companies (fake/pretend people) is not the real issue.
So long as the sanctions he receives are less than the profits he rakes in via stock manipulation, he has incentive to continue the bad behavior. Either the SEC starts showing some teeth, or he will continue to run roughshod over their feckless regulatory whining.
In South Dakota capital punishment is a spectator sport costing taxpayers millions every year. Instead of spending a lifetime in Hell the state drags death row inmates through torture then finally liberates them by lethal injection.
The state is second in addiction to gambling and teachers’ salaries are 51st in the nation. Wage slavery is the state’s biggest claim to fame and South Dakota dairies are wreaking habitat havoc. Infrastructure is crumbling and the state’s bureaucracy is overbearing and unwieldy. Ag groups want federally subsidized crop insurance and the right to pollute. Corruption and graft are commonplace.
Pollution from industrial agriculture has made waterways poisonous, the state has no modern statute addressing financial assurances for pipeline leaks. Trophy fishing for threatened species is a tourist activity. East River, South Dakota is a dead zone. Racism is epidemic.
Habitat destruction, lapses in ethics, crime spikes, increased incarceration rates, more people infected with sexually transmitted diseases, the failure of prisons, human trafficking: all mark the terms of Republican governors in South Dakota, ad nauseam, ad infinitum.
Richard Schriever, remember Mitt Romney? google it
“A corporation is a ‘person’ in the eyes of the law. A corporation functions in the same manner as a person and has the same rights and responsibilities as a person. The corporation may make contracts, assume liabilities, sue and be sued. The corporation and its shareholders and directors have specific duties and obligations to each other.”
Do we want the Musks of the world defining the First Amendment and allowing an anything goes platform? We already have enough of that on Facebook and Fox News. What is truth? Should this be left to the billionaire Republicans to decide, many of whom are anti science with their heads in centuries past?
It doesn’t take a genius to see the patterns of our economic and political institutions becoming less developed and headed toward corporate feudalism. I don’t care if some of you don’t like the theory but in many developed countries, unlike ours, the wealthy are taxed and pay a fair share. Why do you think so many of the filthy rich live in the U.S.?
So many big corporations fight unions, work the U.S. laborer longer hours than in other developed countries and many don’t pay overtime or offer benefits. And don’t get me started on the topic of vacation or maternity leave.
I vote to limit Musk and his buddies in whatever they do to influence who runs this country and how it’s run.
You know Larry Kurtz, a long time ago a writer for the Argus Leader wrote a story about a kin of his who was executed for a crime he didn’t commit. Another person confessed on his deathbed. You should look it up.
Cory, you should read Jeffersons letter to Adam’s about preventing what are now called Oligarchs from developing in this county. Jefferson proudest achievement was what Republicans now call the death tax. Noem should read that, right Ian Fury?
Might be a stretch to expect Noem to actually read anything not off a teleprompter.
A DeSantis/Noem presidential ticket is a Disney World ride into red state oblivion, for sure.
Happy Easter, Lar. Tomorrow we feast on eggs and bacon.
Yes. I support term limits for officeholders and I support some sort of limits on the Corporate Lords.
Corporations are indeed legal entities, and Mr. Pay is distressed he can’t dictate how other fellows live their lives.
We can all set up our own Wisconsin-based corporations at this blue link.
https://www.incfile.com/form/wisconsin-llc
Grudz, you are correct. Corporations are legal entities. We the people allow corporations to exist under the terms we have set. At present, we allow corporate entities to run all over us. We can always reset those terms. This has been done repeatedly during our history. See the linked article below for how our nation started out limiting corporate power, and making them perform for the public, not private, good.
https://hbr.org/2010/04/what-the-founding-fathers-real.html
Corporations feed politicians and the politicians feed the corporations. It has become the American way
as democracy teeters on the edge of an abyss. Me thinks grdz plans on being part of the aristocracy.
Dicta suggests that Musk is a prime example of the sort of bully our government must remain big enough to check. Does the SEC lack the regulatory power to crack down on Musk’s abuses? Is Musk scaring them away from using the regs they have to rein him in because he can afford enough lawyers to male enforcement jot worth the SEC’s while?
Whichever the case may be, Musk shows us why we need a big, scary government, one which no bad guy, no matter how rich and brazen, can single-handedly defy. Tax his wealth, tax his power, cut him down to size so he has to follow the rules just like the rest of us.
The future threat comes from autocrats who know how to manipulate social media, not stifle it. The first of those to emerge will be truly dangerous and terrifying — even more so than an aging sideshow clown who once anchored a network entertainment show and an aging ex-KGB officer who resorts to elaborate Cold War stunts to stifle the opposition.
But as long as there are despots, there will be journalists trying to expose them. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-putin-and-their-kind-are-still-dangerous-—-but-their-time-is-almost-up/ar-AAWdPL7
Larry says prohibitions don’t work (guns). Haven’t we learned taxes don’t work (complex IRC code)?
Mr. Musk = Autocrat
I see what you did there, Ms. leslie. Very clever.