When somebody has $100 billion it’s not like when you or I have $100 and can go acquire some new consumable from the market with it, it literally is the market, the existing goods/services you’re already consuming

Like if the 1% was gonna somehow “spend” their trillions what could they buy with it? Nothing. What can you trade for “the entire world” except the entire world, as it already exists?

When I see those things where they show how much money Jeff Bezos has in comparison to entire city governments, paying for childcare for everybody, etc.. it seems like they’re trying to suggest that these billionaires could somehow “spend that into existence”

But I think it actually does better at making my point which is that the way us proles use money is meaningless at that scale, it basically represents existing “territory” not new territory they’re holding out on us https://twitter.com/monicacklein/status/1336730947853705217

They *are* holding out on us, but these maps of territory aren’t a representation of the actual excess material wealth they’re holding out on us for their own personal consumption, they’re a representation of the *political control* they’re holding out on us

When Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates compare their net worth it’s conceptually no different from two lords comparing land area, and the solution to these lords is the same as the solution to lords of yore: democratize that land