Ive often seen individuals on the left talking about how billionares shouldnt exist etc., but when probed on how that could be accomplished the answer is usually just taxes or guillotines. I dont think either is great.
What if instead, corporations were made to be unable to be sold or owned. Initially theyre made to default to popular election for their board, and after that they can set up a charter or adopt a standard one, ratified by majority vote of their employees.
Bank collapse would probably follow, how could that be remedied? Maybe match the banks invalidated stocks with bonds?
The stock market isn’t the root of all evil - it’s just one way for companies to raise money and for regular people to invest in those companies. Without it, businesses would still need funding, but the money would come from a much smaller circle of the ultra-rich and private investors. That would make the system less democratic, not more.
If we got rid of the stock market, we wouldn’t get rid of corporate greed or wealth inequality. We’d just move them into darker, less transparent places - behind closed doors instead of in public view. Ordinary people would lose what little access they have to ownership and wealth-building. Rich people would still get richer, just in ways even harder to regulate.
So if the goal is to make the system fairer, abolishing the stock market isn’t the answer. Reforming it might be - but killing it outright would probably just make things worse.
I’m not saying it is. But everything that offers the chance will be abused. And the way it currently exists, it shouldn’t.
Currently it’s just a massive machine for people with massive money to get more, channel money / misdirect analysis / hide and exploit all others. On paper one might disagree, in reality though…
Investing in the stock market isn’t something exclusive to the rich. For someone like me, it’s pretty much the only realistic way to build any significant wealth for retirement. Without investing, I’d just be losing money to inflation by keeping it in a bank account. Now that I’ve got it invested, I’m already earning enough in returns to cover a few months’ wages each year. It makes no sense to want to take that possibility away from everyone just because you despise billionaires.