[babagabooj]

Let's say we start out with everyone having enough bananas (money) to be healthy and well for a week. When a few individuals in the group hoard (and not share) stratospheric amount of bananas, the rest of the group runs through their existing bananas and there will be far less bananas available for everyone else in the group (or if the gov prints bananas then loads of artificial bananas with far less nutrients per banana, resulting in the same net lack of nutrition for everyone else) Today's means of exchange is money and this money is based on artificial scarcity, just like nutritious bananas are not infinitely abundant, so if someone hoards huge amounts of bananas to themselves, the rest of the group will suffer as they eat thru their existing store of bananas.

If 10 monkeys hoarded as much bananas as 3.1B monkeys we would seek to exterminate those monkeys and wipe out their genetic footprint from the face of the earth (this latter part would be genocidal, not recommended, but some would harbor the thought) because it would be clear that they're causing a huge imbalance in the system, and a great deal of suffering. But if the monkeys are Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, we put them on the covers of magazines and consider them an extreme example of success.

Obviously, we're being manipulated to think that such extreme hoarding is what successful people must do and that it is a good thing. "Greed is good" and all of that.

Added later in response to the "pie is not fixed" and the "economy is not a zero-sum game":

There are limited resources on this planet. You can't have massive population growth with 10 people holding as much leverage to consume those limited resources as nearly half of the population and still have a balanced system. We can talk about systems that exist in non-equilibrium states but massive imbalance when it comes to the allocation of finite resources coupled with population growth is equivalent to massive suffering

Yet another clarification:

It's not just the actual consumption but also the leverage/power to consume and the power to give, which holds political power over the rest of the group, as they can use that as a carrot for politicians and non-profits. They have the power to do so much good as well as the power to do not much good, or even anti-good. It causes suffering for a few to hold that much power.

Try to transcend the metaphor and build your more accurate picture of what is being conveyed rather than just dismissing that there is anything wrong with the current picture.

One last thought on this:

The basic problem is that there is a massive imbalance of power/leverage due to the massive wealth gap. In socialism, the ruling class has that power. Neither capitalism nor socialism lead to fair and balanced allocation of resources/power/leverage. We don't have to settle for either.

...

[makomk]

Analogies like this one are exactly why all these headlines about the super-wealthy are misleading. When people see these astronomical sums they think in terms of actual things they can buy because that's the main thing money represents to most, but those big numbers don't represent actual goods and services consumed by the super-wealthy and their fraction of overall global consumption is much, much smaller than the wealth difference. In fact, the fact that the super-wealthy spend so much less of their wealth than ordinary people was originally one of the arguments people used to justify wealth redistribution especially after the global financial crisis in 2008 - and it might've made sense then.

The current crisis we're in is not rooted in the financial system but one of underlying supply, though, and it's not possible to fix this by redistributing the resources the super-wealthy are consuming to ordinary people because they're not consuming enough. If you think of money as a claim on scarce resources, almost all the wealth of the super-wealthy is not real money. It's just an imaginary figure produced by multiplying their shareholdings by what the amount of actual money they could trade a single share for.

[quantified]

Those big numbers do represent the potential things consumable if they were converted into new consumption. They’re not sitting as cash in the bank. But they are a great proxy for it. Cash gets borrowed nearly for free against it, for example. Absolutely not “imaginary”. Access to quality and luxury is not based on anything more imaginary than more money than someone else. Access to better land, to preferential treatment by politicians, police and health systems the same.

Wealth guards the opportunity to consume, as well. I really don’t understand what you mean by “not consuming enough.”

[6510]

It is not the purchase power that needs to be distributed but the absolutely massive influence that comes with it for free in our system.

Our system is to have an elected government govern over a game of capitalism. By its very nature this combination accomplishes stuff by concentrating wealth in the areas where it accomplishes the most.

These accomplishments should be things like social progress, preservation of the eco system, quality of life, sustainability, resilience. We can trade some for something else for a while but the whole point of governing is to have a long term plan for everyone rather than a short term plan to expand gains for a hand full of people for a short while.

[rosndo]

This entire screed seems to be based around a truly bizarre idea that the economy is a zero-sum game. It is not.

[amirhirsch]

The verbal canary-in-the-coal-mine is “hoarding,” which indicates a misunderstanding of wealth creation.

[Turing_Machine]

Here's where your analysis is wrong:

Elon Musk doesn't have "bananas". He has shares of stock in Tesla, which are largely only of value because he is running the company. Him owning that stock doesn't mean fewer "bananas" for anyone. Taking away his shares of stock won't produce any more "bananas".

> If 10 monkeys hoarded as much bananas as 3.1B monkeys we would seek to exterminate those monkeys and wipe out their genetic footprint from the face of the earth (this latter part would be genocidal, not recommended

Yeah, we're not going to let you do that again. Sorry.

[Hdhdndhhe]

This would make sense if they pie were fixed.

[babagabooj]

There are limited resources on this planet. You can't have massive population growth with 10 people holding as much leverage to consume those limited resources as nearly half of the population and still have a balanced system. We can talk about systems that exist in non-equilibrium states but massive imbalance when it comes to the allocation of finite resources coupled with population growth is equivalent to massive suffering.

[hutrdvnj]

But it's not that easy. These 10 extremely rich monkeys provide jobs (which convert to bananas at the end of the month) to millions. And these jobs do generate value to million of people. This is how capitalism work, of course you can suggest different forms of economical and political systems like socialism, but so far history has told us that capitalism works quite well.

[quantified]

Ah, the heroic job creator. Deploying people and objects for a functioning economy is valuable. Keeping all the bananas because of a feeling that the bananas are to be kept by you, that the job of those people is to get you those bananas, not so laudable. Making sure that there are few bananas for anyone other than the ones you can provide them (nature and other people will assist you with this) helps this strategy.

[moistly]

DEMAND creates and provides those jobs. Those rich monkeys could be vapourised tomorrow and by and large the world would continue on without particularly missing their existence.

[babagabooj]

The basic problem is that there is a massive imbalance of power/leverage due to the massive wealth gap. In socialism, the ruling class has that power. Neither capitalism nor socialism lead to fair and balanced allocation of resources/power/leverage. We don't have to settle for either.