- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Wealth tax criticized by billionaires and Gavin Newsom would levy a one-time 5% tax on residents worth over $1bn
A popular proposal in California to impose a wealth tax on billionaires has gained enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in November, state officials announced on Wednesday.
The news is set to intensify an already heated debate around the tax, which has pitted tech moguls and the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, against the labor union backing the measure.
The California Billionaire Tax Act, colloquially known as the billionaire tax, would levy a one-time 5% tax on any California resident worth more than $1bn. The proposal is backed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) as a means of funding California’s strained healthcare, food assistance and education programs.
Tangentially, I’d really love it if people stopped calling rich people “elites.” It reaffirms their belief that they’re better than the rest of us. Let’s stop stroking their egos and call them the leeches they are.
Woah there. Leeches are actually important for environment.
Parasites of the Epstein Class is a more apt description of billionaires and the trillionaire.
Elites are not people, they’re groups. More specifically, they’re insular and well-connected groups with outsized power (relative to group population). They share a common interest and they cooperate to further that interest at the expense of the common good. Often these groups are made up of billionaires but they also include the politically connected as well as artists and entertainers/influencers.
That was the older meaning of the word elite, anyway. More recently it’s come to denote individuals with exceptional skill. This version has been pervasive in the sports and gaming communities. I personally wouldn’t worry about the latter definition influencing the former. If you need to clarify, you can use terms like political or business elite.
I think it’s really important for people to not give up on this term because it encompasses more than just wealth. Elites can form in any group, as a breakaway subgroup that works against the interests of the main group. Feminist Jo Freeman wrote a famous paper informed by her experiences witnessing the formation of elites within the feminist movement.