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We Desperately Need Maximum Wage Laws
(jacobin.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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We desperately need to get rid of billionaires and follow that up with millionaires
I think "millionaires" is probably a bit too broad depending on exactly how you define it. A million dollars doesn't go nearly as far as it used to.
Most insanely wealthy people don't necessarily have millions or billions of dollars sitting around in cash or in their bank accounts, that worth includes things like investments and real estate.
So going by that most people who own a house are probably around halfway to being a millionaire just due to that, add in a retirement account and some savings and odds are theres probably a lot more "millionaires" walking around than you'd think.
I have a relative who retired a few years ago, he worked as a bricklayer his entire life, and don't get me wrong, that's a solid job, and he was very good at it, so he made good money, but he wasn't his own boss, or anyone else's for that matter, wasn't actively playing the stock market or anything, just a guy who worked his whole life, lived within his means, saved money, put it into safe retirement accounts and such, etc.
He retired with about 1.5 million. I'm not totally clear if that includes the value of his house or not, if it does that would still put him at around 1 million in savings and investrents, and if it doesn't you can bump him up to around 2 if we measure him like we do the really wealthy people.
And there's a good chance that medical bills and such will eat up a good amount of that from him in the coming years..
We desperately need to teach leftists academic economics. Yall have your heart in the right place but none of you have the slightest clue what the fallout of your policy suggestions are.
"Getting rid" of millionaires is ludicrous. There are people who are millionaires because a stock does well for a bit. There are people who had a million for a few days because they held Dogecoin when Elon manipulated that price. Millionaire is a much lower bar than you think.
These largely aren't working class people.
You would be wrong about that.
The top 10% of the wealthiest own 93% of all stocks with the 1% owning 54%
Those statistics are for volume of ownership and aren’t relevant to a discussion about wealth. I can own a handful of highly priced shares and be worth 1+ million while not holding a ton of shares.
Your highly priced shares are highly priced because of the volume held by the 10%
That makes no sense.
Volume traded increases value. If suddenly 93% of those holding were gone your high value stock would tank
Again that makes no sense to the example given. You are stretching very far here.
the vast majority of lawyers, doctors, and farmer owners have a net worth above a million even
Exactly, I graduated college at the right time for many of my friends to he worth 10+ million on paper entirely in the form of stock in their employer. One of my buddies had $16 million in AskJeeves that he couldn’t sell as an employee. By the time he could sell that was $64k. Not everyone who is a millionaire is actually a millionaire.
I made about 60k when I started working as a dev. At the rate I saved back then, I'd be well in millionaire territory within about 10 years had I not left it for grad school.
You are framing this in a capitalist world. Getting rid of billionaires would also get rid of the stock market, they hold about 93% of stocks. The stock market is them buying a portion of working class wages and calling them dividends. If everyone's material needs are met the accumulation of wealth isnt a driving force for 'success'
Getting rid of stocks and billionaires would have a massive fallout hence why we need to teach leftists actual academic economics as this shift would be colossal and havea ton of externalities.