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You could also argue there are no good millionaires by the same logic.
The existence of billionaires is a systemic problem, largely not a personal failing.
I'm not a swiftie, but the message here should be "We need better redistributive institutions" or "We need a new economic system", not "Artist being an unexceptional artist (in terms of industry behavior) is BAD because she is one of the more successful ones"
You could also argue there are no good millionaires by the same logic.
Heyyyy, you're starting to get it!
Heyyyy, you’re starting to get it!
Careful, the middle-class socialists on Lemmy who dream of owning a nice house will get mad.
But more pertinently, the argument can be applied to anyone as long as there is suffering in the world and unnecessary luxuries. And while I think most of us here agree that there is a structural issue with that, I'm far less fond of the idea that Joe Schmoe working a soul-crushing minimum-wage job should never do anything other than work, sleep, and donate every spare penny to charity because keeping or using wealth while others are suffering would make him a bad person.
I know you’re being a little facetious but you raise a good point. As you start talking about a net worth more like 5-10 million, there’s a lot more people in that class. I think then it’s more about things like, do you have one fairly nice house, or one nice house and a half dozen shitholes you rent out, or a couple nice houses that you move between? Are you a business owner who pays well in a field that is profitable or are you the proud owner of a handful of subway or McDonald’s locations?
It's something that always hits me acutely. I grew up in a poor area, with a family from a different but equally poor area. The total net worth of the past three generations of my family, combined, at their peak and adjusted for inflation just for fun, from grandparents and great-uncles down to me, wouldn't break a mil. Yet I also recognize that people can own a house worth a million or even two without being absurdly wealthy, or even more than just middle-class.
On one hand, when people start wringing hands and crying about their taxes going up on their million-dollar house, I get the emotional urge to sneer and spit at their feet. Poor babies! On the other hand, I do try to recognize also that all wealth is relative, and that we, as human beings, should not and cannot be judged solely on how we try to make our own way in this miserable world, but rather on how we interact with others. Even I am extraordinarily wealthy, as a disabled man who ekes out a below-poverty line existence in the US doing clerical work, compared to someone doing back-breaking labor to provide for their family in Mali.
The condemnation should not be when we buy a nice meal for ourselves, but when we refuse a loaf of bread to a beggar, sort of thinking. And above all, most non-ultra-wealthy people are not making decisions that explicitly hurt others for their own gain, nor even that deny help to others for their own convenience, but simply buying themselves little luxuries to forget the misery of existence. That's... just how human beings work. And the solution is in structural reform, not condemnation of people for trying not to go crazy in a universe whose laws were not constructed to suit thinking beings.
Should billionaires exist? No, fuck no. But of the people who are billionaires, "I lucked out in a field I'm legitimately talented in, and it scaled to the tune of billions instead of the normal artist existence of 'barely surviving'" is probably one of the least objectionable. In Swift's place, most of us probably wouldn't be much different. One can argue, and not incorrectly, that the activities of billionaires is disproportionately more damaging than us lowly thousandaires with a PC and a bicycle, but the fundamental principle of selfishness behind taking an uber for non-essential round-town travel and taking a private plane when a few well-planned train tickets would've done just fine is the same. We differ from THOSE billionaires not in nature, but in scale. It's a scale that MUST be reduced for the survival of both the planet and the polity, but it doesn't spring from some essential evil in the individual - unlike, say, some cunt jacking up the price of life-saving medication so they can buy a third yacht.
Ultimately, a billionaire like Swift is the rare creature who DOES perform legitimate labor, whose actions do not fundamentally come at an increased cost to people just trying to survive, and largely no more exploitative than any other musician or participant in the industry or wider economy (which is a condemnation of the industry and our economy, arguably, but neither here nor there), just one who has managed success on a more massive scale than her peers. She SHOULD be brought down to a reasonable level of wealth - but she's not some demon who deserves the guillotine. Just massive asset seizure. She's probably a pretty ordinary human being, as far as human beings go.
There's also no good 100thousandaires because wealth accumulation is bad
Heyyyy, you're starting to get it!
All right kulac time to surrender your phone / PC. It's a clear sign of your wealth hording.
If you don't see the difference between me who owns a gaming PC and lives in an apartment and a multimillionaire that could have a gaming PC in every room of their house that's way too big for their needs then you're not worth engaging with.
My apologies comrade druge. I can see that the only moral abortion is your abortion. I did not realize I was addressing Stalin himself comrade.
If you follow your own line of logic, the mere fact that you have electricity puts you well above many people in developing countries, let alone the fact that you have a personal dwelling in which resides a personal electronic device to utilize that electricity. If you haven't figured it out by me calling you a kulak yet you may want to look up what would qualify a peasant farmer as a kulak. Hint it would be anybody that is middle class. Sounds like you would be a passive kulak.
I think you missed the last part of my message so I'll be blocking you now
Ta ta 👋
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😂😂😂😂😂😂 I chuckled at this comment
Tbh it's more sad than funny. I weep for the lack of reading comprehension in these kids
Your failure to reply to an official party summons for comment during the last 3 hours has been noted. As such, we have determined that the proper procedure will be re-education.
I think it is 100% realistic for Swift (and similar wealthy artists) to one day realize that her business model handed down to her is unethical and exploitative and take steps towards making amends. It’s mostly a matter of getting her exposed to the right conversations, either through public pressure or interpersonal relationships. Like how she started buying carbon offsets for her jets.
I also (naively?) hope/feel that there will be a domino effect. Once one massive touring artist starts making equitability moves for their staff, other artists might follow. Doesn’t even have to be Swift tbh, Coldplay or Bruno Mars or someone could set it off.
I mean, if memory serves the staff she actually employs herself is pretty well-compensated. The issue is that the industry as a whole is borked, and paying the staff of other fuckwads in the industry just means that those fuckwads start planning to stiff their employees by planning around the gratuity of successful artists.
Nothing less than structural reform will even dent the injustice of it.
Yes. It would be quite a task to do, and certainly couldn’t be done instantly or perfectly in short time. Nonetheless she and other artists should start trying. Coldplay is getting pretty based with their environmental stuff, they should work together or something.