this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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No, Billionaires are always going to be a byproduct of capitalism. Saying that left vs right is inconsequential and just "fighting amongst themselves" is naturalizing and justifying billionaires. The left fights against billionaires and oligarchy while the right fight for them (even if they rhetorically hate "elites" like woke baristas).
No, even if individuals will continue to have greed or bad traits, if you don't have a social system that allows accumulation of vast wealth or the use of the wealth to immediately control the labor and resources of society, you undermine the social detriment of these traits. This is why systems matter, it is what traits will be rewarded, and what is allowed to be indulged rather than resisted.
It is not merely wealth distribution, but the fact that in capitalism that wealth immediately translates to power over society and people's time in a more direct way than all previous systems. And sure, I am considering new systems, that is why I took exception to your framing of it not being "left vs. right". Nearly, by definition, Right wing is preserving a current society or regressing back to a previous system, Left wing is, by definition, about change and new systems. Left wing isn't necessarily being urban or having dyed hair or whatever conservatives try to obfuscate with. Being anti-elite is nearly always left wing and being pro-elite is nearly always right wing, right wingers try to obfuscate and channel that resentment with lies and bullshit. Like claiming a barista is an "elite" by having a bachelors degree and pronouns, despite making minimum wage, while a millionaire business owner is "working class" because he wears blue jeans and listens to country music in his pickup truck.
Okay, I wont start with a negative. Left is anti-billionaire controlling all of society and right is pro-billionaire controlling society. So saying left vs. right is a false dichotomy is helping billionaires sabotage society.
There aren't left billionaires in any significant sense. Liberals that are okay with LGBTQ people are centrists at best. Since Liberalism is inherently center-right and being left necessitates fighting against entrenched power structures, no George Soros or whatever billionaire is not "left" just because they aren't extremely reactionary. Concentrations of wealth (and therefore power) is inherently right-wing by definition. You are just treating right-wing propaganda as fact.
"Had I known that I was talking with someone that knew what words meant, or that had object permanence, I would have surrendered ages ago". You need to evaluate your understanding of the political spectrum "centrism" doesn't mean you being right and "left" and "right" don't just vaguely mean "people that you disagree with" or "virtue signal" by having view points or beliefs. There are real reasons and definitions to these things! That is why believing that you can be not left and anti-billionaire or anti-elite is just fascism, because to be centrist or right-wing necessitates (since you are not against capitalist or representative democracy) that you are a not anti-elite. To claim otherwise requires a redefinition, such as elites being LGBTQ, Jews, or Finance capital rather than Industrial capital.
If you are willing to be a centrist or rightist means that you will be supporting pro-billionaire bipartisanship, like Biden because he is slightly less unhinged while supporting genocide and inequality. Or you support Kamala since she will build the wall faster and have greater amounts of ICE deportations, since she and her administration will fill out the paperwork properly.
It is not "disunity" you have to be some form of socialist or otherwise, in real material terms, anti-capitalist and anti-establishment if you are going to, in any real sense, be "anti-elite"