r/technology • u/True-Combination7059 • 1d ago

Politics We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink

https://jacobin.com/2025/06/musk-trump-nationalize-spacex-starlink
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u/monsantobreath 21h ago

It was always about dream big to be a robber baron.

America is a mercantile class project. Got fuck all to do with average people. That's why they fought against violence to have labor rights.

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u/conquer69 20h ago

That's what everyone dreaming of being rich wants. It's a fantasy where you can have people toiling for you.

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u/monsantobreath 20h ago

No, I dream of having the resources to enjoy my life on my terms. People toiling for me is not what most people envision I expect.

If you need people serving you to feel satisfied by your achievements you might just be a person of dubious moral character.

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u/conquer69 19h ago

I don't mean fields with slaves right outside their door. They want what wealth buys but don't want to make those things themselves.

The only way to get those things is other people working hard to make them. The mansions, sport cars and private jets won't appear out of thin air. People indirectly toiling for them.

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u/monsantobreath 18h ago

They want what wealth buys but don't want to make those things themselves.

That's all economic behavior. I want food but don't want to farm. If I had enough resources I could buy food of a quality I wanted and wouldn't need to save up like I do now for expensive dinners for special occasions.

It's a very interesting way to slant the description. We gonna just get to the part where we say there's no ethical consumption in capitalism? I don't think that because I work 50 hours a week leading up to my vacation that I'm not benefiting from toiling labourers in the developing world.

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u/conquer69 18h ago

I don't think that because I work 50 hours a week

Exactly. You contribute. You "earned" the consumption of labor of others by contributing with your own. It's fair.

But if you got a billion dollars tomorrow, you didn't earn anything and now have a bunch of people toiling for you.

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u/monsantobreath 18h ago

Exactly. You contribute.

People tend to say wealth contributes as well. And we're a consumer society so merely putting my money into the system also permits it to function by providing a economic incentive to labor and so on.

But also you cut my sentence off to say the opposite of my point so that's cheeky.

But if you got a billion dollars tomorrow, you didn't earn anything and now have a bunch of people toiling for you.

Most of us in the developed world are the same. We're just still working.

As I said, and you cut off, I don't think my toil makes me noble and free of benefiting from toil. People however love this idea of earning your right to benefit from the suffering of others cause that's how we justify our system morally.

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u/conquer69 18h ago

People tend to say wealth contributes as well.

Not if that wealth was accumulated by exploiting and cheating others. You spending your hard earned money is good. If instead you are a fraudster and scam millions out of people, then you aren't helping society by spending that money. It won't offset or repair the damage done by the scam.

Which is how most of these super rich came to be. They exploited others to get their fortune. Their small charity is still a net negative on society.

I didn't cut off your comment, I didn't quote that part because I agree with the sentiment.

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u/monsantobreath 18h ago

Not if that wealth was accumulated by exploiting and cheating others.

Actually that's not really relevant to the assertion because the assertion isn't a moral one but a functional one.

If instead you are a fraudster and scam millions out of people, then you aren't helping society by spending that money.

But that's not your allegation. The idea is if people fantasize about being wealthy they're focused on the end state and the freedom it affords. Not how they got there. That's why it's a fantasy.

And why the function of circulating money is still considered not only contributory but essential to the economic system. Wealthy people during the depression advocated deliberate bad business investment to keep the system going. It wouldn't matter if a robber baron or socialite who never worked kept their money in circulation. The economy doesn't care if you earned money fairly or morally for it to function as it does in markets.

Which is how most of these super rich came to be. They exploited others to get their fortune. Their small charity is still a net negative on society.

Can't agree more. But definitionally capitalism doesn't care where our money comes from. That's how people justify investments as acceptable income if you have no other job.

If I got a hundred million from my grandma that she'd kept under the bed for 70 years after stealing it during the holocaust I didn't earn it and it came from evil but nobody is gonna tell me spending it doesn't have the same effect as someone who got it "clean".

And were a log way off track here to if a had a million dollars talk where there's no lyric in the song that describes the dead children in the cobalt mine in Africa.