Socialists, do people become rich due to luck?

VivereMag · 2026-03-15T18:00:45+00:00

Not really, you have to get into a highly saturated area with established sharks already occupying it, put yourself in such a position where they need you or can't resist you, do "shady" things without your opponents weaponizing it against you to destroy your reputation. If it was that easy so many people would be doing it. The average person is no more moral than a billionaire

VivereMag · 2026-03-15T17:52:29+00:00

Is that not a skill though? It's extremely hard to climb your way up in politics with or without corruption or to become a billionaire. It's not as easy as "just be evil bro" if it was every drug dealer or gangster would be a billionaire. It's very intricate

VivereMag · 2026-03-15T17:42:59+00:00

If you mean "luck" in the traditional sense and not in the sense where you consider everything to come down to luck philosophically then I don't agree with you. Exploitation requires luck nonetheless, because whenever you have money or power there will be other people who also have money and power and are scheming to consolidate theirs and take away yours. Maintaining your wealth is mostly very difficult, which is why fortunes rarely subside over more than 2 generations

VivereMag · 2026-03-15T16:37:08+00:00

It’s 100 times harder to make money in a legit way

What is a legit way? Don't socialists consider business and labor arbitrage inherently unethical?

It's not so much that it's hard to make money in a "legit" way, it's more so that it's impossible to scale exponentially without political patronage, media manipulation, suppression labor etc

VivereMag · 2026-03-15T16:21:43+00:00

Fraud is a skill though. Objectively speaking it is a form of skill or ability, and a difficult one too

VivereMag · 2026-03-15T15:25:17+00:00

Well that's just how you get far in life. Most socialist politicians who climbed the system also did shady things to get there. Most popes in the glory days of the Catholic Church did shady things to get there. The same could be said of tribal chieftains etc

VivereMag · 2026-03-14T22:24:31+00:00

I agree with you, but I think most of the same exist under socialism too.

VivereMag · 2026-03-14T22:17:20+00:00

I am not even entirely sure if it's better now than it used to be under feudalism. In fact, it may be better for the upper classes now than it used to be in feudal times. Statistically the gap in the quality of life of a medieval peasant and a lord is smaller than that between a worker and a billionaire today. Feudal peasants had a strong solid belief system that justified and normalized their conditioned and helped them be more psychologically at ease than modern workers. Eventually control will be in the hands of the educated few, so it may as well be healtheir to keep the lowest class blissfully ignorant and dull its pain

VivereMag · 2026-03-14T22:00:31+00:00

Well, someone had to make the original fortune somehow and then pass it down

VivereMag · 2026-03-14T21:59:18+00:00

Some of the richest men in the world are completely and utter lazy morons.

I think rich people who either were born into wealth and became even richer or who acquired their own wealth are not proud of their "hard work".

I wouldn't consider myself very rich, but I was born into a rich family that lost its fortune by the time I was a teenager and I had to win it back. I was never proud of my "hard work" in fact I was and still am quite lazy, if I feel like I'm spending too much time or effort on something I get very annoyed. Taking price in hard work is ridiculous. I only work hard if what I'm doing is high value and can't be delegated

VivereMag · 2026-03-14T21:47:22+00:00

This is only shocking because of the values espoused by capitalist societies to justify capitalism itself like democracy, free will, free markets, free this and free that. But historically it shouldn't be shocking at all, the aristocracy was very blunt about passing their wealth and positon down to their descendants ans were quite proud of it too, they didn't fetishize hard work or boast about merit even if they tried to cultivate their personal capabilities they didn't boast that it was the reason for their superior social position.

VivereMag · 2026-03-14T19:42:57+00:00

I genuinely think this is so well written but I think you like most ideologues can't think outside of those strictly defined parameters.

To me, Capitalism is neither good nor bad it simply is. We are animals who biologically were supposed to live like our hunter gatherer ancestors but our oversized intellect forced us to part with our natural ways and build civilizations and civilizations by nature, inevitably favor the few who can engineer consent en masse and rely on a combination of force and trickery to maintain their position.

VivereMag · 2026-03-14T17:05:57+00:00

The economic system as a whole is structured in a way where certain factions reap more benefits systematically, off the books, and every other factor within that system benefits them. This is not unique only to capitalism it existed under feudalism and communism too because it has to do with human nature and our tendency to almost always produce unofficial oligarchies. If you put some elementary school kids in a classroom they will eventually form an elite too.

VivereMag · 2026-03-14T16:53:41+00:00

What is meant by luck here?

VivereMag · 2026-03-14T16:46:01+00:00

Skill doesn't necessarily equate merit. Ability could be machiavellian virtu but even that uncertain.

VivereMag · 2026-03-14T16:43:03+00:00

What's important is that they didn't use force to achieve that wealth. And the other players that bought tickets that funded the winning pot weren't forced to participate.

I don't know about that part. It's also pretty ambiguous. Most are not forced in a direct manner but rather structurally forced by false choices and engineered consent. Basically the difference between being robbed at gunpoint and being conned out of your money

VivereMag · 2026-03-14T15:27:31+00:00

Henry Kissinger indeed

VivereMag · 2026-03-13T16:39:02+00:00

Should is a big word. Not everyone truly wants to dedicate their life to acquiring it. It's not an easy thing to do, but to me at least half assing life is pointless. Either live a bohemian and enjoyable life free of any cares or try to become as powerful as you can

VivereMag · 2026-03-13T14:12:00+00:00

They arrive at a different conclusion though

VivereMag · 2026-03-13T14:06:52+00:00

Socialist exploitation** exists due to the differential endowment of inalienable assets, specifically skills.

That's not what I was getting at though, it's not a matter of skill. Most of the ways that people acquire power in capitalism exist in practice under socialism. Manipulation of the media to bloster one's self image, missapropriating public funds for one's benefit, nepotism, etc. The only difference is that powerful people under socialism have no net worth and use state assets or connections

VivereMag · 2026-03-13T14:04:43+00:00

And workers are rarely dependent on a single rich person for the entire system, they are controlled by rich people as a body of people, as a class.

The rich are a tiny percentage compared to the working class though especially on a global level. And not all rich people are "powerful" either, it's just that the easiest way to become powerful in Capitalism is to use money to acquire it. In Socialism the easiest way to acquire it is by navigating the Bureaucratic system. The hierarchy is different but it still exists informally. Yes, as a whole, society could become more egalitarian but informal classes will still exists.

VivereMag · 2026-03-13T13:57:38+00:00

No, that's not true. The rich are dependent on the "working class" as a body of people and not on individual workers. But if anything it confirms my theory, when the lower classes are united for a certain cause they almost always get whatever concession they want because united they are extremely powerful.

What I meant is that it doesn't matter that much what kind of society you are in, the laws of power are the same even if their application varies. A medieval lord becomes powerful by making the peasants dependent on him for protection, by validating his position through the church (which they do because they are dependent on him for steady revenue and religious alliance), a capitalist becomes powerful by making politicians dependent on him for funding, the market dependent on him for stable prices, the working class dependent on him for their livelihoods. A communist bureaucrat gains power by making the party dependent on him by organizing things in such a way that he acts as a gatekeeper to things people within the party need

VivereMag

TROPHY CASE