More than 11% of the world’s more than 2,000 billionaires have run for election or become politicians, according to a study highlighting the growing power and influence of the super-wealthy.

While billionaires have had mixed success at the ballot box in the U.S., billionaires around the world have a “strong track record” of winning elections and “lean to the Right ideologically,” said the study, which is by three professors at Northwestern University.

“Billionaire politicians are a shockingly common phenomenon,” the study said. “The concentration of massive wealth in the hands of a tiny elite has understandably caused many observers to worry that the ‘super-rich have super-sized political influence.’”

  • SCB@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Lmao good Marx had bad ideas and got millions of people who believed in them killed.

    Also it’s weird to imply Marx invented Dialectics, since he just adopted Hegelian Dialectics in the same style as Engels.

    But yes Marx is a very easy read and everyone should analyze his writings, if only to understand the criticisms and why his economic philosophy didn’t age well.

    • TheDankHold@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      He had bad solutions but his criticisms of capitalism are spot on.

      Also I prefer to blame the authoritarian strongmen who consolidated power as opposed to a guy that advocated against hierarchy. Is Adam Smith culpable for the Bengal famine?

      • J Lou@mastodon.social
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        1 year ago

        As an anti-capitalist, I disagree. He conflated the role of the employer with the owner of the means of production, which led him to the mistaken conclusion that rejecting capitalist appropriation requires rejecting private property per se. It’s really the employment contract that enables capitalist appropriation and exploitative property relations. There are other reasons to oppose private ownership, but that is another story. The classical laborists’ criticisms are spot on not Marx’s

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        criticisms of capitalism are spot on.

        His predictions did not follow reality whatsoever.

    • zerfuffle
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      1 year ago

      Attributing famines to Marx in regions that routinely experience famines that lead to the deaths of millions is, frankly, extremely silly.