That was in large part due of strong leftist movements and states that forced the capitalists to share the increasing wealth. WW2 and the resulting labor shortage and other special circumstances contributed as well. Currently no such movements and circumstances exist. Globalization and the resulting free movent of capital has put capitalists in a better position to direct the extra wealth for themselves than ever before. A global movement is required to get a meaningful share of the increased surplus to the workers now, and that is very hard to do. The market will not do it on its own, as the demand for human labor eventually decreases due to automation.

I've seen you say "you don't matter" in many of your comments. Why do you think like this? Sure, we don't matter much most of the time, but this kind of elitist thinking and decision-making is clearly leading to growing discontent, which can then be used against "people who matter". Perhaps the tools for controlling the masses are now powerful enough to make what you say true, but there's a chance your "let them eat cake" attitude will lead to the downfall of the people who currently matter.

But even if Bezos actually creates billions of value on his own, it doesn't mean that he should get those billions. The reward for such high value work should be high enough that Bezos chooses to do it instead of something else, but it doesn't need to be higher than that. In a world where the highest paid position would reward a few million instead of a few billion, I'm sure Bezos and people like him would still gravitate towards that work since it'd still be work with the best rewards.

People who have some revolutionary ideas wouldn't abandon them if the potential highest reward was millions instead of billions. Or do you believe that there are people with good ideas right now that abandon them because they can't earn trillions with the idea? What people expect as a reward for their work is what decides whether they do it or not. If we can lower the expectation, we can get the high value work without creating dangerous levels of power concentration.

Concentration of power stems from our inability to make good decisions as a group of equals. We have to choose someone to make decisions for the group because there is currently no other working way to make them. Current technology might enable us to find some form of true democracy, but I'm not sure if anyone is looking for it.

So if people who need predictions for decision-making start relying on prediction markets with a lot of low value gambler predictions and opinion manipulators (wealthy participants can use the platform to mislead people as well) the value of these things might be negative.

What we produce in this economic system is decided by money. If 90% of all money is in the hands of the wealthy, then 90% of all we make with out limited workforce and resources will be decided by them.

I don't think this is what social media provides. With social media people are able to choose one perspective and seem to just immerse themselves in a bubble so that they only get exposed to the view of their choice.

Even if people in one country manage to get rid of the psychos and give power back to the people, the countries that continue at full speed to full automation of the economy and the military will just win the competition over resources and power. For as long as our economic system and the systems that govern relationships between countries are based on competition, we are forced to continue on this path. The ones that choose not to will lose.

We would need to quickly build systems based on cooperation instead of competition if we want to avoid a disaster. No more markets, no more competing nation states. Probably an impossible task considering we don't have much time left before we have automated systems that make it impossible for people to take back control from the owners of those systems.

That's because Europe could rely on the power of the US back then. If the US was just a patchwork of small independent states, Europe would very likely be a part of USSR now.

> Cooperation and military alliances do not require national suicide.

It may if your opponent is a single large country. Cooperation between many nations each looking out for their own best interests is a lot lot harder and slower than a single command structure. An alliance like that can't win against a more united enemy. The enemy can simply focus on manipulating the small weak countries individually to hamstring the alliance, as has been happening.

I would not want to be a small country caught between larger powers fighting each other, that's never a good position to be in. You'll just be a pawn on the board, getting pushed into proxy wars and civil wars by the bigger powers playing the game. I'd rather give up sovereignty willingly to be a part of a large power and a player in the game, and not on the board being played.

I have a feeling natural selection will take its course at the level of nations, with nations that do protect their weak surviving and the ones that let profit extractors exploit and abuse theirs dying off.

Also, if money did not matter during elections, I doubt we'd see so much spending on them. Studies are being funded by companies and the wealthy as well, so a study or two saying money doesn't matter is not definitive proof.

You're answering a comment saying money is power by saying that it isn't if it's not used?

Even if the billionaire doesn't pay you, they can pay someone else to force you to do what they want.