Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke, whose company commands a market capitalization near $154 billion, told his social media followers this week that a tax-tiered voting system—one that would strip voting rights from anyone who pays no income tax—would be a “good system.”
That two-word endorsement, dropped into a viral thread, has reignited a debate over wealth, power, and democracy that most Americans thought was settled more than a century ago.
The proposal would invert the founding American principle of “no taxation without representation” into something closer to “no representation without taxation”—and specifically, high taxation. Reactions online split sharply: Some framed it as a provocative thought experiment about aligning fiscal responsibility with political voice, while others called it a naked attempt to legitimize plutocracy by giving billionaires and multimillionaires a formal, multiplied vote over the laws that govern everyone else.
But it also revealed that America is grappling with a political economy debate, as a frozen housing market and an entrenched wealthy baby boomer demographic have many, not just Lütke, arguing that something big needs to change
At this point, their necks practically for the guillotine’s blade. They keep reminding us:
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of . . . tyrants.
-Thomas Jefferson in November 13, 1787, letter to William Stephens Smith.
Because he’s a Fascist worth $154B. Mystery solved.
Because the Ouroborus of capitalism has eaten around to the point it can see the back of its own head, and now it only has two solutions left.
maximize short term profits at the expense of everything else, and secure their position via buying governments/overthrowing governments/becoming government, in order to secure the constant flow of money and goods upwards to them.
How about no vote if your net worth is above 100m and you pay less than 25% in tax annually
Because the rich think they’re better than us and have stopped fearing us
But everyone pays taxes, even the unemployed. Every purchase has taxes on it. For this proposal to work as he wants, the entire tax burden will have to be transferred to the income tax. Enjoy the tax hike and labor crisis.
captain logical you got em.
There is no war but the Class War.
I agree. Working class produces and every other class lives off of them.
When we claw back power, and there are social programs to cover healthcare, college, day care, etc., it will be necessary to harshly punish Sociopathic Oligarchs for their ongoing crimes (they won’t be able to stop, they are mentally ill, they can’t help themselves), up to, and including full confiscation of their wealth, leaving them penniless, homeless, and naked.
They will not be eligible for those social programs. They can live on the streets, and eat pigeons.
Perfect example as to why wealthy people shouldn’t exist. Why should this unelected idiot have this much social power to even propose this?
Yeah, billionaires should not exist
hell, I don’t think people should have more than a few million at most. Just enough to perhaps buy ONE house and afford food. Billionaires have no place when there are people starving and barely managing to survive. They really are scum, aren’t they :/
(gonna add me again, Admiral Patrick?)
one that would strip voting rights from anyone who pays no income tax
So he’s in favor of stripping the voting rights of billionaires?
i think thats his argument. make billionaires pay tax to compete for policies. basically calling bribes tax or real life p2w, which it is currently but legal.
My take is, sack all of these billionaires and idiots on an remote small little island and let them figure out how they wanna govern themselves.
Like atlas shrugged? i like it! If we use the Randian framing they’ll probably eat it up!
“nooo dont leave whatever will we do without someone to boss us around noooo please dont isolate yourself on a remote island pleeeeeease”
and then just not let em back in if they try
The self-serving “anarcho-capitalist” whore that died dependent on Medicare and social security.
HEY! Don’t do whores dirty like that.
Since they shit and cum so hard over that book, I’m surprised they haven’t just done it yet. Honestly.
https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project
They tried and failed.
Edit: there’s also SeaLand, of course. Which apparently still exists and has one whole resident:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand?wprov=sfla1
Me too, but you know, its probably because somewhere deep down they know it wouldn’t work. Or maybe they did try, maybe that was exactly what epstein was trying to do on that island (+ the child raping).
It’s rare for something to give me such a visceral reaction, but reading that last bit had me exclaim my disgust loud enough that my dog woke from his nap on the balcony to come check on me.
Eugh. We need more queen of hearts in the world.
Even better, let them do it at the bottom of the fucking ocean
That’s not his argument. He, like all billionaires, think they pay too much. They still end up paying social security and Medicaid. It just ends up being less than 1% because it capped. He would still get to vote in his new proposed system.
Does one vote matter if you can buy thousands?
The shopify CEO wants to strip voting rights from people that don’t pay taxes. So, 18-20 something year olds that don’t have income and get claimed as a dependent. SAH mom’s that get claimed as a dependent.
Fuck Tobias Lütke with a barbed wire wrapped dildo. Germany, Canada, please come pick up your trash.
Yeah the highly notable people Germany has been sending our way lately have largely sucked. The appreciation for Kim Petras can only go so far when we’re also getting this guy and Thiel from them.
People who don’t pay taxes? Why would a billionaire want to disenfranchise billionaires? 🤔
Stah moms pay taxes, we file jointly with our partners. It would be the young adult dependents and the rich people that live on loans instead of income, so they don’t have to pay tax.
It would also be people who make little enough to get a full return. That’s who they really want to disenfranchise
Yeah that’s a good point
Tobias Lütke is a German born Canadian. Why is he commenting about US elections at all? He has never voted in the US.
Because he makes money from it, capitalism and fascism have no borders.
Edit: and I’m sure he’s voted with his dollars.
Because he hates democracy everywhere, and thinks the US might be the next to fall, if it hasn’t already.
Never having a history of voting in an election is insufficient to the determination of exclufing a voter for ineligibility.
I think he may be onto something.
Perhaps there’s some way to tie the weight of your vote to the ratio of taxes paid divided by wealth?
So, if you have billions in assets+wages, but pay less taxes than a guy earning minimum wage, your vote would essentially be completely ignored.
The problem is that combines with progressive taxation to fuck over the poor. It would prioritize high income low investment people
I’d just cap the voting power bonus at ~1.5
If you pay taxes you should’ve higher voting power but not tremendously higher
Even simpler for me. Everyone gets one vote. You paying into social security? You get one more vote. We could break this down further to “is more than X% compensation social security payments”, but let’s keep it simple.
As much as we gripe, billionaires don’t influence votes as much as we think (they simply lobby whoever gets in later). Politicians influence votes and focus on the demographic who votes the most. Who happen to be the people who don’t need to plan around 8 hours of work in order to get to the polls. And those who won’t be around to see the fruits of their labors 20+ years later. Let’s reward those who work and need to face their future.
Under that idea, what happens to the vote of people who make too little to pay taxes? What if they don’t have taxes because they don’t have a job? What if you don’t pay taxes because you’re homeless and don’t have an address?
Well clearly, for those people the only fair way to handle it is to default to a vote weight of 1.0
??? The richest people wouldnt vote. They pay no income tax, famously.
I wonder if this is what he meant but somehow I doubt it
I’m reading this as taking power away from the ruling class, not giving it. Rich people don’t live on income, they live on loans guaranteed against their companies and off shore wealth right? They purposely keep low to no income, so they don’t have to pay income tax. This way, if they do that, it will take away their vote.
Tax wealth, not work.
Yet another reason for me to dislike Shopify.
I already hated that all the small retailers I use have migrated to it and it pushes you to set up an account so that it can connect all my purchasing habits together from what should be independent retailers.
