@realcaseyrollins I guess I'd just ask you to think about how we get all these policies gigafirms can milk. There's a lot of lobbying, and more pervasively but less overtly a whole infrastructure of "philanthropically" funded "education and research", that advocates "pro further enrichment of incumbent businesses and the billionaires who own them" as if it were the same thing as competitive capitalism. 1/

EDIT: added the scare quote "education and research" deserve

@realcaseyrollins I favor competitive capitalism. But incumbent winners — currently dominant firm, the richest existing people — hate it. They pretend to love it, of course, because it is the basis for the legitimacy of their wealth. But if you're already at the tippy-top, that "dynamism" we all extol has only one direction for you, regression to the mean. It is in your interest to consolidate advantage, not level the playing field. 2/

@realcaseyrollins It really isn't about envy! If it were about that, well someone with $50M lives a life of unimaginable freedom and luxury as much as someone with $50B. It's not reductive because it's reasoned. It's not the existence of fat and happy people that's the problem. It's the things last-years winners do to ensure that they keep winning and stay on top. At some magnitudes, they can't do very much. But in the billions, 10s, 100s, of billions? Yes they can. /fin