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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
Universal suffrage was a mistake. Maybe a confederation of workers councils would be better.
??? The richest people wouldnt vote. They pay no income tax, famously.
I wonder if this is what he meant but somehow I doubt it
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.
Never having a history of voting in an election is insufficient to the determination of voter eligibility.
Because he hates democracy everywhere, and thinks the US might be the next to fall, if it hasn’t already.
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?
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.
Ja, I agree! People like him need to vanish. That is to say, there must not be any billionairs. They only exist because they take away value from those that work to produce it. In other words, they steal from workers, both domestic and foreign.
By law or by guillotine - those bastards need to go.
The problem here is that we have confused “financial success” with “merit”.
They are almost always mutually exclusive.
I want to make an analogy with cars.
Many people think that driving fast and being rude makes them good drivers because they can control their cars and possibly display how good their reaction time is. Like F1 drivers.
A good driver actually follows the rules, prioritize other people safety. But they look slow? They are even perceived as an obstacle.
Currently following the rules is seen as weak and unsuccessful for some reason.
Financial success should prpbably be measured as how good you are with your budget, paying your taxes… Etc. Dare I say employee retention if you are a business owner.
Instead it is measured with possibly the worse data point, total value of assets.
Honestly going back with my analogy it’s as if we measured how good of a driver you are based on how fast you go from A to B while ignoring everything else.
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.
This leads to the old “lead based voting system”.
Oh, you mean the citizen’s veto?
Third box reform, if you will.
To rob the poor of quality of life
Does anyone have tips for how to identify (and avoid) sites that use shopify?
A “good system” would never allow billionaires to exist, and would entail a solution for the ones that already do.
