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.
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.
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.
Tobias Lütke is a German born Canadian. Why is he commenting about US elections at all? He has never voted in the US.
Never having a history of voting in an election is insufficient to the determination of voter eligibility.
Because he makes money from it, capitalism and fascism have no borders.
Edit: and I’m sure he’s voted with his dollars.
This leads to the old “lead based voting system”.
Why is a big dick acting like a dick?
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.
“Why did a $154 billion CEO just endorse stripping most Americans of voting rights—and taking us back to the 19th century?”
'Cause the ultra wealthy don’t see the rest of us as being real people, and they should be (legally) killed.
Wild thing to say while living in a flammable house
that blood tank needs tyrant blood refilling
I think most of us would be willing to try this if the more money you had, the further you are kept from politics.
LOL, why?
Because all of these assholes think they are just going to fuck off to Galt’s Gulch or whatever.
Because they want to run the company towns of the 2000s.
Is he trying to radicalize people? Damn, that’s just comic book evil.
