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> Does having rich people benefit all of society? Who cares? > If it doesn't then we should tax the rich So if society is comprised of 10 people, and you dev

> Does having rich people benefit all of society? Who cares? > If it doesn't then we should tax the rich So if society is comprised of 10 people, and you devour one of them and redistribute to the other 9, thats OK simply because the 9 recipients benefit? > If having wealth inequality does benefit society Youre constructing your argument from a false premise, that the mob, or "society" as you call it, has a moral right to do everything it wants as long as it somehow extracts a benefit from that action. If you can gang up and rob your own rich, why not arm up and attack a neighboring country and enslave its population? It would be a benefit for the stronger society after all. Or why not introduce slavery again? It certainly would be a benefit for the society of slave owners. Etc. Going by your "benefit über alles" line of thinking, you can legitimize basically any kind of atrocity imaginable.

consz 11y ago
Do you consider taxing a rich person the same as devouring them? If not, what do you think is the point of your hypothetical?
- muuh-gnu 11y ago
  What makes you think I will try to constructively respond to your question if you dont try to constructively respond to mine?
  - consz 11y ago
    You did not post anything worth constructively responding to.
    - muuh-gnu 11y ago
      Why did you waste your time responding then, and still do?
      - consz 11y ago
        I enjoy being snarky for my own benefit, and my time is extraordinarily cheap, so wasting it is little cost.
pbhjpbhj 11y ago
All those that believe democracy is an overall good supposedly believe in the benefit of the majority, all those that are socialist believe that benefit to society is important - those two categories probably account for a majority of the population of the world. It is often remarked that capitalism is a beneficial regime because of the "trickle down effect" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics). >So if society is comprised of 10 people, and you devour one of them and redistribute to the other 9, thats OK simply because the 9 recipients benefit? // That doesn't benefit all of society now does it? >If you can gang up and rob your own rich, why not arm up and attack a neighboring country and enslave its population? // Attacking a neighbouring country won't benefit society it will be a substantial detriment as would enslaving members of society. The thing about "rob[bing] your own rich" is that the many of the richest members of our societies [in the UK] are rich because of chance, because of rent seeking, because despite the world belonging to mankind they by violence [usually of their ancestors] have acquired a larger share of it's resources. Why is it unjust to redistribute such wealth? Let's flip your first question - if society is composed of 10 people and one of them has enough food to feed 10, should we just let 9 starve so that the 1 can keep "his" portion? Or to look at it a different way: how about we look at an island that's got resources to feed them all, they each are provided a random share and one has the most fertile and productive part - they all work equally hard and he always has excess and grows fat and rich in resources whilst the others suffer to varying degrees. Why should the benefit born of random chance overrule our humanity? "We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down." (Dabla-Norris et al., http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42986.0 http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42986.0) [FWIW I don't agree that GDP is the best measure of improvements in society but it at least appears to indicate the efficiency - within humanitarian bounds - of a capitalist system. I'd prefer to follow happiness quotients.]
- meric 11y ago
  The thing about "rob[bing] your own rich" is that the many of the richest members of our societies [in the UK] are rich because of chance, because of rent seeking, because despite the world belonging to mankind they by violence [usually of their ancestors] have acquired a larger share of it's resources. Why is it unjust to redistribute such wealth? Can you categorically say all of the richest in your country are rich because of chance and rent seeking? Even if yes, can you categorically say all of the richest in your country are rich because of their exploitation of British people? Or did some of them rich because of their ancestors exploitation of India or through the Chinese opium trade? I get what you're saying with not letting the 9 people starve, but justifying it by saying "they deserve their stuff taken because they're exploiting us" is the emotional logic that led to holocaust, or the cultural revolution, events where millions are displaced and killed. Cows & Pigs don't deserve to be murdered for their meat, but we do it, to live. You got to do it, not because they deserve it, but because it's what you got to do. If you are going to do it, own it.
zanny 11y ago
> you devour one of them and redistribute to the other 9, thats OK simply because the 9 recipients benefit? Because obviously anyone proposing progressive taxation wants the terms to be "once you make a million dollars, all assets are seized and you are left to die in the woods, filthy elitist". Definitely not anything, even in the most extreme case, like "oh hey, you made a million dollars this year, that is demonstrably enough to not only fund all your needs and probably 99% of conceivable wants but also those of at least a dozen family members or more", so we are going to take every cent you make beyond that and redistribute it to those who don't have enough to even fulfill their own needs". That is not eating the rich. It is obviously way too redistributive and would catastrophically disincentivize wealth creation and probably wreck the economy, but even in the most extreme case it is not locally "devouring". You still have a million dollars a year, enough to afford almost anything. And thats just the unreasonable super-communist perspective. A real world progressive tax rate that optimizes for societal wellbeing would probably be a NIT that guarantees at least 30k and caps your income in the hundreds of millions with the bisection at the peak income happiness threshold thats around 90k per person. I'm sure "devouring" all the income beyond 500 million dollars of someone who made that much this year will certainly destroy them, at least as much as deep poverty and systemic inequality is definitely not destroying the minds of the children and the health of the parents living in it today.

consz 11y ago

Do you consider taxing a rich person the same as devouring them? If not, what do you think is the point of your hypothetical?

muuh-gnu 11y ago
What makes you think I will try to constructively respond to your question if you dont try to constructively respond to mine?
- consz 11y ago
  You did not post anything worth constructively responding to.
  - muuh-gnu 11y ago
    Why did you waste your time responding then, and still do?
    - consz 11y ago
      I enjoy being snarky for my own benefit, and my time is extraordinarily cheap, so wasting it is little cost.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago

All those that believe democracy is an overall good supposedly believe in the benefit of the majority, all those that are socialist believe that benefit to society is important - those two categories probably account for a majority of the population of the world. It is often remarked that capitalism is a beneficial regime because of the "trickle down effect" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics). >So if society is comprised of 10 people, and you devour one of them and redistribute to the other 9, thats OK simply because the 9 recipients benefit? // That doesn't benefit all of society now does it? >If you can gang up and rob your own rich, why not arm up and attack a neighboring country and enslave its population? // Attacking a neighbouring country won't benefit society it will be a substantial detriment as would enslaving members of society. The thing about "rob[bing] your own rich" is that the many of the richest members of our societies [in the UK] are rich because of chance, because of rent seeking, because despite the world belonging to mankind they by violence [usually of their ancestors] have acquired a larger share of it's resources. Why is it unjust to redistribute such wealth? Let's flip your first question - if society is composed of 10 people and one of them has enough food to feed 10, should we just let 9 starve so that the 1 can keep "his" portion? Or to look at it a different way: how about we look at an island that's got resources to feed them all, they each are provided a random share and one has the most fertile and productive part - they all work equally hard and he always has excess and grows fat and rich in resources whilst the others suffer to varying degrees. Why should the benefit born of random chance overrule our humanity? "We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down." (Dabla-Norris et al., http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42986.0 http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42986.0) [FWIW I don't agree that GDP is the best measure of improvements in society but it at least appears to indicate the efficiency - within humanitarian bounds - of a capitalist system. I'd prefer to follow happiness quotients.]

meric 11y ago
The thing about "rob[bing] your own rich" is that the many of the richest members of our societies [in the UK] are rich because of chance, because of rent seeking, because despite the world belonging to mankind they by violence [usually of their ancestors] have acquired a larger share of it's resources. Why is it unjust to redistribute such wealth? Can you categorically say all of the richest in your country are rich because of chance and rent seeking? Even if yes, can you categorically say all of the richest in your country are rich because of their exploitation of British people? Or did some of them rich because of their ancestors exploitation of India or through the Chinese opium trade? I get what you're saying with not letting the 9 people starve, but justifying it by saying "they deserve their stuff taken because they're exploiting us" is the emotional logic that led to holocaust, or the cultural revolution, events where millions are displaced and killed. Cows & Pigs don't deserve to be murdered for their meat, but we do it, to live. You got to do it, not because they deserve it, but because it's what you got to do. If you are going to do it, own it.

zanny 11y ago

> you devour one of them and redistribute to the other 9, thats OK simply because the 9 recipients benefit? Because obviously anyone proposing progressive taxation wants the terms to be "once you make a million dollars, all assets are seized and you are left to die in the woods, filthy elitist". Definitely not anything, even in the most extreme case, like "oh hey, you made a million dollars this year, that is demonstrably enough to not only fund all your needs and probably 99% of conceivable wants but also those of at least a dozen family members or more", so we are going to take every cent you make beyond that and redistribute it to those who don't have enough to even fulfill their own needs". That is not eating the rich. It is obviously way too redistributive and would catastrophically disincentivize wealth creation and probably wreck the economy, but even in the most extreme case it is not locally "devouring". You still have a million dollars a year, enough to afford almost anything. And thats just the unreasonable super-communist perspective. A real world progressive tax rate that optimizes for societal wellbeing would probably be a NIT that guarantees at least 30k and caps your income in the hundreds of millions with the bisection at the peak income happiness threshold thats around 90k per person. I'm sure "devouring" all the income beyond 500 million dollars of someone who made that much this year will certainly destroy them, at least as much as deep poverty and systemic inequality is definitely not destroying the minds of the children and the health of the parents living in it today.