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> This is backwards. Only because I copied your phrasing. I dare say there are people around who want to tax rich people just because they don't like wealth,
by gjm11 11y ago
> This is backwards.
Only because I copied your phrasing.
I dare say there are people around who want to tax rich people just because they don't like wealth, but that's not what's being proposed by the OP and it's not what most people advocating higher taxation are calling for. E.g., from the OP: "So by taxing the wealthy and spending it on services, we can better ensure that the level playing field you allude to continues to exist." (In case it isn't clear from that quotation, the "level playing field" isn't about equalizing wealth or income, it's about providing public services to everyone.)
> equating wealth and evil
Who's doing that? Here's the OP again: "No one believes that there should not be rich people." "No one wants to take the money you have away." You may think the OP is insincere, but he is very plainly not equating wealth and evil. I don't see anyone here equating wealth and evil, implicitly or explicitly. I'm afraid I think you're just imagining it.
Here are arguments I see actually being made by people in this discussion advocating more tax. I have italicized the only one of these arguments that is on the same continent as the ballpark of "equating wealth and evil", and it's still a fair way away. Governments can allocate capital more effectively than most billionaires. Taxation may incentivize wealthy people to invest more. Taxes are low right now compared with what they have historically been, so raising them might be a good idea. Inequality itself causes social problems. No single person can really be so much more productive than others as to justify billions in wealth; so if someone is that wealthy, they got that way on account of others' work, so they don't deserve it. Economists are saying we need to reduce inequality to avoid disaster.
> Will it be ok if wealth from developed nations were transferred to poor nations, every year?
Yes, that would probably be a good thing. Is it supposed to be obviously not? Most developed nations do in fact transfer some of their wealth to poor nations every year. So do citizens of those developed nations. We call the first of those "aid" and the second "charity" and while it's possible to argue about how effective they are it's certainly not obvious that they're a bad idea.
- kamaal 11y ago>>Who's doing that? Read this thread over again. There is a sad sentiment regarding Elon Musk's Mansion. >>Governments can allocate capital more effectively than most billionaires. Demonstrably wrong. See wars in history. >>Inequality itself causes social problems. Like what? Your USSR, North Koreas, Venezuelas of the world. In fact every failed communist nation in the past century falsifies this claim. >>No single person can really be so much more productive than others as to justify billions in wealth; so if someone is that wealthy, they got that way on account of others' work, so they don't deserve it. Economists are saying we need to reduce inequality to avoid disaster. Appreciable sentiment if you till the land with a shovel in your hand. Increase of productivity is not always measured through human effort alone. But also through tools which humans invent to amplify their productivity through automation of some kind. There are kinds of effort, one where you do all the work alone. One where you work to invent a tool that does that the job for you. Latter is also commonly known as 'progress'.
- gjm11 11y agoI don't see the "sad sentiment regarding Elon Musk's mansion" anywhere at all in this discussion. Someone said Musk seemed like the kind of person who would put every cent he owned into his businesses and not buy a big house or a yacht or anything. Someone else said: no, as it happens he's got a big house. No one has suggested that he shouldn't have a big house. No one has suggested that having one makes him a bad person. I think you're seeing things that aren't there. On the rest: I wonder whether you misunderstood what I was doing in that paragraph. I am not endorsing any of the arguments I mentioned (though as it happens I agree with some of them). I was listing all the things that people in this discussion had (at the time) said in favour of higher taxes, and pointing out that none of them involved saying that wealth is evil or that rich people are evil. So responding by countering a few of the arguments misses the point. I wasn't making those arguments myself. I was pointing out that none of them involves the idea that rich = evil.