7 ms·

That's all well and good, unless you are the one being taken from. Why should someone's effort be rewarded with thievery?

djrobstep 10y ago
Quite. Owners of capital and land must stop their ongoing thievery from workers.
jgh 10y ago
It's not thievery, it's taxation. If you advantage from the system you should pay back into it.
- stevendhansen 10y ago
  It can be both.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Taxation is neither moral nor amoral. It's just tax which depending on it's size and how it's used and where have consequences good and bad depending on who you ask. There isn't some objective version of tax or non-tax.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
themartorana 10y ago
This is where shit goes off the rails before it's even begun. "Take" needs to be so much more well explained, because on its face, I agree with you! But, when looked at on balance, simple things like fair working wages also help redistribute wealth down the ladder but aren't burdened with the hyperbole of the rich being mugged by the poor. The argument is forever framed as three sets of hands - one with cash, one in the middle that pries the cash from the first set and hands it to the third. We don't need to talk about direct redistribution by force. Fair market practices and regulations that prevent one from taking unfair advantage of another do the trick just fine.
Retra 10y ago
You can't make a profit from your efforts without infrastructure, and you can't build and maintain infrastructure without a lot of people. Paying the people who support your infrastructure with the money you made off it isn't thievery, it's an investment in your society and culture.
Consultant32452 10y ago
I feel like that's too simplistic a way to look at it. In this country we've passed many laws to weaken and even remove entirely a previously strong union system. Did all the workers who are today making less money and/or have less benefits as the result of union busting have their money "taken away?" Some estimates suggest that the lack of enforcement of immigration laws have lowered the income of people without a high school diploma by as much as 7%. The rest of us saved a ton of money. Did those poor people have their 7% "taken" by the wealthy business owners who hire those illegal immigrants?
nickthemagicman 10y ago
You know I can't agree with you more. That's why we need a 100% inheritance tax. So someone's effort doesn't go to someone who doesn't deserve it.
- morgante 10y ago
  I'm not sure if you're being farcical, but I actually strongly support a 100% inheritance tax. It might be challenging to enforce, but it seems like the most equitable solution by far. There's nothing wrong with people earning lots of money from their own work, but they shouldn't be able to pass that on to heirs who have done literally nothing to earn it.
  - RangerScience 10y ago
    This is definitely more complicated than that. In the most basic sense, how much should I be allowed to do what I want with my own money? A step more complex; giving to your kids is, AFAIK, one of the biggest drivers in why people try to make money during their lifetimes. A step more liberal: Inheritance (the accumulation of wealth by a family), again, AFAIK, is an important part of upwards mobility. The current setup is definitely sub-optimal. 100% would also be sub optimal, and, I'd argue, worse than what we've got here, because it's another thing that rich people could dodge that not-rich people couldn't.
    - morgante 10y ago
      > In the most basic sense, how much should I be allowed to do what I want with my own money? It's not your money once you're dead. As far as I'm concerned, dead people don't have any rights. > A step more liberal: Inheritance (the accumulation of wealth by a family), again, AFAIK, is an important part of upwards mobility. On the contrary, I think it hurts economic mobility a lot more than it helps. If you're competing for opportunities with people who inherited millions of dollars (without doing anything themselves), it's a lot harder to advance yourself. Non-rich people don't generally leave enough of an estate for it to matter in the first case. We could easily exclude the first $100k for that matter.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
You can look at is as "theft", sure, but in many ways that's not 100% accurate. The idea that "the rich" have earned 100% of their wealth is a hypothesis, not a fact. It's a hypothesis that would only be true if the market were also 100% free and fair. It would only be true if no amount of government regulation or law ever unfairly advantaged those who already had wealth and power. It would only be true if there were absolutely no power imbalance between workers and employers, etc. None of those things are true, so we can fairly confidently say that some portion of the wealth of most of the rich has not been gained fairly. So then the next question is, obviously, how do you fix that? How do you ensure that the market, regulations, employment, etc. are all perfectly fair and free? And the answer there is, you very much cannot. At best it's an enormously difficult problem beyond the scale of any problem that has been tackled by human civilization to date, at worst it's fundamentally intractable. The next question then becomes, so how do we make it more fair in the easiest way we can in the near-term? And the answer there is wealth redistribution. Power and wealth perverts fairness of markets, including labor markets, and it perverts our systems of laws and governance. That's not to say that wealth is purely evil, there are many up sides to the accumulation of wealth, and personally I'm a big fan of "capitalism" (for lack of a better word). But we need to recognize that it is very much not only a flawed and imperfect system but a system that inherently contains many aspects that are poisonous to the operation of a peaceful and sane free society. The longer we ignore that, which we have for almost 4 decades, the worse those inherently problematic aspects become, and the more those who see the truth (that the system is very much rigged against the little guy) become increasingly intolerant of the continuation of the system that they perceive is systematically putting them at a disadvantage, and that leads to "very bad things".
- RangerScience 10y ago
  > has not been gained fairly. This is a... let's go with "subjective" - this is a subjective interpretation of "fairness". It is totally fair to profit from the effective functioning of civilization. I think what you're actually trying to say is it's not fair to claim credit for that wealth without sharing credit with the system that created the situation within which you could make it. I tend to think of wealth in the current system like water and hydropower, except that "natural" resting place of wealth is in one big pile (at the top), instead of one big pile at the bottom (oceans). (I could go into why, but I think, observationally, it's pretty clear what the steady-state trends towards). With that in mind, power is extracted (and work done by that power) as water moves towards it's resting state. Other systems (that are importing entropy) then work against that trend (evaporation), keeping the cycle going. Wealth accumulates. Something outside the system of wealth (such as government) needs to "import entropy" back into the economy so that work can be extracted as wealth moves back towards it's resting state. Does that make sense? (Please, poke holes in my model!)
ThomPete 10y ago
Taxation is not thievery. You and I are living in a society which have been created by the collective work of our forefathers. You aren't responsible for 100% of the value you create since a lot of the value of the work you perform are supported by things others have created for you and which aren't reflected in your salary. Taxation is just that taxation. If you want to be free of the "thievery" just don't participate in the economy created by the rest of society. Don't use computers which fundamental development have been largely funded by government. Don't use the internet which was largely funded by governments. You can't have your cake and eat it.
- JanezStupar 10y ago
  And you stop telling people who have funded the governments what to and not to do. Sound fair?
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    I'm not telling anyone what they have to do. I am telling you what they have done and why you can't claim 100% of your salary is based on your own working.
    - JanezStupar 10y ago
      I know for a fact that my forefathers have tried to avoid governments and their meddling fingers as much as possible and have fought really hard in various ways to keep the government of their lives as much as possible. Thus I owe it to them to keep fighting the government creep towards authoritarian totalitarianism. What have your forefathers been doing that you are now arguing that 100% of what I have earned and paid taxes on already, should get taxed again at some later date - as a punishment for me not spending it all?
      - ThomPete 10y ago
        You are confusing two very different things. I too don't want government to be too big or too all encompassing but that has nothing to do with whether some sort of taxation could be considered ok. One things is certain though. If you had to pay for everything yourself you wouldn't be able to afford it. The price of many of the things we consider obvious today are based on many years of accumulated hard work by others than your forefathers which you benefit from today. So we can discuss whether we pay too much tax, I am fine with that discussion. But positioning it as all taxation being thievery is both incorrect and simplistic.

djrobstep 10y ago

Quite. Owners of capital and land must stop their ongoing thievery from workers.

jgh 10y ago

It's not thievery, it's taxation. If you advantage from the system you should pay back into it.

stevendhansen 10y ago
It can be both.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Taxation is neither moral nor amoral. It's just tax which depending on it's size and how it's used and where have consequences good and bad depending on who you ask. There isn't some objective version of tax or non-tax.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

themartorana 10y ago

This is where shit goes off the rails before it's even begun. "Take" needs to be so much more well explained, because on its face, I agree with you! But, when looked at on balance, simple things like fair working wages also help redistribute wealth down the ladder but aren't burdened with the hyperbole of the rich being mugged by the poor. The argument is forever framed as three sets of hands - one with cash, one in the middle that pries the cash from the first set and hands it to the third. We don't need to talk about direct redistribution by force. Fair market practices and regulations that prevent one from taking unfair advantage of another do the trick just fine.

Retra 10y ago

You can't make a profit from your efforts without infrastructure, and you can't build and maintain infrastructure without a lot of people. Paying the people who support your infrastructure with the money you made off it isn't thievery, it's an investment in your society and culture.

Consultant32452 10y ago

I feel like that's too simplistic a way to look at it. In this country we've passed many laws to weaken and even remove entirely a previously strong union system. Did all the workers who are today making less money and/or have less benefits as the result of union busting have their money "taken away?" Some estimates suggest that the lack of enforcement of immigration laws have lowered the income of people without a high school diploma by as much as 7%. The rest of us saved a ton of money. Did those poor people have their 7% "taken" by the wealthy business owners who hire those illegal immigrants?

nickthemagicman 10y ago

You know I can't agree with you more. That's why we need a 100% inheritance tax. So someone's effort doesn't go to someone who doesn't deserve it.

morgante 10y ago
I'm not sure if you're being farcical, but I actually strongly support a 100% inheritance tax. It might be challenging to enforce, but it seems like the most equitable solution by far. There's nothing wrong with people earning lots of money from their own work, but they shouldn't be able to pass that on to heirs who have done literally nothing to earn it.
- RangerScience 10y ago
  This is definitely more complicated than that. In the most basic sense, how much should I be allowed to do what I want with my own money? A step more complex; giving to your kids is, AFAIK, one of the biggest drivers in why people try to make money during their lifetimes. A step more liberal: Inheritance (the accumulation of wealth by a family), again, AFAIK, is an important part of upwards mobility. The current setup is definitely sub-optimal. 100% would also be sub optimal, and, I'd argue, worse than what we've got here, because it's another thing that rich people could dodge that not-rich people couldn't.
  - morgante 10y ago
    > In the most basic sense, how much should I be allowed to do what I want with my own money? It's not your money once you're dead. As far as I'm concerned, dead people don't have any rights. > A step more liberal: Inheritance (the accumulation of wealth by a family), again, AFAIK, is an important part of upwards mobility. On the contrary, I think it hurts economic mobility a lot more than it helps. If you're competing for opportunities with people who inherited millions of dollars (without doing anything themselves), it's a lot harder to advance yourself. Non-rich people don't generally leave enough of an estate for it to matter in the first case. We could easily exclude the first $100k for that matter.

InclinedPlane 10y ago

You can look at is as "theft", sure, but in many ways that's not 100% accurate. The idea that "the rich" have earned 100% of their wealth is a hypothesis, not a fact. It's a hypothesis that would only be true if the market were also 100% free and fair. It would only be true if no amount of government regulation or law ever unfairly advantaged those who already had wealth and power. It would only be true if there were absolutely no power imbalance between workers and employers, etc. None of those things are true, so we can fairly confidently say that some portion of the wealth of most of the rich has not been gained fairly. So then the next question is, obviously, how do you fix that? How do you ensure that the market, regulations, employment, etc. are all perfectly fair and free? And the answer there is, you very much cannot. At best it's an enormously difficult problem beyond the scale of any problem that has been tackled by human civilization to date, at worst it's fundamentally intractable. The next question then becomes, so how do we make it more fair in the easiest way we can in the near-term? And the answer there is wealth redistribution. Power and wealth perverts fairness of markets, including labor markets, and it perverts our systems of laws and governance. That's not to say that wealth is purely evil, there are many up sides to the accumulation of wealth, and personally I'm a big fan of "capitalism" (for lack of a better word). But we need to recognize that it is very much not only a flawed and imperfect system but a system that inherently contains many aspects that are poisonous to the operation of a peaceful and sane free society. The longer we ignore that, which we have for almost 4 decades, the worse those inherently problematic aspects become, and the more those who see the truth (that the system is very much rigged against the little guy) become increasingly intolerant of the continuation of the system that they perceive is systematically putting them at a disadvantage, and that leads to "very bad things".

RangerScience 10y ago
> has not been gained fairly. This is a... let's go with "subjective" - this is a subjective interpretation of "fairness". It is totally fair to profit from the effective functioning of civilization. I think what you're actually trying to say is it's not fair to claim credit for that wealth without sharing credit with the system that created the situation within which you could make it. I tend to think of wealth in the current system like water and hydropower, except that "natural" resting place of wealth is in one big pile (at the top), instead of one big pile at the bottom (oceans). (I could go into why, but I think, observationally, it's pretty clear what the steady-state trends towards). With that in mind, power is extracted (and work done by that power) as water moves towards it's resting state. Other systems (that are importing entropy) then work against that trend (evaporation), keeping the cycle going. Wealth accumulates. Something outside the system of wealth (such as government) needs to "import entropy" back into the economy so that work can be extracted as wealth moves back towards it's resting state. Does that make sense? (Please, poke holes in my model!)

ThomPete 10y ago

Taxation is not thievery. You and I are living in a society which have been created by the collective work of our forefathers. You aren't responsible for 100% of the value you create since a lot of the value of the work you perform are supported by things others have created for you and which aren't reflected in your salary. Taxation is just that taxation. If you want to be free of the "thievery" just don't participate in the economy created by the rest of society. Don't use computers which fundamental development have been largely funded by government. Don't use the internet which was largely funded by governments. You can't have your cake and eat it.

JanezStupar 10y ago
And you stop telling people who have funded the governments what to and not to do. Sound fair?
- ThomPete 10y ago
  I'm not telling anyone what they have to do. I am telling you what they have done and why you can't claim 100% of your salary is based on your own working.
  - JanezStupar 10y ago
    I know for a fact that my forefathers have tried to avoid governments and their meddling fingers as much as possible and have fought really hard in various ways to keep the government of their lives as much as possible. Thus I owe it to them to keep fighting the government creep towards authoritarian totalitarianism. What have your forefathers been doing that you are now arguing that 100% of what I have earned and paid taxes on already, should get taxed again at some later date - as a punishment for me not spending it all?
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      You are confusing two very different things. I too don't want government to be too big or too all encompassing but that has nothing to do with whether some sort of taxation could be considered ok. One things is certain though. If you had to pay for everything yourself you wouldn't be able to afford it. The price of many of the things we consider obvious today are based on many years of accumulated hard work by others than your forefathers which you benefit from today. So we can discuss whether we pay too much tax, I am fine with that discussion. But positioning it as all taxation being thievery is both incorrect and simplistic.