Although I'm a staunch supporter of progressive taxation, I think it's unfortunate you're downvoted, because I think that's a legitimate question. To me, there

Although I'm a staunch supporter of progressive taxation, I think it's unfortunate you're downvoted, because I think that's a legitimate question. To me, there are several arguments for progressive taxation. To begin with, the wealthy benefit disproportionately from the playing field we have -- our robust marketplace and ample infrastructure (underfunded, though it may be). The further you are from subsistence, the more opportunity you have. In a very real sense, we're not actually a liberal society when so much is pay-to-play. So one argument for progressive taxation is that it's a means of rebalancing opportunity when wealth and income are grossly unequal But I'd go further and assert that our means of wealth allocation is by no means fair, a priori. In fact, it's increasingly unfair. From that perspective, progressive taxation is a patch on the problem. This would be a socialist defense of progressive taxation, but it's also possible to justify from a capitalist standpoint. If it's true that the wealthy are rewarded in return for their contributions to society, well then we should put them on a treadmill to keep them working. This is how corporations treat labor, after all. Unless of course real world capitalism is only for the benefit of people that happen to have capital.