In context, I believe that OP was arguing for eliminating capital gains from our current system, not totally rewriting the way our taxes work such that capital

In context, I believe that OP was arguing for eliminating capital gains from our current system, not totally rewriting the way our taxes work such that capital gains was eliminated but we recovered those taxes in another manner. My argument accounts for this: > Of course you could argue that you can account for all of this using negative externalities. In that case you might as well tax capital gains to account for the negative externalities. I suppose you could tax something else, like lifetime earnings, but the point is I feel comfortable making the claim that not taxing capital gains is idiotic. I mean, ideally we would have a system where negative externalities were taxed appropriately, however that is a monumentally complicated task, and I somewhat doubt it could be done efficiently. This is especially true when you start dealing with externalities that arise from situations like "the reason why eliminating capital gains tax is productive is because people will continue to reinvest their money because it's the most productive use for their money," where reinvest effectively means you end up buying more and more of the economy. What regulations do you enact to prevent this from devolving into feudalism? How do you ensure that system you have put in place isn't destroyed by regulatory capture? What if having a ton of money is a negative externality in and of itself, even though it means you contribute more efficiently to the economy? I know that capital gains tax is inefficient, but it's an easy tax to levy, it's hard to evade, and politicians can understand it. Removing capital gains tax and accounting for the externalities is not idiotic. However, removing capital gains tax in our current system would almost definitely be an idiotic move.