> Well, how do you propose money be prevented from influencing politics? (In a way the preserves present-day extreme economic inequality, something that I'm not

> Well, how do you propose money be prevented from influencing politics? (In a way the preserves present-day extreme economic inequality, something that I'm not at all convinced is something we should endeavor to save). You're asking a massive question. How should we stop money from influencing politics? By understanding how money influences politics, and looking for ways to reduce that influence. Lobbying is an obvious example, people with more money should not have their voices amplified in politics, so that could be delegitimised. For less obvious questions like how to prevent the wealthy from funding more biased news, I have some ideas but I don't have a perfect design here ready for you and I don't think some random guy on the internet not being the world's greatest systems designer affects whether money in politics is the problem. > I'd wager reducing inequality is a problem that's easier to measure and there are better understood actions to accomplish the goal. First off, reducing inequality is a proposed solution to the problem, not the problem itself. It sounds nitpicky, but that's an important difference because we have to know if successful application of the solution actually solves the problem. We've identified a couple of different problems to solve - corruption in politics and poverty. So, does reducing inequality by highly taxing the wealthy increase the average living standard? I don't think that's a given. There are a lot of factors at play - it would potentially decrease investment capital, disincentivise entrepreneurialism, and the money taken from the rich may not even be enough to make a difference - the idea that the 1% own 50% of the wealth is a bit misleading because much of that value is based on shares in the companies they started, which can't necessarily be liquidated for their paper value and definitely not all at the same time. Personally, I think the idea of "owning" a company is one of the drivers of these bizarre numbers and the existence of billionaires. I guess I'm a bit of a syndicalist in that way - I think equity investment shouldn't exist and companies should not be considered an asset. So if you wanted to reduce wealth inequality, that dubious means of acquiring massive wealth might be a good place to start. But I could bitch about wealth accumulation and representation in an economy with stock markets all day. > But demanding we focus on a problem that we don't know how to solve, and refraining from enacting "less optimal" solutions in the meantime, is an argument for inaction and letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. That's a blatantly incorrect argument. You can advocate for increased taxes on wealth, or you can advocate for making lobbying illegal. What I'm arguing is that the problem we need to solve is multi-faceted and fraught with complexity, and the solution may not be straight forward. Reducing wealth inequality is a simple solution that targets a symptom rather than the root cause, so it's liable to be ineffective. It's not even like it's not been tried before - TFA posits that marginal tax was 90% in the 60s yet I'm pretty sure that life is better now than it was then.