4 ms·

This isn't even a tax. Here's the dictionary definition: "A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business

by mises 7y ago

This isn't even a tax. Here's the dictionary definition: "A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions." (google) Taxing is adding a cost to an existing transaction, not taking a cut of money arbitrarily. The idea of a wealth tax is literally the government just stealing money. The American government, for instance couldn't do this. We had to pass an amendment to allow income tax; there is no such amendment for "wealth tax". This is a result of Pollock v Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., which affirmed the government directly stealing wealth is unconstitutional. If you'd rather call it theft or confiscation, fine, but not a tax. Most importantly, we've got the Fifth Amendment: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation". This means that you could only impose a "wealth tax" if you convinced a court to rule that ninety-nine cents was just compensation for a dollar. I guess we're just moving closer to "the mob" seizing the property of others, just because its constituents want it more.

coldtea 7y ago
>I guess we're just moving closer to "the mob" seizing the property of others, just because its constituents want it more. Well, the law is either what some people want to be or what a majority/plurality of people want to be. The first is not very democratic and can be self serving for the private interests of a few. If the latter however want a wealth tax, or even if they propose that "90% of wealth should be made public" then that could be made into law, regardless of what the constitution says. That wouldn't be "mob" but just law. In fact, the "Fifth Amendment" is already an amendment, showing that the constitution is already not a un-alterable source of divine guidance. At some point, perhaps the whole of the constitution could be considered a BS product of its own time, and replaced with a different set of operating rules.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  what is desired by a majority/plurality of citizens is pretty much orthogonal to justice.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Actually it's the very definition of justice. That's how justice was developed and has always worked since day one. Aside from hearing God voices, we don't have any other. It's just that in our days we pretend that we have some "specialists" discussing the finer points. But something without the people behind it it's not justice, just like something without a power to enforce it it's not law. When somebody says "What the majority considers justice is not justice" they really only say "My arbitrary idea of justice is better than other people's". As a cultural thing, justice is only what the culture (shaped by the people) considers as such. (One could only argue about what's more useful (utilitarianism) but that also needs a commonly defined desired outcome and a somewhat agreed upon utility function).
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      I'm not going to claim that I have a better definition for justice, but aggregate opinion seems like an especially poor one. if the majority ethnic group in some country democratically votes to exterminate some minority group, is it just? I could more easily accept the claim that "justice" doesn't exist than that I would be forced to recognize positively that a genocide was just.
      - coldtea 7y ago
        >If the majority ethnic group in some country democratically votes to exterminate some minority group, is it just? For them it is. In Germany during the war what they did wasn't considered unjust (like in the South during legal slavery). And if the majority on earth agreed, it would be considered a-ok (like before countries started abolishing slavery, when it was just a normal thing for most peoples all over the world). We do have some escape hatches from "it's just what most say it is", but those are based on religious and cultural ideas (including "scientific" conceptions of justice in the latter camp). I think in the end: justice as an operative thing is what most people say it is (it can't be anything else). But there's also some common shared sense of justice, not well defined and not easily enforceable at all cases (e.g. one couldn't enforce it in WWII Germany), but which contains a core of the only universal notion of justice (don't cause harm without reason, don't kill, don't steal, etc).
clarkmoody 7y ago
You're forgetting the effective "wealth tax" of inflation that hurts everyone across the board, except for those favored interests with access to the newly-printed money. Of course, the effects of inflation are felt most strongly by the poor and those on fixed income, for whom the rising cost of basic goods means that their meager income purchases less and less each year.
jcranmer 7y ago
> This isn't even a tax. It's a variation on wealth taxes. If the dictionary doesn't consider that to be a tax, then the dictionary definition is wrong. Notably, that definition also seems to imply that property taxes aren't taxes, despite them being millennia old. > This is a result of Pollock v Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., which affirmed the government directly stealing wealth is unconstitutional. That is a horribly misleading summary. Pollock said a tax on rental income is effectively equivalent to a tax on the property itself, and since property taxes are direct taxes, such taxes must be apportioned to the states according to population per the Constitution. (Hence why the 16th amendment, whose sole purpose was to overturn Pollock, refers to "income, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States"). Most notably, the Constitution explicitly refers to this kind of tax using the word "tax," and explicitly permits Congress to levy this kind of tax (albeit with some conditions), so your assertion that this kind of tax is not a tax is flatly contradicted by the people who wrote the basic instruments of the US government. Not to mention that the US Constitution hardly matters at all when discussing the ability of Italy to levy taxes on its own citizens and residents, unless Italy became a US state in the past few days...
sokoloff 7y ago
That dictionary definition was probably written in a place that doesn't have a wealth tax. Even that dictionary definition misses property tax, which is surely a tax.

by mises 7y ago

coldtea 7y ago

>I guess we're just moving closer to "the mob" seizing the property of others, just because its constituents want it more. Well, the law is either what some people want to be or what a majority/plurality of people want to be. The first is not very democratic and can be self serving for the private interests of a few. If the latter however want a wealth tax, or even if they propose that "90% of wealth should be made public" then that could be made into law, regardless of what the constitution says. That wouldn't be "mob" but just law. In fact, the "Fifth Amendment" is already an amendment, showing that the constitution is already not a un-alterable source of divine guidance. At some point, perhaps the whole of the constitution could be considered a BS product of its own time, and replaced with a different set of operating rules.

leetcrew 7y ago
what is desired by a majority/plurality of citizens is pretty much orthogonal to justice.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Actually it's the very definition of justice. That's how justice was developed and has always worked since day one. Aside from hearing God voices, we don't have any other. It's just that in our days we pretend that we have some "specialists" discussing the finer points. But something without the people behind it it's not justice, just like something without a power to enforce it it's not law. When somebody says "What the majority considers justice is not justice" they really only say "My arbitrary idea of justice is better than other people's". As a cultural thing, justice is only what the culture (shaped by the people) considers as such. (One could only argue about what's more useful (utilitarianism) but that also needs a commonly defined desired outcome and a somewhat agreed upon utility function).
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    I'm not going to claim that I have a better definition for justice, but aggregate opinion seems like an especially poor one. if the majority ethnic group in some country democratically votes to exterminate some minority group, is it just? I could more easily accept the claim that "justice" doesn't exist than that I would be forced to recognize positively that a genocide was just.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      >If the majority ethnic group in some country democratically votes to exterminate some minority group, is it just? For them it is. In Germany during the war what they did wasn't considered unjust (like in the South during legal slavery). And if the majority on earth agreed, it would be considered a-ok (like before countries started abolishing slavery, when it was just a normal thing for most peoples all over the world). We do have some escape hatches from "it's just what most say it is", but those are based on religious and cultural ideas (including "scientific" conceptions of justice in the latter camp). I think in the end: justice as an operative thing is what most people say it is (it can't be anything else). But there's also some common shared sense of justice, not well defined and not easily enforceable at all cases (e.g. one couldn't enforce it in WWII Germany), but which contains a core of the only universal notion of justice (don't cause harm without reason, don't kill, don't steal, etc).

clarkmoody 7y ago

You're forgetting the effective "wealth tax" of inflation that hurts everyone across the board, except for those favored interests with access to the newly-printed money. Of course, the effects of inflation are felt most strongly by the poor and those on fixed income, for whom the rising cost of basic goods means that their meager income purchases less and less each year.

jcranmer 7y ago

> This isn't even a tax. It's a variation on wealth taxes. If the dictionary doesn't consider that to be a tax, then the dictionary definition is wrong. Notably, that definition also seems to imply that property taxes aren't taxes, despite them being millennia old. > This is a result of Pollock v Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., which affirmed the government directly stealing wealth is unconstitutional. That is a horribly misleading summary. Pollock said a tax on rental income is effectively equivalent to a tax on the property itself, and since property taxes are direct taxes, such taxes must be apportioned to the states according to population per the Constitution. (Hence why the 16th amendment, whose sole purpose was to overturn Pollock, refers to "income, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States"). Most notably, the Constitution explicitly refers to this kind of tax using the word "tax," and explicitly permits Congress to levy this kind of tax (albeit with some conditions), so your assertion that this kind of tax is not a tax is flatly contradicted by the people who wrote the basic instruments of the US government. Not to mention that the US Constitution hardly matters at all when discussing the ability of Italy to levy taxes on its own citizens and residents, unless Italy became a US state in the past few days...

sokoloff 7y ago

That dictionary definition was probably written in a place that doesn't have a wealth tax. Even that dictionary definition misses property tax, which is surely a tax.