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> Imagine maximum salaries or maximum wages; it's along the same lines I have read somewhere that the main reason capitalism has worked well over communism is,

> Imagine maximum salaries or maximum wages; it's along the same lines I have read somewhere that the main reason capitalism has worked well over communism is, capitalism explicitly does not put a cap on wealth (and therefore, money) a person can accumulate since different people bring different values in society and the moment you put a cap on that, the person will lose motivation and stop even bringing the expected value for the cap that is being proposed. I'm in no way arguing for/against taxing the wealthy and do not have a well-informed stance in this issue. Because, I also think money breeds money and if you are wealthy, the probability of you gaining more wealth increases exponentially. Personally, I think maximum salaries or maximum wages will not work since it inherently has some disadvantages - do you propose an absolute maximum value for everyone in this world? or do you propose region wise or based on some other criteria? If region wise, just like remote work salaries, people will start gaming the system etc etc ... I think this discussion goes far more than keeping billionaires rich and discounting the segment of people who might end up in that list sometime in future, but maybe they are holding themselves back from giving more value to society because of these laws?

lidHanteyk 7y ago
Sure, here's a basic rule of thumb. We value people, just as bulk humans, at around $10mil/person. [0] (Lots of good practical philosophy at that FAQ!) Some people are better than others. I've never met somebody who's 1000x better than me, though, and I don't think that they exist; simultaneously, I'd never want to treat somebody more than 1000x worse than I'm being treated. So I think that we can cap the maximum compensation at 1000x the minimum compensation, or $10bil/yr, whichever is lower. I don't know what you've read, but one of the important features of (capital-C) Communism is a great reduction in what can be held as personal property. A Communist typically would not argue that people be restricted in how much money they hold, but that people be restricted from holding any money at all, since money has no use within a Communist commune. I'm not arguing at all for Communism. [0] https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-valuation https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v...

lidHanteyk 7y ago

Sure, here's a basic rule of thumb. We value people, just as bulk humans, at around $10mil/person. [0] (Lots of good practical philosophy at that FAQ!) Some people are better than others. I've never met somebody who's 1000x better than me, though, and I don't think that they exist; simultaneously, I'd never want to treat somebody more than 1000x worse than I'm being treated. So I think that we can cap the maximum compensation at 1000x the minimum compensation, or $10bil/yr, whichever is lower. I don't know what you've read, but one of the important features of (capital-C) Communism is a great reduction in what can be held as personal property. A Communist typically would not argue that people be restricted in how much money they hold, but that people be restricted from holding any money at all, since money has no use within a Communist commune. I'm not arguing at all for Communism. [0] https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-valuation https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v...