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Alternative title: Majority of Americans are not rich, and therefore see no downside to taking from those who are I do think the inequality gap is becoming mor

Alternative title: Majority of Americans are not rich, and therefore see no downside to taking from those who are I do think the inequality gap is becoming more of a problem, but simply asking the population if they want someone else to pay more is going to have the obvious result.

sephlietz 7y ago
Your argument implies that a wealth tax has always been favored by a majority of Americans (since by definition a majority of Americans have always been not rich), which I think is not true. I think the truth is likely that personal wealth is but one of many factors in support for a wealth tax.
munk-a 7y ago
No, the majority of Americans believe that everyone should live a decent life rather than a few random people living stupid wealthy lives while others suffer in poverty. I do agree that the sentiment is pretty deeply ingrained in American culture though, for a long time people have voted and advocated against their own interests because one day they might win the lottery and somehow make it through the insane taxes that come with that to qualify for a tax liability on their estate when they end up passing.
- seneca 7y ago
  > Ha, oh... oh my, that's rich. Please don't post this kind of low quality snark here. This isn't reddit.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    My apologies, you're correct - edited to remove the snark.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
    - dang 7y ago
      For site survival purposes, it's not enough for a comment to contain interesting content, just like it's not enough for food to contain nutrients. It also must not contain poison. It's helpful when users gently ask other users to stick to the guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Of course it's also off topic, but that is a necessary evil. Out-of-band control signals are what enables the system to right itself. munk-a's response was perfect.
- lawnchair_larry 7y ago
  This doesn’t address my point. The majority of Americans are not wealthy, so of course the majority thinks that.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    I think down this road leads a tautology because most classical definitions of consensus are such that taxing the wealthy more than the poor is considered a fair and equitable consensus. I don't like to leave assumptions and definitions unexamined so here's an analogy, most people who murdered steve don't believe that people who murdered steve should be punished for it - even though the majority of the population disagrees with that view we need to defend the minority of people that just murdered steve less their opinions be swept under by a tyrannical and unreasonable majority. The majority absolutely can be tyrannical and the court of popular opinion is not considered the sole ethical decider - see philosophical discussions about whether certain historical events in the 1940s led to a society where some pretty extreme actions actually qualified as ethical. The society they occurred in publicly and openly approved of those actions but most of us would hesitate to call those actions ethical so there is merit in being hesitant to call the apparent ruling of the court of public opinion a consensus, but I think this particular case is more valid and self-reinforcing. Interesting question though.
keanzu 7y ago
The tyranny of the majority is a weakness inherent to majority rule in which the majority of an electorate pursues exclusively its own interests at the expense of those in the minority. This results in oppression of minority groups comparable to that of a tyrant or despot.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sephlietz 7y ago
  Rich, powerful people are not oppressed. Taxes are not oppression.
- jandrese 7y ago
  Oh no, how will those poor powerless multi-millionaires survive? Oh wait, they still control the government. This situation is kind of silly to talk about because the very people who would be subject to the tax will just tell their congresspeople to vote no and that will be the end of it.
kentm 7y ago
> Alternative title: Majority of Americans are not rich, and therefore see no downside to taking from those who are Thats unnecessarily reductive and dismissive of peoples' beliefs. Probably more along the lines of: 1) The rich have the system gamed in their favor and thus its only fair that they pay more into the system that secures their wealth. 2) There are direly needed services that need to be funded and the rich can afford the pain more than the poor. Wealth itself has a marginal utility.
- jandrese 7y ago
  More importantly, capitalism itself tends to concentrate wealth at the top. People can use money to make more money without having to personally produce goods or offer services. This leads to a positive feedback loop where the available wealth concentrates in the hands of people who have lots of wealth. Left unchecked it leads to feudalism and eventually collapses on itself. This is one of the major jobs of a government in a capitalist system: to keep injecting wealth at the bottom of the pyramid to prevent the collapse. It's arguable that the government has been shirking its duty in this regard since the 80s, and our increasing wealth gap is a symptom of a systematic failure. The longer we let this continue the more painful the solution will have to be in the end. And it's already pretty bad--we have multiple billionaires in the US. A billionaire has the same problem that plagued Communist countries, a person with that much personal wealth can't spend it quickly enough without basically becoming their own company, so the money becomes trapped and slows the economy bit by bit. We are in the situation now where people can start their own personal orbital rocket companies and still not spend their money fast enough to keep it in the economy.
mobilefriendly 7y ago
"Don’t tax you. Don’t tax me. Tax the guy behind the tree." -- Russell B. Long
happytoexplain 7y ago
That's pretty reductionist - it seems to me like we have many non-rich Americans who possess varying strengths of the belief that, generally, the rich rightfully earned all they've come to and in turn provide more or less proportional value to society, and that opinion informs their opinion on wealth taxes. As well, the implication that not-havers broadly can not be relied upon to express holistic or worthy opinions on their own society's rules regarding havers is ridiculous.
- lawnchair_larry 7y ago
  Nobody made the general statement that not-havers can’t be relied upon to express worthy opinions regarding society’s rules. In this specific case, the only thing that I might call ridiculous would be expecting that populations will not choose to act in accordance with what is in their individual best interest. It’s pretty rare, at least in western societies, for people to knowingly make choices that hurt themselves as individuals in order to benefit society as a whole. Ultra wealthy people will always be the minority by definition. Nobody is going to complain if Bezos, Gates, and Buffet has to pay more. Even if a handful of the population disagree on principle, they are too busy with their own challenges in life to mount a fight on behalf of deca-billionaires. So I think this survey is about as meaningful as asking every employee if they think they should get a raise if it means that their CEO has to take a pay cut. You’d be dumb not to, unless you’re the CEO, or you think you may become the CEO.
jawns 7y ago
We might take a page from John Rawls here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance If everyone were behind a veil of ignorance and had to craft a just tax system without knowing whether they, themselves, would end up as poor or rich in such a system, would they nevertheless agree that those who are extreme outliers in terms of their wealth should contribute more? My guess is that this proposal probably passes the veil of ignorance test. Which is not to say that it couldn't have its downsides, or that reasonable people couldn't offer very good objections to it. But by definition, a question of higher taxes on a tiny portion of extremely wealthy individuals is going to involve putting the question to people who, with rare exception, aren't going to be subject to the tax. But that doesn't necessarily mean their decision is unfair.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  If we were behind the veil of ignorance, I think most economists would choose a consumption tax of some sort as that's both the least distortive and one of the easiest to administer, with transfer payments added on top to achieve the desired level of 'progressiveness'. Wealth taxes only really make sense if you want to hurt the rich, NOT to raise revenue. (Well, strictly speaking a one-time, no-warning, credibly-promise-to-never-do-it-again wealth tax is a good way to raise revenue. But governments can't credibly promise such things)
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
Bill Gates, George Soros, and Warren Buffet have explicitly come out for higher taxes, and you can't quite wo easily question their motives.

sephlietz 7y ago

Your argument implies that a wealth tax has always been favored by a majority of Americans (since by definition a majority of Americans have always been not rich), which I think is not true. I think the truth is likely that personal wealth is but one of many factors in support for a wealth tax.

munk-a 7y ago

No, the majority of Americans believe that everyone should live a decent life rather than a few random people living stupid wealthy lives while others suffer in poverty. I do agree that the sentiment is pretty deeply ingrained in American culture though, for a long time people have voted and advocated against their own interests because one day they might win the lottery and somehow make it through the insane taxes that come with that to qualify for a tax liability on their estate when they end up passing.

seneca 7y ago
> Ha, oh... oh my, that's rich. Please don't post this kind of low quality snark here. This isn't reddit.
- munk-a 7y ago
  My apologies, you're correct - edited to remove the snark.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
  - dang 7y ago
    For site survival purposes, it's not enough for a comment to contain interesting content, just like it's not enough for food to contain nutrients. It also must not contain poison. It's helpful when users gently ask other users to stick to the guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Of course it's also off topic, but that is a necessary evil. Out-of-band control signals are what enables the system to right itself. munk-a's response was perfect.
lawnchair_larry 7y ago
This doesn’t address my point. The majority of Americans are not wealthy, so of course the majority thinks that.
- munk-a 7y ago
  I think down this road leads a tautology because most classical definitions of consensus are such that taxing the wealthy more than the poor is considered a fair and equitable consensus. I don't like to leave assumptions and definitions unexamined so here's an analogy, most people who murdered steve don't believe that people who murdered steve should be punished for it - even though the majority of the population disagrees with that view we need to defend the minority of people that just murdered steve less their opinions be swept under by a tyrannical and unreasonable majority. The majority absolutely can be tyrannical and the court of popular opinion is not considered the sole ethical decider - see philosophical discussions about whether certain historical events in the 1940s led to a society where some pretty extreme actions actually qualified as ethical. The society they occurred in publicly and openly approved of those actions but most of us would hesitate to call those actions ethical so there is merit in being hesitant to call the apparent ruling of the court of public opinion a consensus, but I think this particular case is more valid and self-reinforcing. Interesting question though.

keanzu 7y ago

The tyranny of the majority is a weakness inherent to majority rule in which the majority of an electorate pursues exclusively its own interests at the expense of those in the minority. This results in oppression of minority groups comparable to that of a tyrant or despot.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sephlietz 7y ago
Rich, powerful people are not oppressed. Taxes are not oppression.
jandrese 7y ago
Oh no, how will those poor powerless multi-millionaires survive? Oh wait, they still control the government. This situation is kind of silly to talk about because the very people who would be subject to the tax will just tell their congresspeople to vote no and that will be the end of it.

kentm 7y ago

> Alternative title: Majority of Americans are not rich, and therefore see no downside to taking from those who are Thats unnecessarily reductive and dismissive of peoples' beliefs. Probably more along the lines of: 1) The rich have the system gamed in their favor and thus its only fair that they pay more into the system that secures their wealth. 2) There are direly needed services that need to be funded and the rich can afford the pain more than the poor. Wealth itself has a marginal utility.

jandrese 7y ago
More importantly, capitalism itself tends to concentrate wealth at the top. People can use money to make more money without having to personally produce goods or offer services. This leads to a positive feedback loop where the available wealth concentrates in the hands of people who have lots of wealth. Left unchecked it leads to feudalism and eventually collapses on itself. This is one of the major jobs of a government in a capitalist system: to keep injecting wealth at the bottom of the pyramid to prevent the collapse. It's arguable that the government has been shirking its duty in this regard since the 80s, and our increasing wealth gap is a symptom of a systematic failure. The longer we let this continue the more painful the solution will have to be in the end. And it's already pretty bad--we have multiple billionaires in the US. A billionaire has the same problem that plagued Communist countries, a person with that much personal wealth can't spend it quickly enough without basically becoming their own company, so the money becomes trapped and slows the economy bit by bit. We are in the situation now where people can start their own personal orbital rocket companies and still not spend their money fast enough to keep it in the economy.

mobilefriendly 7y ago

"Don’t tax you. Don’t tax me. Tax the guy behind the tree." -- Russell B. Long

happytoexplain 7y ago

That's pretty reductionist - it seems to me like we have many non-rich Americans who possess varying strengths of the belief that, generally, the rich rightfully earned all they've come to and in turn provide more or less proportional value to society, and that opinion informs their opinion on wealth taxes. As well, the implication that not-havers broadly can not be relied upon to express holistic or worthy opinions on their own society's rules regarding havers is ridiculous.

lawnchair_larry 7y ago
Nobody made the general statement that not-havers can’t be relied upon to express worthy opinions regarding society’s rules. In this specific case, the only thing that I might call ridiculous would be expecting that populations will not choose to act in accordance with what is in their individual best interest. It’s pretty rare, at least in western societies, for people to knowingly make choices that hurt themselves as individuals in order to benefit society as a whole. Ultra wealthy people will always be the minority by definition. Nobody is going to complain if Bezos, Gates, and Buffet has to pay more. Even if a handful of the population disagree on principle, they are too busy with their own challenges in life to mount a fight on behalf of deca-billionaires. So I think this survey is about as meaningful as asking every employee if they think they should get a raise if it means that their CEO has to take a pay cut. You’d be dumb not to, unless you’re the CEO, or you think you may become the CEO.

jawns 7y ago

We might take a page from John Rawls here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance If everyone were behind a veil of ignorance and had to craft a just tax system without knowing whether they, themselves, would end up as poor or rich in such a system, would they nevertheless agree that those who are extreme outliers in terms of their wealth should contribute more? My guess is that this proposal probably passes the veil of ignorance test. Which is not to say that it couldn't have its downsides, or that reasonable people couldn't offer very good objections to it. But by definition, a question of higher taxes on a tiny portion of extremely wealthy individuals is going to involve putting the question to people who, with rare exception, aren't going to be subject to the tax. But that doesn't necessarily mean their decision is unfair.

DuskStar 7y ago
If we were behind the veil of ignorance, I think most economists would choose a consumption tax of some sort as that's both the least distortive and one of the easiest to administer, with transfer payments added on top to achieve the desired level of 'progressiveness'. Wealth taxes only really make sense if you want to hurt the rich, NOT to raise revenue. (Well, strictly speaking a one-time, no-warning, credibly-promise-to-never-do-it-again wealth tax is a good way to raise revenue. But governments can't credibly promise such things)

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago

Bill Gates, George Soros, and Warren Buffet have explicitly come out for higher taxes, and you can't quite wo easily question their motives.