5 ms·

Wealth tax is majoritism and nothing else. And we all know how that ends.

• dodnest 6y ago
  In order for your snarky statement to be correct, the wealthy would have to be a 'social minority'. Sure, they're a statistical minority, but they're not in danger of being oppressed because they own a greater share of social power in any given country than the majority of people. I can't believe you've gone around thinking that 'minority' just meant numbers and nothing else.
• giantg2 6y ago
  Once a democracy realizes it has the keys to the treasury...
• damnyou 6y ago
  Majoritarianism is bad because it can oppress powerless minorities. The wealthy are not a powerless minority.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • philwelch 6y ago
    Majoritarianism usually justifies itself via populist arguments that some particular minority is too powerful and needs to be cut down. This is the basis of nearly every conspiracy theory about the Jews, for instance.
    • dodnest 6y ago
      Except that you can provide evidence for why the wealthy minority is too powerful whereas jews are just attacked for... being jewish. You know, the nazis for example were a minority, that doesn't mean attacking them was bad... populism isn't inherently bad...
      • philwelch 6y ago
        You can provide “evidence” that the Jews are “too powerful”, too.
        • heylook 6y ago
          Bad faith actors can fabricate "evidence". Therefore all evidence is useless?
        • damnyou 6y ago
          What you're saying is that critical thinking is required to determine morality. That is indeed true. To oppose a wealth tax on majoritarian grounds you need to demonstrate that the wealthy are oppressed in some way. Simply saying "but majoritarianism" is not sufficient, and appealing to Jewish oppression is plain whataboutism. I'm not advocating for guillotines or whatever. Simply that a small percentage of individual wealth over a certain amount (say $10MM) be redistributed to the rest of society. The end result of this is that individuals are still going to be able to hold $10MM even if the wealth tax redistributed 100% of the rest of their wealth. They will still be incredibly rich and not have any meaningful financial constraints on their lives. Calling this oppression is absurd.
          • philwelch 6y ago
            > Calling this oppression is absurd. I never used the word “oppression”. You did. > To oppose a wealth tax on majoritarian grounds you need to demonstrate that the wealthy are oppressed in some way. There are multiple ways in which this is wrong. Firstly, the term “oppression” is overly charged here. I prefer a more general term, so I’ll use “injustice”. Secondly, you are making a circular argument. In my opinion, confiscating people’s wealth on the basis that they have too much of it is unjust. You are pointing out that the wealthy aren’t, as a whole, subjected to any kind of injustice as it stands; but you’re doing that in the context of proposing to commit injustice against them. The point that you’re missing is that the primary human motivation for injustice is to perceive a successful group of people as fortunate and privileged, and to resent them for it. So your test for majoritarianism actually fails almost every time that it is tested because, in the perceptions of most majoritarians themselves, they would pass your test.
    • damnyou 6y ago
      Indeed, meta-level reasoning is insufficient to determine morality. The object-level facts matter most.
    • ruined 6y ago
      In the case of a wealth tax, the target not simply a "particular minority", but capital, which is very literally power itself. And it's increasingly clear that it really is too concentrated. https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2020057pap.pdf https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2020057pap...