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Why the switch from real dollars to income tax rates? When I pay for my meal at a restaurant, I pay for what I ordered, not a percentage of my income.

mistrial9 5y ago
.. because certain economic constructs are not available unless-until a mass of capital is involved. The whole point is that very significant changes in taxation are only available at the far ends of capital accumulation. Its not a problem that winners get more winnings, until the whole system tips into massive acceleration for say, less than one percent of the educated, voting population of a political economy. In the case of accelerating returns on investment and lowering tax liability, there might be no upper bound on how much money flows in one direction.
londons_explore 5y ago
Because the point the author wants to make doesn't really stand if you look at the dollar amounts rather than the percentages... The 'fair' way to do capitalism is everyone pays a fixed dollar value of taxes - since everyone gets equal benefit from the army, the courts, schools, etc. So they should pay equally. Yet for various reasons that doesn't lead to good outcomes... So having tax percentages, and even escalating tax percentages, is a 'hack' that doesn't really have a theoretical basis. And therefore it doesn't really seem like people should be criticising that this hack is unfairly implemented when the vast majority of people still are better off than the theoretical capitalistic approach.
- kaibee 5y ago
  > since everyone gets equal benefit from the army, the courts, schools, etc. So they should pay equally. This isn't true. Bezos benefits a lot more than I do from all of those things. As an example, the court system will enforce his property claims, and he has a lot more of them that need enforcing than I do.
Scoundreller 5y ago
That’s where you’re doing it wrong. You buy a meal and you just pay for it, end of story. But you should buy a sports team and you can write off the $ against your earnings. Both are full of intangible value to you (a nice seat where people treat you like you’re important because you sign the cheque, the hard value accruing to you being minimal in either case). Maybe you could buy 1/10000th of the restaurant instead of the meal, and maybe pay for the ingredient cost while the rest could be a loss that was paid out to the staff.

mistrial9 5y ago

.. because certain economic constructs are not available unless-until a mass of capital is involved. The whole point is that very significant changes in taxation are only available at the far ends of capital accumulation. Its not a problem that winners get more winnings, until the whole system tips into massive acceleration for say, less than one percent of the educated, voting population of a political economy. In the case of accelerating returns on investment and lowering tax liability, there might be no upper bound on how much money flows in one direction.

londons_explore 5y ago

Because the point the author wants to make doesn't really stand if you look at the dollar amounts rather than the percentages... The 'fair' way to do capitalism is everyone pays a fixed dollar value of taxes - since everyone gets equal benefit from the army, the courts, schools, etc. So they should pay equally. Yet for various reasons that doesn't lead to good outcomes... So having tax percentages, and even escalating tax percentages, is a 'hack' that doesn't really have a theoretical basis. And therefore it doesn't really seem like people should be criticising that this hack is unfairly implemented when the vast majority of people still are better off than the theoretical capitalistic approach.

kaibee 5y ago
> since everyone gets equal benefit from the army, the courts, schools, etc. So they should pay equally. This isn't true. Bezos benefits a lot more than I do from all of those things. As an example, the court system will enforce his property claims, and he has a lot more of them that need enforcing than I do.

Scoundreller 5y ago

That’s where you’re doing it wrong. You buy a meal and you just pay for it, end of story. But you should buy a sports team and you can write off the $ against your earnings. Both are full of intangible value to you (a nice seat where people treat you like you’re important because you sign the cheque, the hard value accruing to you being minimal in either case). Maybe you could buy 1/10000th of the restaurant instead of the meal, and maybe pay for the ingredient cost while the rest could be a loss that was paid out to the staff.