3 ms·

I agree. But if we had a simple system people would be able to tell whether or not they get adequate value for their money. Obtuse and opaque are a defense agai

• steveBK123 3y ago
  I think people at the top miss that they get, in some sense, some of the most value for money from a modern functional society. In the absence of a government monopoly on violence and functional government services, a highly paid business exec will need to live their life more like a mafioso or warlord. There's places in latin America where even what Americans would call "upper middle class" people need to hire security and worry about kidnapping and extortion plots. Add to that things like rule of law, so that the government strongman can't suddenly declare your business anti-patriotic / illegal (China) & take your cash / put you in jail. Then you have things like - copyright, trademark, etc systems that allow you & I to develop ideas as IP and the government allows us to protect it in court so that we can reap the benefits. So no, I don't think "tax is theft" and that we should live in some Mad Max world. People who denigrate high trust society & rule of law do not understand how messed up living in low trust societies is. Nor am I thoroughly impressed with the idea that we need a permanent overclass who is able to pass wealth down untaxed across generations, especially given all the trust fund underachievers I've met in my life in NYC.