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The general idea is that in a functional society, rich people's wealth is in some non-zero part enabled by that same well-functioning society. Roads, electricit

The general idea is that in a functional society, rich people's wealth is in some non-zero part enabled by that same well-functioning society. Roads, electricity, telecoms, educated workforces, rule of law, etc etc. Amazon doesn't work if there are no roads, the open internet was never invented, no one is educated enough to read a website or drive a truck, or write software to run on AWS, and every time a truck goes out it gets hijacked and the driver murdered and the datacentre has the copper wires ripped out by an armed gang. Thus the rich person doesn't get to claim all the proceeds as theirs alone, some of it gets paid back to the society that enabled it. Now, exactly where you draw the line between "rich people earned every penny on their own" and "rich people did nothing and deserve nothing", well, that's politics, along with "who is rich and who is not" and "why do we trust these government chaps to use that money to improve society?".

thegrimmest 3y ago
Seems pretty simple: tax the users of the infrastructure (roads, electricity, etc.) to pay for it, tax the recipients of education (parents, students) to pay for that. Tax everyone to pay for the rule of law (courts, police) because as you say, we all benefit. This would leave the vast majority of the budget to give back to taxpayers. Mostly various mandatory insurance schemes - healthcare, unemployment, labour law, old age security - which are the ones I'm objecting to. Before widespread public education, large companies would sponsor the education of the engineers they needed (think locomotives), with contractual obligations to work for the organization for a certain time or repay the cost of education. This is how military college works today, and seems pretty high-functioning. > exactly where you draw the line Pretty easy, once you've paid for all the stuff you directly use, the rest is yours free and clear.
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thegrimmest 3y ago

Seems pretty simple: tax the users of the infrastructure (roads, electricity, etc.) to pay for it, tax the recipients of education (parents, students) to pay for that. Tax everyone to pay for the rule of law (courts, police) because as you say, we all benefit. This would leave the vast majority of the budget to give back to taxpayers. Mostly various mandatory insurance schemes - healthcare, unemployment, labour law, old age security - which are the ones I'm objecting to. Before widespread public education, large companies would sponsor the education of the engineers they needed (think locomotives), with contractual obligations to work for the organization for a certain time or repay the cost of education. This is how military college works today, and seems pretty high-functioning. > exactly where you draw the line Pretty easy, once you've paid for all the stuff you directly use, the rest is yours free and clear.

deleted 3y ago
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