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But even in your family hypothetical, the overall inequality is still much less than between billionaires and the middle-class (nothing said of the truly destit

But even in your family hypothetical, the overall inequality is still much less than between billionaires and the middle-class (nothing said of the truly destitute). > Or worse still, the super-rich will realise that they can spend many times the wealth cap per year consumable/disposable items (so long as they stay under the cap, or get back there by year-end), and become more wasteful. "Might as well spend a few million on a private jet, if I don't, I'll hit the wealth cap!". This is a very interesting point! I'd worry less about rich folks spending to be below the cap (that money re-enters the economy), but rather evasion by sending money back and forth between a small set. Clearly evasion would need to be monitored.

FredPret 3y ago
Ah yes, here come the arguments for "monitoring". Next come regulations about having to "cooperate". Then the question will be raised as to what happens to those rich people who don't cooperate, or middle class / poor people who, god forbid, don't agree with this plan for society. Pretty soon, you've got your jackboots and your re-education camps.
- jszymborski 3y ago
  I don't know how this is different from filing income taxes. When you are convicted of committing tax fraud, you may get incarcerated in a prison. Most often, you pay a fine. Call the prisons re-education camps or the tax people jackboots, if you like.
- NegativeK 3y ago
  You made quite a few significant leaps there.
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    "The slippery slope is a fallacy!" quoth those actively greasing the slope.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    So did the NKVD! Started as regular police, ended up doing purges 13 crazy years later.
    - r3d0c 3y ago
      lol, put the meth pipe down
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  The US used to tax up to 90% or so at the highest brackets. Rich people survived.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    No it didn't - there were multitudes of loopholes. Nobody paid that much. The real way to measure the size of the state is % of GDP. This includes shadow taxes such as printing-induced inflation and deficit spending. And guess what? The size of the state skyrocketed from a historic baseline of 1-2% to 35% in recent decades. Every now and then there's a war or a crisis and spending pops up like crazy, but it always used to go back down. Not anymore. The only time it's been higher than this year is in WW2 and during Covid. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA
  - latency-guy2 3y ago
    The US also used to have no income tax. Lots of people survived then too.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      Many fewer, actually. People lived significantly shorter, harder lives; many more died young.
      - FredPret 3y ago
        Of course the economy was much smaller then, especially on a per capita basis, and modern capitalism hadn’t had time to create the safe, abundant, filled-with-medical-marvels lifestyle we enjoy today.
        wolverine876 3y ago
        > Of course the economy was much smaller then, especially on a per capita basis Indeed, and even more on an aggregate basis, the population also being much smaller. > modern capitalism hadn’t had time to create You're assuming that was created by modern capitalism, which I think is a major flaw. Capitalism contributed certainly, but so did democracy, freedom, rule of law, government investment, civil society, etc. etc. Just look at most of the education system, courts, security, roads, most of science, soldiers, etc etc etc. > abundant, filled-with-medical-marvels lifestyle we enjoy today. A great many, maybe most people in the US don't live in that world.
- vonjuice 3y ago
  I'm trying to parse if this is meant to be an argument against enforcing limits on wealth, and if so, point out the humor that we already reached the road of monitoring through having corporations have uncapped power. An argument could be made that the big social media companies are also taking care of re-education, although through less overt means.

FredPret 3y ago

Ah yes, here come the arguments for "monitoring". Next come regulations about having to "cooperate". Then the question will be raised as to what happens to those rich people who don't cooperate, or middle class / poor people who, god forbid, don't agree with this plan for society. Pretty soon, you've got your jackboots and your re-education camps.

jszymborski 3y ago
I don't know how this is different from filing income taxes. When you are convicted of committing tax fraud, you may get incarcerated in a prison. Most often, you pay a fine. Call the prisons re-education camps or the tax people jackboots, if you like.
NegativeK 3y ago
You made quite a few significant leaps there.
- yellowapple 3y ago
  "The slippery slope is a fallacy!" quoth those actively greasing the slope.
- FredPret 3y ago
  So did the NKVD! Started as regular police, ended up doing purges 13 crazy years later.
  - r3d0c 3y ago
    lol, put the meth pipe down
paulryanrogers 3y ago
The US used to tax up to 90% or so at the highest brackets. Rich people survived.
- FredPret 3y ago
  No it didn't - there were multitudes of loopholes. Nobody paid that much. The real way to measure the size of the state is % of GDP. This includes shadow taxes such as printing-induced inflation and deficit spending. And guess what? The size of the state skyrocketed from a historic baseline of 1-2% to 35% in recent decades. Every now and then there's a war or a crisis and spending pops up like crazy, but it always used to go back down. Not anymore. The only time it's been higher than this year is in WW2 and during Covid. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA
- latency-guy2 3y ago
  The US also used to have no income tax. Lots of people survived then too.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Many fewer, actually. People lived significantly shorter, harder lives; many more died young.
    - FredPret 3y ago
      Of course the economy was much smaller then, especially on a per capita basis, and modern capitalism hadn’t had time to create the safe, abundant, filled-with-medical-marvels lifestyle we enjoy today.
      - wolverine876 3y ago
        > Of course the economy was much smaller then, especially on a per capita basis Indeed, and even more on an aggregate basis, the population also being much smaller. > modern capitalism hadn’t had time to create You're assuming that was created by modern capitalism, which I think is a major flaw. Capitalism contributed certainly, but so did democracy, freedom, rule of law, government investment, civil society, etc. etc. Just look at most of the education system, courts, security, roads, most of science, soldiers, etc etc etc. > abundant, filled-with-medical-marvels lifestyle we enjoy today. A great many, maybe most people in the US don't live in that world.
vonjuice 3y ago
I'm trying to parse if this is meant to be an argument against enforcing limits on wealth, and if so, point out the humor that we already reached the road of monitoring through having corporations have uncapped power. An argument could be made that the big social media companies are also taking care of re-education, although through less overt means.