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The main issue imo is that the larger the spread between rich and poor gets in a society, the worse these kinds of issues become. I've lived in a great many cou

The main issue imo is that the larger the spread between rich and poor gets in a society, the worse these kinds of issues become. I've lived in a great many countries in my life, and although they all have their idiosyncrasies, one thing that's always stood out in comparison to average quality of life (poverty, crime, security) has been the rich-poor spread. The worse it gets, the worse everything else gets. You don't have to "make everything equal" like so many idealists (Socrates, Marx, Keynes) tried. There has to be a certain amount of inequality, just like there has to be a certain amount of corruption and a certain amount of general dissatisfaction with how things are. But at the opposite end, allowing these things to grow unchecked is madness. I now live in a society where you lose 70% of anything you inherit from your parents, and that seems to be about right for draining money out of the rich and putting it back into circulation. You still get a boost from having rich parents, but not so much that nobody else could ever compete with your luck of birth - and it gets a lot harder to form black holes of wealth. The society works well, poverty is minimal, competition is good.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
I personally dont think the important factor is the spread, but the visible spread. If some king you have never seen lives in splendor somewhere you have never been, people dont care much as long as their basic needs are met. Alternatively, if you see major inequality all day long, just to go home and be bombarded by even more extravagant displays of lives you can never have on facebook, people will naturally be outraged. For better or worse, that particular cat is out of the bag, and I dont think anyone can put back in. For the most part, people have no measure for the material quality of their lives besides comparing it to others in they see. It doesnt matter if you have wealth and comforts beyond your grandparents wildest dreams, if it seems like you are worse off than 90% of the people on the street. In the 1930s, Keynes imagined that humans would live lives of leisure as productivity doubled every 20 years. However, the human hunger for material comforts is bottomless, largely because it is not the absolute quantity, but relative amount that matters. Where do you live that inheritance tax is so high? It looks like there aren't many[1]. I dont think that would help too much in general. Most of the most publicly outrageous fortunes in the US are first generation wealth. There is much more anger directed at the Gates, Bezos, and Musks of the world than their various elite children. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inheritance_tax_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inheritan...

s1artibartfast 2y ago

I personally dont think the important factor is the spread, but the visible spread. If some king you have never seen lives in splendor somewhere you have never been, people dont care much as long as their basic needs are met. Alternatively, if you see major inequality all day long, just to go home and be bombarded by even more extravagant displays of lives you can never have on facebook, people will naturally be outraged. For better or worse, that particular cat is out of the bag, and I dont think anyone can put back in. For the most part, people have no measure for the material quality of their lives besides comparing it to others in they see. It doesnt matter if you have wealth and comforts beyond your grandparents wildest dreams, if it seems like you are worse off than 90% of the people on the street. In the 1930s, Keynes imagined that humans would live lives of leisure as productivity doubled every 20 years. However, the human hunger for material comforts is bottomless, largely because it is not the absolute quantity, but relative amount that matters. Where do you live that inheritance tax is so high? It looks like there aren't many[1]. I dont think that would help too much in general. Most of the most publicly outrageous fortunes in the US are first generation wealth. There is much more anger directed at the Gates, Bezos, and Musks of the world than their various elite children. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inheritance_tax_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inheritan...