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The law is complicated, its a living thing, and we're living through one of the nastier episodes of its capture in living memory. So who knows there. Its also b

The law is complicated, its a living thing, and we're living through one of the nastier episodes of its capture in living memory. So who knows there. Its also breaking sharply on this issue in what was once a fairly high-compatibility regime of US/EU common-ish values. So then we get to like, why do we have laws, what's the goal? And this is where you get down to brass tacks. Almost everyone will agree on three basis vectors in principle: - aggregate prosperity - broad prosperity and security from want - individual liberty You've got to grind through a bunch of thought on a spectrum ranging from Das Capital to Atlas Shrugged to make it really tight, but it sort of simplifies down to: pick two. Put differently, for a given raw capability and Gini-like target, you get to allocate so much liberty to which people: if you don't impose punitive taxes on wealth, it centralizes and calcifies into fungibility. Rich people buy laws. This is a super linear process. So then it becomes about: - would I want to be rich if it was part of a system that engineers avoidable want - if yes, could I realistically make it into the rich group For me the answer to one is no, and so I think we should re-impose the punitive taxes and regulations that break the backs of rich people and megacorps. But on HN a common if not typical answer to #1 is yes, and so my appeal is: be realistic, you already missed.

Ray20 1y ago
>pick two And if you pick wrong, you get nothing. >Rich people buy laws. A totalitarian government does not need to buy laws. Imposing punitive taxes on wealth - it's like express line to what you want to avoid with it. Breaking the backs of rich people and megacorporations or not, is not a choice about your chances of being wealthy, it is a choice about will you die from starvation or not. People choose not to break the backs of megacorporations because they don't want to starve to death in totalitarian regimes, not because they hope to get a corporation of their own some day.
- benreesman 1y ago
  Look at marginal tax brackets at the top from WW2 to the present and say that again with a straight face. Real wages and purchasing power at the median are so strongly correlated with 90℅ income tax at the top that the causality digression is a waste of time we don't have. Unchecked executive power via a lockstep legislative apparatus and meek courts is not some unprecedented thing, its a totally predictable response to privatizing the commons and selling it off to oligarchs. It was a fucking disaster in Russia in 1992 and its shaping up no better here now. Conficistory taxes at the top work, they keep real assets broadly distributed throughout society which gives everyone a stake in democratic institutions which creates stability and growth. That's recent, robustly researched history.

Ray20 1y ago

>pick two And if you pick wrong, you get nothing. >Rich people buy laws. A totalitarian government does not need to buy laws. Imposing punitive taxes on wealth - it's like express line to what you want to avoid with it. Breaking the backs of rich people and megacorporations or not, is not a choice about your chances of being wealthy, it is a choice about will you die from starvation or not. People choose not to break the backs of megacorporations because they don't want to starve to death in totalitarian regimes, not because they hope to get a corporation of their own some day.

benreesman 1y ago
Look at marginal tax brackets at the top from WW2 to the present and say that again with a straight face. Real wages and purchasing power at the median are so strongly correlated with 90℅ income tax at the top that the causality digression is a waste of time we don't have. Unchecked executive power via a lockstep legislative apparatus and meek courts is not some unprecedented thing, its a totally predictable response to privatizing the commons and selling it off to oligarchs. It was a fucking disaster in Russia in 1992 and its shaping up no better here now. Conficistory taxes at the top work, they keep real assets broadly distributed throughout society which gives everyone a stake in democratic institutions which creates stability and growth. That's recent, robustly researched history.