4 ms·

> I think they mean "taxation of the too rich" in that case. Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them, and for their own taxes to go dow

> I think they mean "taxation of the too rich" in that case. Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them, and for their own taxes to go down. The problem is this is a collective negotiation, not a discussion about what to ask the genie for when we rub the lamp. If the middle class wants to decrease their own taxes (which is the political issue that objectively affects them the most, and how they lose their power), then they are going to have to meet the wealthy half way. Idealism is the enemy of the the common sense, rational, self-interested move. > And needless to say, a non-functioning democracy is not a proof that the concept of democracy doesn't work. Yes, democracy is a good idea precisely because imperfect implementations of it work well. If it worked in theory and not in practice, then it wouldn't be a good idea. Contrast it to communism, which is literally an info-hazard. If you try to bring it in to existence, you won't achieve your goal, and the system you do create will be much worse for you. Even if it works in theory, it's a bad idea because it doesn't work in practice.

felixgallo 8mo ago
I'm having difficulty parsing what you're saying in your first paragraph. What is it to 'meet the wealthy half way'? Did the ultra wealthy meet the middle class or the poor half way when they essentially ended their tax obligations and legalized mass influence buying in Citizens United? What's the 'half measure' that is going to rein all that back in?
- alphazard 8mo ago
  No they did not. It's easier for a small number of people to coordinate, than a large number. The wealthy have about as much power as the entire middle class, but can wield it better because they are more nimble. That doesn't change the state of the negotiation, which is that cutting taxes for the middle class will also require cutting them for the wealthy. If you optimize for your own personal notion of fairness, or retribution, you may very well fail to coordinate in your own self-interest.
  - mapt 8mo ago
    I don't really want to cut taxes for the working/middle class though. I want to tax the everliving fuck out of the hyper-wealthy, to the point that they cease to exist. The money should go into providing goods and services for the working/middle class, but collecting that money and lighting it on fire (or parking assets in a sovereign wealth fund) is a superior option to doing nothing. Neither our democracy nor our position as a world power survived capitalism eating itself and everything else. We are down to single individuals holding more nominal wealth than whole continents, and the worship of the billionaire has replaced the worship of Jesus Christ for most Americans, a palace cult committing national suicide on your behalf. If you want any of the things that America pitched as its merits in fighting for influence in the Cold War, you want this situation over with. Let them eat three commas and not a penny more. When you become a billionaire we give you a medal and confiscate every dollar above 1 billion. Using a carrier strike group if necessary.
    - SV_BubbleTime 8mo ago
      This is just silly. Not many animals will stand completely still while you attack them. It sure sounds tough though! Literal war with people for being successful, how much time have you spent on this line of thought?
      - mapt 8mo ago
        They're not standing still now. They're eating our entrails. Right now. We haven't passed a budget in almost 30 years, we've been routinely filibustering nearly all legislation for 15 (breaking the gameplay loop for electoral democracy), we're unilaterally withdrawing from trade and military alliances week by week. We have fascist armies on the streets pulling people from their cars and houses. Our leaders openly brag about their corruption and a good fraction of our people praise them for it simply because it pisses other people off. We are allegedly about to "Federalize Elections" and also enter a war with Iran that a supermajority of voters do not want. In terms of state capacity, in terms of our agency in the world, in terms of what we historically regarded as our legacy and our culture and our material security and our institutions, we are in freefall. And it is mostly down to having far too much wealth concentrated in far too few people.
- SpicyLemonZest 8mo ago
  Tax cuts for the ultra wealthy are routinely paired with tax cuts for the less wealthy, for the same reason that countries which tax the ultra wealthy a lot also tax the less wealthy a lot. Building support for taxation means convincing people that taxes are great and they should embrace the benefits of living in a society with lots of tax revenue to spend.
palata 8mo ago
> Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them That is a different debate. I think what the parent means is that taxing the rich is a way to prevent them from becoming too powerful. I do agree that it should be illegal to be too powerful. One should not be more powerful than an entire country, it makes no sense.
- zozbot234 8mo ago
  There's no way that even the richest people in the world are "powerful" enough in that sense unless you're talking about literal royalty in resource-rich countries. Even Epstein's power was largely about his cronyism, not about directly expending his wealth.
  - Jensson 8mo ago
    Yeah, Epstein was removed since he didn't have much power compared to country leaders and so on. Even the richest people of the world has very little power compared to an authoritarian country leader.
ses1984 8mo ago
> Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them Everyone except about 90% of republican voters, aka temporarily poor millionaires
- mulmen 8mo ago
  That’s unfair. Some of them are just racist.
nicoburns 8mo ago
> Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them, and for their own taxes to go down. That's not true at all. I make a good salary as a software engineer, I absolutely think I ought to be taxed a little more than I am, and would gladly pay that money to live in the better society I believe that would create. I believe this attitude is pretty common in many parts of the world. That being said, I do think the extremes of wealth (there is a big difference between a millionaire and a billionaire) have a particularly detrimental effect on society by completely distorting our economic system (there can be no such thing as a free market when such a small number of individuals control such a large proportion of the spending power).
- alphazard 8mo ago
  > That's not true at all. I make a good salary as a software engineer, I absolutely think I ought to be taxed a little more than I am, and would gladly pay that money to live in the better society I believe that would create. This confusion is precisely why the middle class has less power than ever before. You and many others have been sold a meme that your tax dollars are in service to a greater good, and you are a bad person if you recognize this to be a scam. At an individual level, for each person in the middle class, 90% of the social programs they pay for are negative EV for them personally. It would be better for each of them if they just kept what they earned, and didn't expect to get it back "later" or "when they really need it" whenever that is. This is an empirical, testable claim, and the math will be slightly different for each person. You should check for yourself. If everyone turned off the news, and totally ignored the messaging around taxes and government programs and just looked at their own cash inflows and outflows to/from the government, the middle class would retain far more power than they do.
  - throwway120385 8mo ago
    > At an individual level, for each person in the middle class, 90% of the social programs they pay for are negative EV for them personally. It would be better for each of them if they just kept what they earned, and didn't expect to get it back "later" or "when they really need it" whenever that is. This is an empirical, testable claim, and the math will be slightly different for each person. You should check for yourself. This whole "expected value" concept when taken to the extreme is just rationalist patter. It's a useful exercise when you're running a business, but there is more to life than fiscal efficiency. Empiricism, when taken to an extreme, is as dystopian as anything else. 90% of those social programs are what keep us from being killed in the street for our watches and jewelry. They keep people less fortunate than us from becoming desperate. They level the playing field so our children aren't all victims of the circumstances of their birth. By those metrics, which are my preferred metrics and not the size of my paycheck, they are a huge benefit. Also one could argue that the US military is the world's largest social service program in that it provides jobs for a large part of the country that otherwise has no prospects for a good life.

felixgallo 8mo ago

I'm having difficulty parsing what you're saying in your first paragraph. What is it to 'meet the wealthy half way'? Did the ultra wealthy meet the middle class or the poor half way when they essentially ended their tax obligations and legalized mass influence buying in Citizens United? What's the 'half measure' that is going to rein all that back in?

alphazard 8mo ago
No they did not. It's easier for a small number of people to coordinate, than a large number. The wealthy have about as much power as the entire middle class, but can wield it better because they are more nimble. That doesn't change the state of the negotiation, which is that cutting taxes for the middle class will also require cutting them for the wealthy. If you optimize for your own personal notion of fairness, or retribution, you may very well fail to coordinate in your own self-interest.
- mapt 8mo ago
  I don't really want to cut taxes for the working/middle class though. I want to tax the everliving fuck out of the hyper-wealthy, to the point that they cease to exist. The money should go into providing goods and services for the working/middle class, but collecting that money and lighting it on fire (or parking assets in a sovereign wealth fund) is a superior option to doing nothing. Neither our democracy nor our position as a world power survived capitalism eating itself and everything else. We are down to single individuals holding more nominal wealth than whole continents, and the worship of the billionaire has replaced the worship of Jesus Christ for most Americans, a palace cult committing national suicide on your behalf. If you want any of the things that America pitched as its merits in fighting for influence in the Cold War, you want this situation over with. Let them eat three commas and not a penny more. When you become a billionaire we give you a medal and confiscate every dollar above 1 billion. Using a carrier strike group if necessary.
  - SV_BubbleTime 8mo ago
    This is just silly. Not many animals will stand completely still while you attack them. It sure sounds tough though! Literal war with people for being successful, how much time have you spent on this line of thought?
    - mapt 8mo ago
      They're not standing still now. They're eating our entrails. Right now. We haven't passed a budget in almost 30 years, we've been routinely filibustering nearly all legislation for 15 (breaking the gameplay loop for electoral democracy), we're unilaterally withdrawing from trade and military alliances week by week. We have fascist armies on the streets pulling people from their cars and houses. Our leaders openly brag about their corruption and a good fraction of our people praise them for it simply because it pisses other people off. We are allegedly about to "Federalize Elections" and also enter a war with Iran that a supermajority of voters do not want. In terms of state capacity, in terms of our agency in the world, in terms of what we historically regarded as our legacy and our culture and our material security and our institutions, we are in freefall. And it is mostly down to having far too much wealth concentrated in far too few people.
SpicyLemonZest 8mo ago
Tax cuts for the ultra wealthy are routinely paired with tax cuts for the less wealthy, for the same reason that countries which tax the ultra wealthy a lot also tax the less wealthy a lot. Building support for taxation means convincing people that taxes are great and they should embrace the benefits of living in a society with lots of tax revenue to spend.

palata 8mo ago

> Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them That is a different debate. I think what the parent means is that taxing the rich is a way to prevent them from becoming too powerful. I do agree that it should be illegal to be too powerful. One should not be more powerful than an entire country, it makes no sense.

zozbot234 8mo ago
There's no way that even the richest people in the world are "powerful" enough in that sense unless you're talking about literal royalty in resource-rich countries. Even Epstein's power was largely about his cronyism, not about directly expending his wealth.
- Jensson 8mo ago
  Yeah, Epstein was removed since he didn't have much power compared to country leaders and so on. Even the richest people of the world has very little power compared to an authoritarian country leader.

ses1984 8mo ago

> Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them Everyone except about 90% of republican voters, aka temporarily poor millionaires

mulmen 8mo ago
That’s unfair. Some of them are just racist.

nicoburns 8mo ago

> Everyone wants taxes to go up on everyone making more than them, and for their own taxes to go down. That's not true at all. I make a good salary as a software engineer, I absolutely think I ought to be taxed a little more than I am, and would gladly pay that money to live in the better society I believe that would create. I believe this attitude is pretty common in many parts of the world. That being said, I do think the extremes of wealth (there is a big difference between a millionaire and a billionaire) have a particularly detrimental effect on society by completely distorting our economic system (there can be no such thing as a free market when such a small number of individuals control such a large proportion of the spending power).

alphazard 8mo ago
> That's not true at all. I make a good salary as a software engineer, I absolutely think I ought to be taxed a little more than I am, and would gladly pay that money to live in the better society I believe that would create. This confusion is precisely why the middle class has less power than ever before. You and many others have been sold a meme that your tax dollars are in service to a greater good, and you are a bad person if you recognize this to be a scam. At an individual level, for each person in the middle class, 90% of the social programs they pay for are negative EV for them personally. It would be better for each of them if they just kept what they earned, and didn't expect to get it back "later" or "when they really need it" whenever that is. This is an empirical, testable claim, and the math will be slightly different for each person. You should check for yourself. If everyone turned off the news, and totally ignored the messaging around taxes and government programs and just looked at their own cash inflows and outflows to/from the government, the middle class would retain far more power than they do.
- throwway120385 8mo ago
  > At an individual level, for each person in the middle class, 90% of the social programs they pay for are negative EV for them personally. It would be better for each of them if they just kept what they earned, and didn't expect to get it back "later" or "when they really need it" whenever that is. This is an empirical, testable claim, and the math will be slightly different for each person. You should check for yourself. This whole "expected value" concept when taken to the extreme is just rationalist patter. It's a useful exercise when you're running a business, but there is more to life than fiscal efficiency. Empiricism, when taken to an extreme, is as dystopian as anything else. 90% of those social programs are what keep us from being killed in the street for our watches and jewelry. They keep people less fortunate than us from becoming desperate. They level the playing field so our children aren't all victims of the circumstances of their birth. By those metrics, which are my preferred metrics and not the size of my paycheck, they are a huge benefit. Also one could argue that the US military is the world's largest social service program in that it provides jobs for a large part of the country that otherwise has no prospects for a good life.