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Right, donating your present wealth because you expect to continue receiving an astronomical amount of wealth in perpetuity through your company ownership is no
by Grombobulous 8d ago
Right, donating your present wealth because you expect to continue receiving an astronomical amount of wealth in perpetuity through your company ownership is not all that grand of a gesture.
Certainly better than many alternatives, but it’s not a gesture that should make the median income person feel like existing as an excessively wealthy person should be okay/legal.
In my opinion, personal wealth/asset control above a certain level deemed excessive (perhaps $100 million then adjusted for inflation moving forward) should be taxed at 100% and put into a special fund intended to help pay for social services, healthcare, housing the homeless, etc. In the case of asset control perhaps a good method would be to distribute excessively valued ownership stakes to employees or random members of the public (e.g., many of Elon Musk’s shares in his companies forfeited and distributed to others).
- idiotsecant 8d agoThis makes sense as long as public control makes the outcome of that money better than letting the bazillionare control it. I'm not sure which way the actual truth tilts, but I suspect it's sometimes one and sometimes the other.
- Grombobulous 8d agoIn my opinion, giving one person that level of economic and social control as a concept is more of the issue than optimizing for the most positive outcome. E.g., the most intelligent and benevolent king in history might be better in those particular outcomes than democracy, but we should still pick democracy because the concept of giving one person too much powerful is too dangerous. I think our society needs to think of wealth more in these terms than it does at present.