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His point was exactly the opposite. More menial and jobs are being created by technology that concentrates money in the hands of a few people. The interesting a
by sago 12y ago
His point was exactly the opposite. More menial and jobs are being created by technology that concentrates money in the hands of a few people. The interesting and fulfilling middle-class jobs are the ones being squeezed.
Whether he's right or not, your point seems to miss the mark.
- Eridrus 12y agoI think silicon valley gets around this moral quandary by arguing for things like basic income, wherein the logic is that people should have an opportunity to fill their lives with interesting and fulfilling things that don't pay. I'm personally vulnerable to this line of thinking, but I can definitely see that silicon valley is getting rich but expecting everyone else to chip in to solve the problem and advocating a solution that is a nonstarter in most circles. I think that, at the very least, Piketty is right and we need a progressive tax on capital gains.
- dragonwriter 12y agoProgressive tax on capital gains (or, more simply, just taxing capital gains like regular income) and basic income aren't mutually exclusive alternatives. OTOH, not giving capital gains is currently highly-favorable treatment is at least as much of a "non-starter in most circles" as Basic Income, so its kind of odd to use the non-starter thing to criticize SV for supporting BI while pushing progressive tax on capital gains (unless, of course, you are referring to the progressive tax we already have on capital gains -- capital gains taxes now are progressive, not flat, just at lower levels than regular income taxes; but in that case, you aren't offering any solution at all, just the status quo.)
- Eridrus 12y agoYou're totally right, they're not mutually exclusive, and I am personally a fan of both. I can just see it as not necessarily a pragmatic approach. I would simply envisage less popular resistance to a real progressive tax on capital gains than to a basic income (see: welfare fraud), but maybe I'm wrong. I don't have a particularly great solution to our problem, but I do think there are meaningful steps we can take between an ideal world and the real one that are better than nothing. Silicon valley should surely start paying people closer to the value they provide.
- dragonwriter 12y ago> [...] a real progressive tax on capital gains [...] What does this mean in concrete terms? We have a real (= non-imaginary, actual, existing) progressive tax on capital gains now. It's also at favorable rates (across the whole spectrum of its progressivity) compared to "regular" income, and especially favored compared to labor income (which pays payroll taxes, which are flat to regressive, on top of income taxes, which are progressive). In fact, because of payroll taxes, its arguable that we have more "real progressive taxation" of capital gains than of labor income.
- Eridrus 12y agoSorry, I should have been clearer, higher brackets and rates.