They are already taxed (mostly). Whether this is enough or not, how they should be taxed, what the basis of taxation should be etc. is a big field of discussion.
Wealth & Income Inequality
- Thread starter Eboue
- Start date
They are already taxed (mostly). Whether this is enough or not, how they should be taxed, what the basis of taxation should be etc. is a big field of discussion.
Equality as a concept is not applicable to humanity anyway. No one aspires to be equal. People aspire to be better.
We don't brag about our new car equally fast car.
We don't celebrate our new signing with whom we will definitely finish on equal points with our rivals.
We don't negotiate a contract at a new firm for an equal salary.
We want to do better then others, denying this is bullshit. We're human, we're selfish, we're imperfect and we're not fecking equal.
We don't brag about our new car equally fast car.
We don't celebrate our new signing with whom we will definitely finish on equal points with our rivals.
We don't negotiate a contract at a new firm for an equal salary.
We want to do better then others, denying this is bullshit. We're human, we're selfish, we're imperfect and we're not fecking equal.
Equal rights?
The terms you used (hoarding money) and the line of thought (putting hoarded money back into the economy) strongly suggested that's why you mean. You would be surprised how many people above 5 years use this line of thought. If that's not what you wanted to say, then fair enough. Maybe the working was misleading.
I think you need to be more careful with the terms you use. Stock and money are not the same thing. And I didn't say, all of their wealth is in stocks. But most billionaires own companies which typically form the majority of their assets (in terms of value).
Stocks are already taxed in some countries. Many more tax income from stocks (dividends) and gains from an increase in value of stocks.
Why do we need companies that are worth 100 billions, 1 billion or 100 millions? Personally, I don't think this a meaningful question. I don't see a problem with certain values as long as it's just numbers without practical problems.
Why is it one of the worst things that exist? Stock exchanges drive inequality, that's through, because they allwo people with extra cash to earn nice returns. But overall, I think they benefit societies, because they add a very powerful tool to raise capital for investments.
Equal rights don't make us equal though do they?
Equality doesn't necessarily imply that us humans should be literally equal. I doubt that is even being argued here.
What's being argued is income equality and that's something that will never work in my opinion, simply because we're not equal and should not be rewarded equally.
For instance, I have a friend who is a lawyer. He has a huge house and drives 2 fancy cars. For this, he works 60 hours a week and has no private life to speak of. Then there is me. I have a decent car and an ok house. I only work 40 hours a week and have an active private life (no I don't mean the caf). I think it's perfectly fine that my friends makes much more money then I do, because he's simply willing to work harder then I am.
TL;DR: rich people who got rich by working very hard or coming up with some groundbreaking IT solution or what not deserve to be rich. Is it completely fair? Probably not, but people with an insane drive to succeed move us forward as a species and they reap the rewards.
It's a bit hard for me to argue a point in English sometimes (this is a lame excuse I know), but I hope you catch my drift
I’m going to assume that the people calling for higher taxes here are talking about huge corporations with 8 and 9 figure profit margins rather than 1 man bands or company directors on low six figure earnings who have grinded for decades to get where they are and deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
Your argument is quite simplistic though. The income inequality usually refers to things such as CEO compensation increasing astronomically relative to worker's wages. Or wealthy people paying lower tax rates through complex legal structures that the average bloke from the street can't profit from.What's being argued is income equality and that's something that will never work in my opinion, simply because we're not equal and should not be rewarded equally.
For instance, I have a friend who is a lawyer. He has a huge house and drives 2 fancy cars. For this, he works 60 hours a week and has no private life to speak of. Then there is me. I have a decent car and an ok house. I only work 40 hours a week and have an active private life (no I don't mean the caf). I think it's perfectly fine that my friends makes much more money then I do, because he's simply willing to work harder then I am.
TL;DR: rich people who got rich by working very hard or coming up with some groundbreaking IT solution or what not deserve to be rich. Is it completely fair? Probably not, but people with an insane drive to succeed move us forward as a species and they reap the rewards.
It's a bit hard for me to argue a point in English sometimes (this is a lame excuse I know), but I hope you catch my drift
Your friend wasn't born wishing to work 60 hours a week in order to have 2 fancy cars.What's being argued is income equality and that's something that will never work in my opinion, simply because we're not equal and should not be rewarded equally.
For instance, I have a friend who is a lawyer. He has a huge house and drives 2 fancy cars. For this, he works 60 hours a week and has no private life to speak of. Then there is me. I have a decent car and an ok house. I only work 40 hours a week and have an active private life (no I don't mean the caf). I think it's perfectly fine that my friends makes much more money then I do, because he's simply willing to work harder then I am.
TL;DR: rich people who got rich by working very hard or coming up with some groundbreaking IT solution or what not deserve to be rich. Is it completely fair? Probably not, but people with an insane drive to succeed move us forward as a species and they reap the rewards.
It's a bit hard for me to argue a point in English sometimes (this is a lame excuse I know), but I hope you catch my drift
Our behaviours are learned. There is a competitive drive in our genetics but it doesn't have to manifest in the current level of massive income inequality.
I think we're not really arguing the same thing. I thought this thread was about everyone getting paid roughly equal regardless of the job they do. Or all rich people being evil, because they don't donate their entire fortune to charity.
CEO's getting ridiculous bonuses and billionaires dodging taxes is obviously not something I condone.
This is definitely true. My mate's dad was a wealthy real estate magnate whereas my dad was a pianist and member of the Dutch communist party in the 80s
This is why any Robin Hood world view is doomed to fail because it destroys aspiration. Nobody will want to become rich and progress will grind to a halt.
If you want to progress but not pay anyone for going the extra mile to make stuff happen then your only alternative is to force them to do it by threat.
I'm not talking about Thomas Edison's or other such inspired people that have the odd Eureka moment , but the advances that are made from the billions poured into R&D by the big corporates often to benefit humanity.
Capitalism has major flaws at it's extremes which hopefully in time will be addressed.
However throwing it out completely because some people have more money than they can spend in a million years or that kids are being paid 65c strikes me as ridiculous.
Regulate and enforce!!
But don't lob the baby out with the bath water.
see, this is the problem with you aspirational twats, all your examples are invariably people who stole other people's ideas because you believe the propaganda
He clearly failed to grab your attention in the Das Kapital reading sessions.This is definitely true. My mate's dad was a wealthy real estate magnate whereas my dad was a pianist and member of the Dutch communist party in the 80s
The good thing is we can change. I was on course to become your friend (imagine Cal? on steroids) and a best mate who was in the Socialist group here gave me a way out.
More the principle than the person. Lets's say Lewis Latimer then.
I'm saying that fact that some innovators did not themselves become billionaires is no argument to throw out capitalism. Some advances come from moments of inspiration most are ground out through investment in R&D and dogged research generally funded by big business. Agreed that the ultimate goal is often to increase profits but I think it is possible that making profits and improving human welfare can live side by side.
My doubt is that if you remove the profit part then the advances won't be made.
I voted for the Dutch socialist party in nearly all elections in my life time. I just moved slightly to the center. Guess Ive become more cynical with age.He clearly failed to grab your attention in the Das Kapital reading sessions.
The good thing is we can change. I was on course to become your friend (imagine Cal? on steroids) and a best mate who was in the Socialist group here gave me a way out.
this must be why state universities around the world never make groundbreaking research and why NASA never made it to the moon
In order to benefit humanity somebody has build the research into a product, manufacture it and bring it to market. Otherwise it will stay in books.
Do you think it's fair the director of NASA makes the salary he does? Or should he make 5k a month like the rest of us?
there's no reason for 3 of these people to have as much wealth as the next 135 million Americans
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/uni...richest-people-us-own-much-wealth-bottom-half
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Nasa/salaries
NASA directors aren't raking in billions of public resources, they get a good wage for running a big organisation without it costing the public a disproportionate amount
Obviously not billions, but they make substantially more than 95% of the worlds population. My question is, do you think that's fair?
Aside from that I think America is probably quite a bit more fecked in this regard than my country. We have our share of rich people to, but the redistribution of wealth is better here than at your end of the pond.
it's the people who hoard substantial amounts of wealth we have a problem with, not people doing better than most because better than most isn't substantial
That I don't disagree with. I think I've been kind of missing the point in this thread anyway.
People having billions of dollars is obviously unnecessary, but what would you propose as a workable solution to this?
extremely high taxes on extremely wealthy people, extremely high inheritance tax on extremely big inheritances, distribution of wealth, workers rights, mandatory living wage and punishment of wage theft, people's QE, there's loads of workable things
Define extreme.
Would you tax people who make over 100k a year 60%? 80%? 95%? Or do you set the bar higher? And how would you go about implementing that, there's obviously not any widespread support for taxes that high and in the end you are bound to the democratic system? Or would you propose the working class start an armed revolt? Everyone having enough money to go buy is a nobel goal, but I don't see it ever happening. People with power will always seek ways to get more power, more money, more everything.
On the subject of worker rights. How are worker rights in the states? Honest question, because I don't know where they stand.
Progressive scale, starting low for low earners, going up to 99% for anything above 10 million a year and 100% for more than 100 million.
Varies from non-existent in some states to only bad in others. Practically no maternity or paternity leave, nonexistent sick allowances, fewer holiday days, basically the opposite of Europe
I can vouch for the entirety of mankind that we will never ever anywhere in the world get a system that taxes anyone for 100% of their income.
That's the thing with idealism. Without realism it's just talk. This is not workable, it's a pipe dream.
60k a year Kirk! A veritable fortune!
This has been tried. It resulted in the 70's and eventually Maggie Thatcher.
The main problems with capitalism in the Western world are
1. It has trouble dealing with long-term changes like global warming, where there is no market incentive for the current generation of rich people to divest away from fossil fuels (since the costs will be borne by the children and grandchildren of poor people, not the current population of rich people). This is quite serious. In general, environmental issues and pollution are tough to deal with without regulation.
2. Perfect competition, etc doesn't hold in general - many fields tend to become oligopolies. Examples are everything to do with technology. Which is fine in one way (facebook and Windows aren't bad products for users) - but has the effect of massively concentrating wealth.
3. Related to both 1 and 2 - the commodification of everything (like healthcare including pharma, and education) creates perverse incentives where generating the most profit is at odds with societal needs. And you can find smaller examples of this everywhere, from antibiotic overuse in animal agriculture, to Nestle bottling water for massive profits next to people getting poisoned by lead water.
The obvious first answer is social democracy - progressive taxation, government welfare, and environmental regulations should address all 3 issues. But looking around the west, it is obvious that social democracy is in peril. Why does it fail?
This is where left-wing theory comes in. In short, capitalism needs a strong, effective, predictable state to thrive (to protect property and intellectual property from poor people and competitors).
But the capitalist class has great power over the state itself. Examples? New environmental regulations, and a factory may leave - this reduces jobs, makes the govt unpopular. Same if a govt wants to stop selling arms to a genocidal regime- that costs jobs at home too. Similarly with raising taxes. Less drastically - any reform which might cut into profits - run an ad campaign against that; after all the capitalists are by definition the most able to spend on things like this.
So, you have a strong state, needed to enforce both the property-based hierarchy that capitalism needs and builds, and you need the same state to regulate and diminish the heart of capitalism (the profit motive), and also this state is constrained by and beholden to capitalist interests. Then of course there are more direct ways like campaign donations and private ownership of the media in a capitalist democracy.
So your welfare state is under contradictory pressures, disproportionately from capital.
(I've adapted and slightly expanded the argument from here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-red-and-the-black )
Is there a way out of this, disfavouring capital? Apart from the interesting article above, there's also: https://peoplespolicyproject.org/2017/11/16/a-plan-to-win-the-socialism-sweden-nearly-achieved/
(more articles here: https://peoplespolicyproject.org/?s=meidner )
What about inequality? Well, it is inevitable under capitalism.
You have an initially skewed distribution of wealth, and wealth means a more useful childhood and better education, invaluable connections, and mental security because of a financial cushion in terms of housing and health. The inherited inequality reproduces itself. This was true in feudalism and is partially true in capitalism.
But, Bezos and Gates obviously aren't examples of that (though they clearly benefited from having well-off parents, and their paths might have been very different without that
wealth). They are people with a strong intuition about their field, good or great ideas and management skills. Their ideas can be put into place because of a highly trained (and perhaps no less intelligent) skilled workforce (also in Amazon's case a desperate and vast unskilled workforce); their business empires rely on the state enforcing its laws, especially property protection and IPR laws. Thus having established their position, their wealth becomes (to a degree) entrenched and self-perpetuating.
1. It has trouble dealing with long-term changes like global warming, where there is no market incentive for the current generation of rich people to divest away from fossil fuels (since the costs will be borne by the children and grandchildren of poor people, not the current population of rich people). This is quite serious. In general, environmental issues and pollution are tough to deal with without regulation.
2. Perfect competition, etc doesn't hold in general - many fields tend to become oligopolies. Examples are everything to do with technology. Which is fine in one way (facebook and Windows aren't bad products for users) - but has the effect of massively concentrating wealth.
3. Related to both 1 and 2 - the commodification of everything (like healthcare including pharma, and education) creates perverse incentives where generating the most profit is at odds with societal needs. And you can find smaller examples of this everywhere, from antibiotic overuse in animal agriculture, to Nestle bottling water for massive profits next to people getting poisoned by lead water.
The obvious first answer is social democracy - progressive taxation, government welfare, and environmental regulations should address all 3 issues. But looking around the west, it is obvious that social democracy is in peril. Why does it fail?
This is where left-wing theory comes in. In short, capitalism needs a strong, effective, predictable state to thrive (to protect property and intellectual property from poor people and competitors).
But the capitalist class has great power over the state itself. Examples? New environmental regulations, and a factory may leave - this reduces jobs, makes the govt unpopular. Same if a govt wants to stop selling arms to a genocidal regime- that costs jobs at home too. Similarly with raising taxes. Less drastically - any reform which might cut into profits - run an ad campaign against that; after all the capitalists are by definition the most able to spend on things like this.
So, you have a strong state, needed to enforce both the property-based hierarchy that capitalism needs and builds, and you need the same state to regulate and diminish the heart of capitalism (the profit motive), and also this state is constrained by and beholden to capitalist interests. Then of course there are more direct ways like campaign donations and private ownership of the media in a capitalist democracy.
So your welfare state is under contradictory pressures, disproportionately from capital.
(I've adapted and slightly expanded the argument from here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-red-and-the-black )
Is there a way out of this, disfavouring capital? Apart from the interesting article above, there's also: https://peoplespolicyproject.org/2017/11/16/a-plan-to-win-the-socialism-sweden-nearly-achieved/
(more articles here: https://peoplespolicyproject.org/?s=meidner )
What about inequality? Well, it is inevitable under capitalism.
You have an initially skewed distribution of wealth, and wealth means a more useful childhood and better education, invaluable connections, and mental security because of a financial cushion in terms of housing and health. The inherited inequality reproduces itself. This was true in feudalism and is partially true in capitalism.
But, Bezos and Gates obviously aren't examples of that (though they clearly benefited from having well-off parents, and their paths might have been very different without that
wealth). They are people with a strong intuition about their field, good or great ideas and management skills. Their ideas can be put into place because of a highly trained (and perhaps no less intelligent) skilled workforce (also in Amazon's case a desperate and vast unskilled workforce); their business empires rely on the state enforcing its laws, especially property protection and IPR laws. Thus having established their position, their wealth becomes (to a degree) entrenched and self-perpetuating.
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Its also a reason why socialists in the US will never be taken seriously.
It went up to 94% in America for people making $200k (2.5m now) during WW2
what should the top 1% of earners pay?
to be one of the top 1% of earners worldwide you need to earn $32,400 (or around £24,732 / €27,831)
so given how many jobs can be done remotely these days any country that sets tax too high just has to accept somebody else wont
I can actually pretty much pick where I want to be resident for income tax purposes (Holland, Ireland or UK... and I could probably just about swing China if i wanted to)... trust me if somebody wants to charge 50%+ income tax i wont be resident there
also note in the uk the top 1% of earners account for 28% of income tax I suspect its not entirely dis-similar in the states (remembering Rob Lowe's preaching on the west wing)
and resulted in mass tax avoidance - payment in dividends etc etc I believe
@KirkDuyt
There is a massive massive difference between a Bezos and a NASA scientist.
Rough calculation from quick googles:
If Bezos lost 99% of his wealth this instant, he would have leftover 500 times the lifetime earnings of a NASA scientist.
There is a massive massive difference between a Bezos and a NASA scientist.
Rough calculation from quick googles:
If Bezos lost 99% of his wealth this instant, he would have leftover 500 times the lifetime earnings of a NASA scientist.
That's exactly why this extreme tax system won't work. To govern effectively you need consensus. The rich and powerful will simply leave your countries and take their businesses with them if the government starts imposing 99% or even 100% taxes on their earnings.
Idealism is great, but extremes arent workable because they're just that, extreme. Democracy means making concessions.
@berbatrick
I know and I said that it's neither fair nor neccesary for anyone to have that much money, but there is no workable way of taking 99% of his fortune short of doing it the way some Roman emperors did it; execute him and take his money. In capitalism it's possible for some people to accrue ridiculous amounts of wealth, that's not fair, but I don't see a better workable alternative then the European socialist model we have here.
They already do this despite low tax levels in countries like America and the UK. The extremely wealthy aren't really rooted in countries anymore, they live in a parallel richistan where their money is funnelled from country to country, island to island to the point where they'll soon forget what a tax is. Them fecking off will have zero effect on modern post industrial nations, and the people who work for them, high or low earner, are neither rich or inclined enough to move half a continent away from their friends and families so they pay less tax.
The elephant in the room (thread) is tax avoidance.
Maybe we can just build a wall around 'em.