This makes it sound like double is a big proportion. But given how much of the wealth the rich control, I'd expect it to be closer to 80 or 90% of tax coming from the rich. They just don't need it.
I agree. The top federal tax rate at one time was over 90%, and some economists believe it should be that high again. See https://www.nber.org/papers/w20601 for instance.
Since you said "expect", this comment isn't directed at you specifically.
But let's say someone is advocating for that 80%-90% tax-rate on income:
1. Why should I try to make more money if I'm going to be taxed at 80%-90%, forking over such a massive sum of my money as to make it mostly worthless?
2. Even if this advocate believes the rich don't need the money, what makes the government entitled to take the vast majority of their income? That was money the rich income earner made for themselves. I'd argue that it should be their decision how to spend the majority of it.
I'd argue that advocating for seizing such a high amount of money is very anti-capitalist. It's not really a government's position to regulate how much wealth someone "needs" when you have a high degree of freedom.
1. Yes, why should you try to make more money if you already have that much? There's more to life than money, and I'd argue that incentivising people already earning millions to optimise for making more money is probably not good for society.
2. What makes them entitled to that money in the first place? Surely nothing other than the economic system which is grounded in a democratic negotiation. You may be interested to know that other languages don't use the word "earn" for income. For example, Spanish uses "ganar" which means "win". Just because you complete a task for which you are rewarded with money by our current economic system doesn't mean you have earned it (see also: people who think things are immoral just because they're illegal)
Sure, it's anti-capitalist. Why do you think that is a bad thing? I believe it's the government's role, because that extra freedom granted to the rich is taking what I consider to be far more important freedoms away from the poor.
That seems like it would decentivize being rich pretty dramatically. The truth is that many rich people are the main movers of the economy, generating positive value for everyone (versus rent seeking). If you decentivize being rich you decentivize generating value.
Ayn Rand explores a world where the rich value creators go on strike when people and the government “loot” and plumber their wealth, through regulations and restrictions in her economic dystopian book Atlas Shrugged.
I mention this merely to suggest we could be careful about overtaxation ‘because they’re rich and won’t miss it.’ We ought to discuss the boundary where we go too far and steer very clear of that boundary.
>> Ayn Rand explores a world where the rich value creators go on strike when people and the government “loot” and plumber their wealth
If the rich went on a strike today; within a couple of years, they'd all be replaced by a different batch of newly rich people and the economy would be right back where it was before... Then after maybe a few more years, the economy would be in a better shape than it has ever been.
For every rich person, there are hundreds of even more talented people just waiting for an opportunity to take their place.
There have been many cases in history where all the rich people in a country lost their wealth and then they were replaced by a completely new class of rich people; Germany after WW2, Russia after the collapse of the USSR...
I don't agree with this at all. I don't think we have a talent shortage. You are correct that this would reduce incentives for the rich (although would it really be by that much - they would still have a huge incentive to maintain a high wealth level than a lower one).
But if the capital were sensibly redistributed (I advocate for spending some on things like univeral healthcare, and then directly sharing the rest out) it would also enable a vast group of people to take entrepreneurial risks that are not in a position to do so now.