[nicoburns]

A lot of people (even in first-world countries) have zero chance of becoming a multi-millionaire, and even struggle to make ends meet, pay their rent, etc. That is the problem, not highly compensated workers.

And it is an economic system which awards a vastly disproportionate share of resources to people like Musk and Gates that deprives others of those same resources.

[virgilp]

Yes, that is true (though at the same time things have been massively improving in average). What I find amazing is that we live in a time where a person living in a (relatively) poor country, working a non-management job, paying all taxes, _can_ actually get fairly rich. Employment really isn't "slavery".

Would it be great if more people could achieve prosperity - ideally, _all_ people? Yes it would. However, just "take the money of the rich" is not a solution for this (we can argue about details of taxation, and I don't think in particular USA has a good system, but that's more of "fine-grain detail" in the end)

> it is an economic system which awards a vastly disproportionate share of resources to people like Musk and Gates that deprives others of those same resources.

I've lived in communism. It really is equal sharing of misery, _not_ equal sharing of reward. The reality is that Musk really puts in way more effort & takes a lot more risk than your average factory worker. But at the end of the day - not even that is what matters. What matters is that by attempting this "equal sharing of resources", each and every time it was tried, it resulted in a horrible dystopia. Not sure what it would take to convince people it's an inherently bad idea - but I feel that at least by now the burden of proof should be on the shoulder of those who advocate it.

[nicoburns]

> just "take the money of the rich" is not a solution for this

I'm not suggesting taking money from the rich. I'm suggesting not giving it to them in the first place.

> What matters is that by attempting this "equal sharing of resources", each and every time it was tried, it resulted in a horrible dystopia.

I'm also not suggesting "equal sharing of resources". The idea that the only possible distributions of wealth are "everyone gets the same" and "unbounded in response to supply/demand" is silly. If all the billionaires in the world had $10million instead of $1 billion, and everyone with >$1million's wealth was scaled down in proportion, I'd be happy. There'd still be plenty to work for.

For me, the key issue with communism was too much concentrated power. That lead to inefficient resource distribution, because the people responsible for distributing had perverse incentives which lead to corruption, and even where the leadership was benevolent, they simply didn't have the mental resources to work out how best to distribute things.

Now, markets solve this problem, by allowing everyone to have input into what the economy produces, simply by spending their own share of our economic output. However, this mechanism relies on economic demand being somewhat evenly spread out amongst the population. Otherwise you end up with the same problem: those in control of demand have incentives to pursue their own self-interest, and even where they are benevolent, they don't have the means to determine efficient distribution.

Bill Gate's philanthropy is a good example of this: very well meaning, but hopelessly ineffective given the huge sums of money involved. Notably, this wealth is being distributed just like wealth in communist countries: in a planned way, by a central authority. Extreme wealth concentration circumvents the market mechanism, and should be avoided for just the same reasons as communism.

[virgilp]

But nobody gave them the money! Take eg Bezos - Amazon is textbook example of wealth creation, in the economic sense (lowered the prices, thus people could afford more). His wealth is not "given", it's created! How do you control the distribution of that wealth, other than tax, in a way that doesn't destroy the very mechanism that made it possible?

(honest question, it feels like you have an answer; I just don't see it)

[nicoburns]

I am suggesting taxation. I'm just pointing out that the idea that taxation "takes away" wealth that people have "earned" pre-supposes an economic system (and ultimately a moral system - think about what it really means to earn something: it means to deserve it) where money accrues to those who perform certain actions (such as selling goods). It perfectly consistent to have an economic system where the rule is that beyond a certain point, you only accrue a portion of the value given by the person obtaining the good.

What is money, other than the power to get others to perform economic activity for you, backed by the state? It is given by it's very nature.

[virgilp]

But taxation is "taking money" as opposed to "not giving it in the first place". These are not people who take a salary - if you tax the company into oblivion so that "it doesn't make money in the first place", then you stop the wealth creation. If you tax the transfer from the company to the individual... well, you need to be much more specific on how you do that in a way that is not making them look wealthy. Also, this form of taxation will not ensure equitable distribution of wealth to the contributors of the enterprise (i.e. Amazon warehouse employees would still be "wage slaves") - just redistribution to the general population (and just redistribution, not "equitable redistribution", because that would be too hard a problem to solve). Now don't get me wrong - I am e.g. in favor of "basic income" and think we should strive to offer a decent minimum standard of living to everyone. But it's a big jump from there to "we should prevent people from getting _too_ rich" - both these are initiatives that have some merit and some downsides, but I don't think one helps the other in any meaningful way.

(as a side note, I disagree both that Bill Gates' philanthropy is "hopelessly ineffective" or that the rich drive demand - but these are two long discussions/debates in and of themselves)