[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)