[ouroboros1]

Billionaires often make compelling arguments for why they should get to keep their money (Paul Graham and Elon Musk being two examples).

I disagree with their point of view because:

1. My neighbour having enough food to eat and a warm house is a form of wealth FOR ME.

2. If wealth that is generated is taxed, this means that it is harder to accumulate wealth, this means that the people that do manage to accumulate wealth have better qualities than the people that do so in a tax free environment. And thus they make better decisions about how to allocate their money.

3. Billionaires are not accountable to anyone for how they spend their wealth. This is fine if they are all like Musk. But they are not. Of the countless number, only two are trying to build rockets to Mars. Counter examples are Osama Bin Laden and the guys who funded the NRA. If the wealth is taxed then it is fought over in a shared space in which we all have a say, no matter how small.

I like the argument that Rawls made in "A theory of Justice", where he said that when you are deciding how to make a fair society you should think from a perspective in which you do not know what role you will have in that society.

[gonehome]

> 1. My neighbour having enough food to eat and a warm house is a form of wealth FOR ME.

I want that too, but it's unrelated to a wealth tax or the existence of billionaires. I'd argue the wealth tax dis-incentivizes growth and makes it less likely your neighbor could have enough to eat and a warm house. We can and should improve the lower bound of society, but you don't do this by taxing wealth and dis-incentivizing growth.

> 2. If wealth that is generated is taxed, this means that it is harder to accumulate wealth, this means that the people that do manage to accumulate wealth have better qualities than the people that do so in a tax free environment. And thus they make better decisions about how to allocate their money.

I don't think this follows. Maybe it's harder so only the nastiest people attempt to do it and fight more with each other since their wealth decays over time? I don't have strong opinions on this, it's just not very compelling.

> 3. Billionaires are not accountable to anyone for how they spend their wealth. This is fine if they are all like Musk. But they are not. Of the countless number, only two are trying to build rockets to Mars. Counter examples are Osama Bin Laden and the guys who funded the NRA. If the wealth is taxed then it is fought over in a shared space in which we all have a say, no matter how small.

Yeah - on this we agree, there should be restrictions (there actually are some on political contributions and obviously things that are illegal/sanctioned). Limits on how wealth translates into political power should exist and probably need to be better. This is a different issue than a wealth tax and dis-incentivizing growth.

[hkai]

If I didn't know whether I'll be born in the bottom 1% or top 1%, I'd still choose a society that incentivizes wealth creation. Poor people in those societies are the richest poor people in the world. They have more prospects, they have more rights and they have more access to the benefits of civilization like education or electricity than the societies that promote the idea of taking away someone's property and make it difficult to start businesses.

[marcinzm]

>Poor people in those societies are the richest poor people in the world.

I suspect the average poor person in much of Europe is much better off than the average poor person in America. Yet Europe incentives wealth creation a lot less than America.

[ouroboros1]

Wealth taxes are common in Europe. But not in Africa.

[barry-cotter]

There are only four countries with wealth taxes. That is not “common in a Europe”.

> Net wealth taxes are far less widespread than they used to be in the OECD but there has recently been a renewed interest in wealth taxation. While 12 countries had net wealth taxes in 1990, there were only four OECD countries that still levied recurrent taxes on individuals’ net wealth in 2017. Decisions to repeal net wealth taxes have often been justified by efficiency and administrative concerns and by the observation that net wealth taxes have frequently failed to meet their redistributive goals. The revenues collected from net wealth taxes have also, with a few exceptions, been very low.

http://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/role-and-design-of-net-we...

[gonehome]

Africa is huge so this comment in isolation doesn't really mean anything.

What parts of Africa? Liberal democracy and capitalism are prerequisites before you can make a wealth-tax no wealth-tax comparison.

People in this thread are also confusing protecting the lower bound in society with taxing wealth. This confusion only makes sense when you think wealth creation is zero-sum (it's not). You can protect the lower bound of society (Europe does a better job of this than the US generally) and incentivize growth/wealth creation.

You don't have to choose one, you can choose both.

[felipemnoa]

>>Billionaires often make compelling arguments for why they should get to keep their money

Well, it is their money.

[Fnoord]

Its our country, our world. You don't live on it alone; we live here together. People who are very rich don't earn proportionally on how hard they work. Its the people who earn very little who do the hard, tough labor.

[marcinzm]

Money is a societal construct and as such it belongs to exactly the person society says it belongs to. That may not be the billionaire depending on the society.

[felipemnoa]

Everything in society is a social construct, implicit or explicit. Right now the social construct that we have is that you get to keep the money you worked for after paying some taxes.

I do wonder if you could make something like the wealth tax work in the United States.

I'm willing to be educated.