[webmaven]

> In other words: progressive taxation destroys wealth creation.

No, progressive taxation destroys wealth concentration.

I understand that when the pockets that wealth is concentrated in are your own, it might feel like destruction in a "who-moved-my-cheese" sense, but the fact is, no wealth is destroyed.

[duncan_bayne]

That is pirate morality, codified.

[webmaven]

The morality or ethics of progressive taxation are a separate matter. What I was addressing is whether wealth is destroyed by redistribution in the form of a progressive tax code (which was being characterized as wealth destruction).

Arguably, at taxation extremes, wealth creation does suffer: too high and you remove some of the incentive to earn more (if there were a 100% tax rate above a certain bracket, for example), too low and government can't afford to enforce property rights and your incentives are to invest in protecting what you have (or can grab).

But in the very broad middle, the data shows that progressive taxation does not reduce the incentive to create wealth, and in fact the creation of wealth by most measures ends up being higher overall.

[duncan_bayne]

Perhaps to put the question a different way.

What is the difference to me, as an individual, what happens to the wealth once it's been taken from me?

Since I'm not spending it to further my own goals (e.g. by charitable donation to a cause whose values I share), does it matter whether that money has been spent on something someone else values, or literally burned?

[webmaven]

> does it matter whether that money has been spent on something someone else values, or literally burned?

Since I'm pretty sure that burning it would cause a deflationary spiral, yep.