[nosianu]

When a human is able to amass billions today it is not because of their own abilities. With their own abilities alone they could at most build a mildly nice hut from mud and forest wood.

The reason they can build modern stuff is due to the work of billions of people networked in space and time (knowledge, processes & culture, tools, infrastructure) to which the "self-made rich person" has the extreme fortune to be able to build on (even today most people are born in places too far away to benefit equally from that network and are only able to access a tiny part of it, so no matter their own contribution they are lacking the base).

Tell me, why would a person whose accomplishments are ~99.99999% based on the work and accomplishments of others be allowed to monopolize it as if they were truly responsible for everything?

As far as I'm concerned the government should truly not be allowed to tax your entirely self-made mud hut disconnected from infrastructure in the middle of nowhere.

For all else, you benefit from gigantic network effects (in space: all other people alive making things, in time: everything we got from previous generations) and should pay your dues. Given that, even a very high tax rate especially after death is extremely generous. The descendants had even less to do with anything the person that sat in a perfect place in the human network accomplished by making use of their advantageous position (to be exact, zero). At most, their contribution is to be able to use said network very well - although it also happens a lot that they did so by preventing others from using it.

[aww_dang]

>Tell me, why would a person whose accomplishments are ~99.99999% based on the work and accomplishments of others be allowed to monopolize it as if they were truly responsible for everything?

Wealth is the incentive for the wealth creation you're observing here.

[wpietri]

> Wealth is the incentive for the wealth creation you're observing here.

That's definitely not true. The great bulk of people, who do the great bulk of the work of value creation, can't possibly be motivated by wealth, because definitionally they won't receive it.

There's also no reason to think that the ecommerce revolution wouldn't have happened without Bezos or some other person becoming a zillionaire. There are plenty of entrepreneurs who are happy as long as they get to make things happen and make decent money.

Absurd levels of wealth are an incentive for wealth concentration, not wealth creation. The creation of value would certainly happen without that. And generally happens better without it, which is why we have things like antimonopoly laws.

[adgjlsfhk1]

Wealth is an incentive for wealth aggregation those aren't the same thing. More wealth would be created if companies payed their workers more (since poor people actually need the money to pay for things)

[aww_dang]

Businesses don't create value by overcompensating employees. Without the profit incentive for the entrepreneur there is no business. The consumer's problems are not solved, no jobs are provided and no value is created.

In some cases it does make sense for employers to increase compensation. Especially when productivity is high. Usually productivity gains are a result of innovation, which is incentivized by the profit motive.

https://www.npr.org/2014/01/27/267145552/the-middle-class-to...

[wpietri]

> Without the profit incentive for the entrepreneur there is no business.

This just isn't true. I have entrepreneurs on both sides of family going back at least 3 generations. Many of them were happy just to create something and make a decent living.

As an example, look at Bob's Red Mill, a 500+ person company in Oregon. The owner recently turned the whole thing over to his employees: https://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/2010/02/bobs_red_...

You could also look at worker-owned co-ops. In SF, Arizmendi is a very successful string of worker-owned bakeries: https://arizmendibakery.com/faq

Or take a look at the Zingerman's community of businesses in Ann Arbor, MI: https://www.zingermanscommunity.com/about-us/a-bit-of-zinger...

The founder, Ari Weinzweig very clearly doesn't give a shit about the profit incentive. I recommend his book, "A Lapsed Anarchist's Approach to Building a Great Business": https://www.zingermans.com/Product/zingermans-guide-to-good-...

I grant that part of corporate America's civic religion is pretending that greed is the only possible motivator for anything good. And maybe that's true for some people. But if you talk with actual entrepreneurs, especially ones outside the tech filter bubble, their true motivations are rarely about a chance at vast riches.

[aww_dang]

The profit incentive remains. The ends to which they apply those profits are up to the individual entrepreneurs. There's nothing wrong in my view with worker owned businesses, as long as it is a voluntary arrangement. From where I stand these businesses are entirely valid options which can exist in a free market. Where you paint them as as in conflict with the profit incentive or a 'civic religion of greed', you branch off into pure hyperbole.

[wpietri]

It's far from hyperbole. Wealth accumulation is a motivation for some. But it's just not central to a great deal of entrepreneurship and innovation. I know one guy who started a billion-dollar company, and his take on profit was entirely utilitarian: "Profit is permission to continue", meaning that it's just an indicator that the business is self-sustaining.

[nosianu]

Since we were talking about inheritance, how is this relevant? While alive the person has their wealth and the incentive you mentioned (if it's even all that relevant to them, but that's an unrelated question), and the next generation has the same incentive. More in fact if they have to actually do something compared to them simply inheriting a lot of wealth.

[aww_dang]

An easy hypothetical would be someone who is incredibly wealthy and near the end of their years. Inheritance and death taxes may reduce their incentives to contribute to the economy. Someone who is an experience job creator might choose leisure instead.

Keep in mind that death taxes may apply not only to what is inherited by family members, but charitable foundations created as well. Charity starts with the possibility of abundance.

[jimmyvalmer]

Two wrongs don't make a right? I would agree that a free enterprise system tends to grossly overcompensate its assignation of capital, but you don't cure it with an even more inefficient system like taxes (which, if you've taken econ 101, results in something more sinister called "dead weight loss").

Ultimately, it's not a question of how deserving billionaires are (they obviously aren't). It's more a question of how to best advance the interests of our species as a whole.

[fredophile]

It sounds like you agree that billionaires are overcompensated relative to their contributions to society. If taxes aren't a good way to address this, what is a better solution?

[jimmyvalmer]

End state-mandated public schooling. Let kids compete with adults for jobs.

[jcpham2]

Let’s de-regulate airplanes and stick the kids on the tarmac! I think my son would make a good forex trader, compete eh?

[jimmyvalmer]

Daytrader, yes. Flight controller, no. Unlike the buffoon with five kids who loses his shirt, your son's losses would presumably be limited to his allowance, at which point he'd learn canning might be more his calling. On the other hand, his chances of succeeding in forex are about as good as anybody else's.

[nosianu]

> Two wrongs don't make a right?

Where do you see "two wrongs"? I don't understand this reply at all. I don't see the connection to what I actually wrote.

> Ultimately, it's not a question of how deserving billionaires are (they obviously aren't). It's more a question of how to best advance the interests of our species as a whole.

I agree, and I don't see any connection to what I wrote here either, meaning how this is supposed to be a contradiction to my point?

[jimmyvalmer]

Everyone knows billionaires are standing on the shoulders of giants from Shannon to Shockley, neither of whom were billionaires. Getting these pioneers their just desserts from taxes, assuming they even wanted them, would be like using the wrong end of a hammer to nail a board. My initial response (the one you thought missed your point) assumed this and hopefully also disabuses you of the notion that life can or should be fair.