[cbeach]

Oh yes, you're not wrong.

Many people on the left see tax as an appropriate punishment for wealth.

In their worldview, wealthy people are demonised and dehumanised. The left are convinced that wealthy people are parasitic on society.

This leftwing ideology seems peculiar to me, having seen the data on who's funding public services, and who's benefiting from public services.

[mvc]

It's not a punishment for wealth.

Think of it like insurance of your status in the system. Your insurance premiums are proportional to the value of the stuff you want to protect. Presumably you own a house. A pension. Various other investments perhaps. All these become worthless if civil society fails and we go back to the Leviathan.

It is right that you should pay a higher premium for that type of insurance than those with no such wealth at stake.

[cbeach]

I'm not sure I get any more value from the public service than anyone else. Do I get faster service from the police? More officers assigned to protect me?

Any perks from the NHS for the wealthy? Or the same service as everyone else?

One thing I know for sure - less public money is allocated to my children (I live in the countryside) than children in urban areas, due to the funding formula.

[atmosx]

> I'm not sure I get any more value from the public service than anyone else.

"Clash of Autonomy and Interdependence" is an interesting somewhat related read on the topic[^1].

[^1]: https://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/10/cl...

[jakub_g]

The real issue, everywhere, is that the ordinary people are made believe those earning 100k are ultra rich, and should be taxed to death, and not those earning 10M+, or having inherited millions.

[jedrek]

100k/pa in the UK is 'ultra wealthy'. 120k/pa puts you into the 1% of top earners.

[jakub_g]

Someone making 100k per year but being an immigrant (=no inheritance) is nowhere as wealthy as someone making 60k and having a 500k family house inherited.

[Swenrekcah]

>This leftwing ideology seems peculiar to me, having seen the data on who's funding public services, and who's benefiting from public services.

The thing is, even people who pay $100,000 a year in taxes actually gain far more value than that from a properly functioning society with strong public services and social safety nets. It's hard to put a proper price on personal safety or the opportunity cost of having to spend time, energy and money on securing your family and belongings rather than just being able to generally trust the people around you.

[atmosx]

Gavin Belson agrees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5zQpN28xa4

[fnimick]

How can you possibly justify keeping even more of your money that you earn from profiting from the work of others, when people in need are freezing and starving? I know HN runs libertarian but this is just abhorrent.

[imdsm]

Many people make this point, but very few are willing to defend their views with some good old pragmatism. In the nature of HN, let's have a go at that, shall we?

1. Who works harder, an office worker working for 7.5 hours or a nurse who works for 12+ hours?

2. Who works harder, a person who works 37.5 hours in an office, or someone who works 80 hours a week, founding a company?

3. Who has worked harder to get where they are, an office worker who spent 6 months getting an NVQ in Microsoft Office or a nurse who spent 4-5 years getting a degree in nursing?

4. Who takes more risks, a person who works 37.5 hours in an office or a founder who puts their own capital in to try and create a company?

5. Which brings more value to a community, a person who is employed, or a person who employs people?

[caoilte]

> Who takes more risks, a person who works 37.5 hours in an office or a founder who puts their own capital in to try and create a company?

Inherited capital in every startup I've worked at. And enough of it that they got several runs at success. It wasn't risky at all.

> Which brings more value to a community, a person who is employed, or a person who employs people?

Too vague a generalisation to have any value. What matters is who does the work and the social value of that work.

[imdsm]

I feel slightly sad that I numbered the questions and you blew past that but then it seems you've not attempted to answer the actual questions.

> Inherited capital in every startup I've worked at. And enough of it that they got several runs at success. It wasn't risky at all.

In the event this was an attempt to answer, I have to say, feels like a non-answer. You do say "worked at" though, which makes me think not as a founder but as an employee, thus the capital risk wasn't yours so much.

> Too vague a generalisation to have any value. What matters is who does the work and the social value of that work.

It is vague, sure, a doctor probably has more value than someone who employs a cleaner to clean their home. So I suppose, a better question would be:

6. Which brings more value to a community, a person who works in an office doing menial admin work for 5 years, or a person who spends 5 years founding a new company that provides medical services to the community, employs 100 people, and produces tax receipts (direct and indirect) of 1000x the person who works in an office doing menial admin work?

If you're thinking "how can I possibly answer that question?" then you're right. You can't. The obvious answer is that the founder ultimately produces more value, and that's okay. You don't have to hate or dislike people for creating value — creating jobs and providing services is crucial to the economies around the world.

There seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to such a question of "well the office worker has value too", yes, nobody is saying people are value-less, but there is an objective reality that some people produce more value than others.

Ultimately, my purposefully crafted questions lead up to one thing: some people deserve to be paid more than others.

[psd1]

You're really giving it to that straw man. You must be tired now.

> You've not attempted to answer the actual questions

Lol no, this is a transparent plea for validation.

No-one views tax as punitive. The real anger from the nation is directed at:

1. The financial class who has enough wealth to use non-dom status, offshore trusts and similar vehicles to dodge tax, which vehicles are not available to hoi polloi 2. Merely comfortably-rich people who wank off about how they are "job creators"

You DO get paid more. Save your whining for your therapist.

[imdsm]

Whining? I'm hardly the one getting upset here.

Taxes are punitive when they're greater for some people than others. Not only is the absolute value paid much great, but so too is the relative amount. We're all paying into a pot unevenly and taking out unevenly. It's completely unfair.

[caoilte]

> the capital risk wasn't yours so much.

You asked "Who takes more risks" not who put more capital at risk. Founders I have known had plenty of capital and risking some of it on startups wasn't nearly as risky to their life as it was for many of their employees for whom this was their only roll of the dice and had no savings.

> 6. Which brings more value to a community, a person who works in an office doing menial admin work for 5 years, or a person who spends 5 years founding a new company that provides medical services to the community, employs 100 people, and produces tax receipts (direct and indirect) of 1000x the person who works in an office doing menial admin work?

I love the way you completely passed over whether or not the founder does any work at all beyond providing the capital. Plenty of founders work hard, but plenty more bring connections and capital and are otherwise a productivity drain.

So again, as before, it depends on the productive work being done by that person. And they shouldn't get to take the credit for the taxes paid by their employees or the profits earned by everyone in the company. That's a shared achievement.

And why define a person just by what they do in their job? The person doing menial admin work could be doing all sorts of other amazing voluntary work that eclipses anything the founder provides in value.

> You don't have to hate or dislike people for creating value — creating jobs and providing services is crucial to the economies around the world.

And yet it's ideologically orthodox to hate governments for doing exactly these things.

> There seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to such a question of "well the office worker has value too", yes, nobody is saying people are value-less, but there is an objective reality that some people produce more value than others.

That is true enough.

> Ultimately, my purposefully crafted questions lead up to one thing: some people deserve to be paid more than others.

Even if it was true that people are paid according to the value they produce (they are not) it does not follow that they deserve to be.

Take a doctor who delivers immense value to their patients. They can only do so thanks to the hospital they work in, thanks to the education they received and the equipment they have access to.

Or consider a founder who starts a company benefitting from the concentration of talent created by a university doing world class research and attracting the best students.

What people deserve to be paid is a social question. When we choose to pay San Francisco founders millions and let thousands of people be homeless, that's a social choice about our shared values.

[fnimick]

The answer to all of these is "it depends", and quite frankly has nothing to do with how people should be taxed. If you're making more money, you should be paying a higher proportion of your income in taxes. This isn't revolutionary.

Also, I love how you glossed over that the founders you idealize are largely already from privileged backgrounds that give them the opportunity to fail. The vast majority of people will never get that chance.

[cbeach]

I think you must misunderstand my situation if you think I earn money from "profiting from the work of others"?

Have you ever been a senior manager before?

If you had, I hope you'd understand that the role involves creating jobs, hiring people, promoting people and generally supporting them, mentoring and advancing their careers? Taking responsibility for any problems they cause, and ensuring they get the glory of any successes. As well as doing my regular job as a developer at the highest level. I'd never worked so hard in my life.

It was exhausting and I'd expect to be compensated richly for it. Few people would stick the job.

The more jobs created, the more competition for employees, and thus the higher wages offered. We all owe a debt of gratitude to job creators.