[tzekid]

In modern societies: top 1% of earners pay roughly 30% of taxes top 5% pay 65% of taxes top 10% pay 80% of taxes while bottom 50% usually barely make 2% of taxes.

Heavy redistribution of wealth is already in place and it's not making things better.

[samiv]

"Heavy redistribution of wealth is already in place and it's not making things better."

You're right, because the distribution is removing large groups of people from the economy.

Just for reference, this has been done before and it produced possibly one of the best economies (at the time) and it was very social democrat. This was the United States after the so called "New Deal".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal

And just to make it crystal clear, we're not talking about taxing working people. We're talking about taxing the obscenely wealthy people who just sit on massive amounts of wealth, whether it's stocks or property or yachts or mansions or gold and jewelry. You know the > 10-1000x millionairs

[myrmidon]

Sure, but how "heavy" is that redistribution though?

Top 1% paying 30% of taxes sounds like a really rough deal for them at first, but if those 1%ers already own over 30% of your country in the first place (which is the case in the US), then thats barely their "fair share", and you are not really achieveing any redistribution at all.

How can you be certain that the problem is "progressive taxation is not working" instead of "taxation does not help against wealth inequality because it is actually barely progressive"?

[hnhg]

Also the top 1% covers everything from the very affluent middle class to billionaires - the distance from the least rich part of the 1% to the richest part spans billions, much greater than the rest of the distribution's 99%.

[cloverich]

top 1% net worth is around 10 million says google. That's enough to live off and not need to work at any age. It's clearly not middle class.

[hnhg]

It depends on where you are. There are parts of the USA where a 10 million net worth does not mean you are "yacht rich" (but certainly very comfortable).

[ethbr1]

No one has a right to live anywhere specific. That seems like an individual's problem rather than a government's.

[ulrikrasmussen]

But the top 1% still pays proportionally less of their wealth in taxes than the bottom 50%. Yes, they may pay a large fraction of the total taxes, but with what they own they should pay even more.

I think another big problem is that this extremely uneven distribution of wealth is a basic democratic problem. The reason we have states is, among other things, to put the allocation of our finite resources under democratic control. If the majority of those resources are on private hands, then states get less control and our votes have less power.

[misterhill]

A lot of people survive and tolerate a lifestyle that comes from these redistributions of things to people who no longer have direct access to means of survival like water and land. You really have to qualify what you mean in better.

Many rich people with heads should consider that the current situation is making things better than the next version of the French Revolution.

[logicchains]

>Many rich people with heads should consider that the current situation is making things better than the next version of the French Revolution.

The French Revolution was a revolution against the French government, and its high tax policies.

[skywal_l]

No. It was a revolution against a regime where the rich paid NO taxes.

Article 9 of the august decree – Fiscal privileges in the payment of taxes were abolished forever. Taxes were to be collected from all the citizens, in exactly the same manner, and plans were to be considered to set up a new method of tax collection. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_feudalism_in_Fran...

[robin_reala]

I’m not sure how your second statement follows your first? It’s implying that your numbers are “heavy” but not backing it up.

[thinkcontext]

> Heavy redistribution of wealth is already in place and it's not making things better.

Really? Universal education and healthcare don't make things better?

[koonsolo]

Do you have a source for this?