It is controversial, I suppose. I also don’t want the rich being able to oppress people, and generally stand with you on most left-style policies talked about here on Lemmy. But restricting the power of the rich comes with downsides, and the extreme versions of it haven’t worked out well historically either.
restricting the power of the rich comes with downsides
Say, if I don’t believe there’s a good reason for a person’s wealth to reach Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk levels, if I say that’s not healthy for society, that we ought to implement heavier progressive tax and that people like him must pay it properly, can you explain what the downside would be?
How would you implement it? Given time and breadth, I expect one could find downsides.
But if it were really just that? Heavier progressive tax affecting the super-rich more, with enforcement on the rich to actually pay it? Sounds good to me.
I was going to say it’s not worth my time to think of downsides to that - but actually I can see two already. One is on principle, that wealth earned shouldn’t be penalised. Especially when there is real communal wealth generated by e.g. Amazon. I’ve even wondered, at times, if this sort of taxation provides a band-aid for avoiding the real work of stopping the injustice that leads to the wealth imbalance in the first place (like wage theft etc.).
The second is again how you implement it. I’ve seen a few fallacies in discussions of taxing the super-rich, around that complicated topic of what wealth really is when it includes company shares. You can shortcut that and say, well it’s definitely worth taxing Musk et al and anyhow they’ll have plenty of money left over - but if you do it slapdash like that, even if the effects don’t spill over to the poor, it’s still an injustice. And an injustice, even if hidden and apparently benign, is still a downside.
This might sound controversial to you, but I don’t want the rich being able to oppress people.
(Historically, that went horribly. It’s still going horribly, in fact.)
I think you’re being disingenuously generous with your interpretation of far right policies.
It is controversial, I suppose. I also don’t want the rich being able to oppress people, and generally stand with you on most left-style policies talked about here on Lemmy. But restricting the power of the rich comes with downsides, and the extreme versions of it haven’t worked out well historically either.
Say, if I don’t believe there’s a good reason for a person’s wealth to reach Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk levels, if I say that’s not healthy for society, that we ought to implement heavier progressive tax and that people like him must pay it properly, can you explain what the downside would be?
How would you implement it? Given time and breadth, I expect one could find downsides.
But if it were really just that? Heavier progressive tax affecting the super-rich more, with enforcement on the rich to actually pay it? Sounds good to me.
I was going to say it’s not worth my time to think of downsides to that - but actually I can see two already. One is on principle, that wealth earned shouldn’t be penalised. Especially when there is real communal wealth generated by e.g. Amazon. I’ve even wondered, at times, if this sort of taxation provides a band-aid for avoiding the real work of stopping the injustice that leads to the wealth imbalance in the first place (like wage theft etc.).
The second is again how you implement it. I’ve seen a few fallacies in discussions of taxing the super-rich, around that complicated topic of what wealth really is when it includes company shares. You can shortcut that and say, well it’s definitely worth taxing Musk et al and anyhow they’ll have plenty of money left over - but if you do it slapdash like that, even if the effects don’t spill over to the poor, it’s still an injustice. And an injustice, even if hidden and apparently benign, is still a downside.
But yeah, tax the rich :-D. Please do!