# The best division of wealth in a society **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 11, 2017, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193 "2017-12-11T13:55:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2017, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193/141 "2017-12-19T15:27:03Z")
I think a minimum basic income should be given to those who don’t earn enough to provide a basic standard for themselves. This should be gradually phased out as income increases so as not to provide a negative incentive to work. This should be provided for more by the wealthiest among us and less so by those with the highest income. The problems with achieving this in the American system are at both the high and the low end. At the high end our current system punishes those people who actually earn their income, whether it be famous athletes and actors or professionals such as physicians, lawyers, and engineers. Those people end up paying 1/3rd or more of their income while the truly wealthy like Warren Buffett famously demonstrated pay far less. I think that needs to be corrected, so that the truly wealthy that make their money off of other people’s labor are the ones who shoulder the largest burden rather than the professionals that earn income from their own labor. At the lower end of the income scale we should not be punishing those who work two jobs just to get by while rewarding those that are lazy and choose not to work at all. Safety net benefits should be structured so that the people working hard to scrape by are not punished because they make a little more with all the hard work they put in. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2017, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193/142 "2017-12-19T15:30:52Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > … I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen anyone here say, for example, that the police are foot soldiers of the propertied class and grew out of slave patrols and the need to suppress worker movements, or even an edgy throwaway line – like billionaires are immoral sociopaths who should be guillotined. Did you see Mr. Dribble’s posts farther up this page? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193/143 "2017-12-19T15:43:35Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Did you see Mr. Dribble’s posts farther up this page? It’s _MrDibble_, on “r”, no period or space. Don’t see where I said anything about guillotining or where cops derive from (true as that is) ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2017, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193/144 "2017-12-19T15:53:40Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > It’s _MrDibble_, on “r”, no period or space. > > Don’t see where I said anything about guillotining or where cops derive from (true as that is) You don’t think saying that Jeff Bezos stole his fortune counts as an “edgy throwaway line”? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193/145 "2017-12-19T15:55:44Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You don’t think saying that Jeff Bezos stole his fortune counts as an “edgy throwaway line”? No, I think it’s a truthful answer to a question put to me. With a link for expansion, no less. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2017, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193/146 "2017-12-19T16:21:59Z")
While I would not go so far as to say that “property is theft”, I would be inclined to agree with Balzac, who said that “behind every great fortune is a crime”. But look, the American economy, as it has been constituted for most of our lifetimes, with its few rich, leaving aside for the moment how rich they might be, its few(ish) poor, leaving aside for the moment that poverty means _very_ different things to a poor American vs. a poor Haitian, and its vast middle class is NOT a naturally occurring state. The natural state is a few rich, typically clustered in families, vast numbers of poor in poverty of a grinding sort which we do not know in most of this country, and a sliver of a middle class, concentrated in the mercantile and technical professions. The American economy as described above was _cultivated_ in much the manner of those little trees so popular in Japan and needs maintenance if it is to continue in its current state. The alternative is not merely income inequality, but _egregious_ income inequality of the sort that typically only gets addressed in revolutions. As revolutions tend to be somewhat messy and the results often don’t constitute improvements anyway, I’d prefer to nip things in the proverbial bud. And if a little confiscatory taxation against the Paris Hiltons of the world is what it takes to do so, then let her rip. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193/147 "2018-01-02T22:22:13Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You don’t think saying that Jeff Bezos stole his fortune counts as an “edgy throwaway line”? I don’t know the poster’s politics, but not really, especially since it’s a slam against an individual, not the system. I know plenty of Trump supporters who think Bill Gates is a thief, or that Steve Jobs was a fraud, or that the Clintons are a crime family, but they still praise free enterprise. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193/148 "2018-01-02T23:53:37Z")
> [@crucible](#): > > Most people likely think this is out of balance, that total private wealth should wind up being divided ‘more’ equitably. Well, duh! Just because most people think that it’s wrong doesn’t mean that it actually is. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2018, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193/149 "2018-01-04T18:13:59Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Did you see Mr. Dribble’s posts farther up this page? I assumed it was an edgy throwaway line. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2018, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193/150 "2018-01-04T18:21:04Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, I think it’s a truthful answer to a question put to me. With a link for expansion, no less. It was a truthful answer to the notion that Jeff Bezos stole his fortune? And to reference a line that mostly referred to land seems a little antiquated. As antiquated as the notion that all wealth springs from land and labor. There is in fact such a thing as productive activity. You can argue how much of the product of that productive activity should go to the laborer versus the capitalist but Jeff definitely created something that had immense value. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-division-of-wealth-in-a-society/804193.md?page=7)