Clairobscur, the result of your ideas is that everyone is a slave to the state. It is a strong, emotionally charged word, but is true. In your world the government would, de facto, own everything and only let you keep your money if it wants to. How can anything belong to you if the government can “legitimately” take it away from you? The answer: You don’t. You no longer have a right to anything you do or “earn” when the government decides that it has a blank check on your life that you can never fully pay off and is ready to enforce it with armed bill collectors.
It’s no more tyranny than progressive taxes are. It’s only “putting a gun on your head” if you already consider that asking you to, pay taxes is “putting a gun on your head”.
And personnally, I don’t consider that taking your second yacht is tyranny. But a very inequal distribution of wealth is a tyranny of the wealthy over the poors. Because in this case the first ones owns all the levers (influence, political power, access to education,etc…). If you have a monopoly or at least a large a control on the ressources which are absolutely necessary to other people, you’re in the position of a tyran. The fact you’re not a government doesn’t change a thing.
That’s a moral issue. And the fact you feel it’s tyranny to cap the wealth doesn’t make it so (it reminds me of the thread about moral relativism). A tyranny would be to prevent you from voicing your opinion or from participating in the political system, or to force you to work, or to jail you, etc…But taking your 6th million dollar isn’t tyranny. You may consider private property as sacred, but I definitely don’t. And it’s purely a matter of opinion.
Your arguments seem based on the idea of “distribution of wealth”. As if there is a set amount of money in the world and the only way I can get some is by taking it from someone else. This is not true. If I make $10 million a year (and it takes place in a free market) I have made that money. It did not exist before.
And this is not a matter of opinion. It is a very important, deep, metaphysical and epistemological question about the rights of man. This country was founded on the idea that humans have certain inalienable rights that exist outside of the sphere of government or human desire. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of property.
To take away a man’s property without just cause is no less of an evil then to stifle his freedom of speech.
More moral? Definitely not. More efficient, certainly. Because :
1)There’s more incentive to earn 1000 when you own only 10 than when you already own 100 000 $. It’s not like only the rich are working hard, like some people seem to be arguing. (Note that I also gave the examples of individual farms as opposed to latifundias, or of the efficiency of micro-loans in the developping world).
2)Someone who is poor is very likely to spend its money on really needed things (medications, housing, etc…) while someone who is rich will spend any new income on luxuries. Then it’s an issue of opinion and morals.
And yes, my reasonning rest on the premises that the incentive to earn money is efficient only up to a certain point (by efficient, I mean resulting in a greater good for all, not on an individual basis). Past this point, I believe that allowing people to amass unlimited wealth is not only morally problematic, but counter-productive.
Actually, not necessarily. You may very well have taken it from someone else. And this can be true in many ways. For instance by abusing the advantageous position you are in because you’re already wealthy. You can even earn money and destroy wealth in the process (for instance by speculations on various markets which result in a crisis for the producers of a given good or in the economy of a given country) . And it’s not like in the real world, it would never happen. Actually, it’s the way things actually work. (By the way you didn’t make this money alone : society provides many elements which are necessary for you to make money : infrastructure, skilled workers, etc…).
Also, you’ve more interest in making 100 than in letting someone else make 1000 . That also happens all the time. A capping also means that you’ve have no interest in preventing other people from giving a try at making money too.
Where we disagree (from the efficiency point of view) is that you think that if it wasn’t for you, this money you made/wealth you created would never have appeared. But it’s untrue. If Bill Gates stop creating/selling operating systems, someone else will create/sell them. This wealth will appear in any case.
And I do believe that actually, more wealth will appear because people earning much less will be much more incited to make money than you are if you’re already wealthy (if I give you a micro-loan of 100 $, I doubt you’re going to create a lot of wealth with it. More likely you’re going to spend it very quickly. But the same kind of micro-loan to a poor Bengladeshi will result in her creating a business).
That’s why I believe there should be a capping. Because the lack of it is result at best in the creation of the same amount of wealth, at worst in the creation of less wealth (rich people having less incentive to use their income in a productive way, and having too much influence, resulting in other people having a lessened ability to create wealth themselves).
And if as much wealth is created, a better distribution of this wealth is a good thing because it will be used in a much more useful way (building houses rather than yachts).
It can be important and still a matter of opinion. A proof is that we disagree on this issue. I certainly agree that it’s important. The rights to a minimal standard of living in a society which can easily afford it are extremely important. The right to an actual (as opposed to theorical) equal ability to participate in the democratic process is extremely impotant. And I thing that both are trumped by a too inequal distribution of wealth.
Some people can have thought 200 years ago that property was sacred and an inalienable right. You might share this opinion. It doesn’t make it an eternal truth (and anyway, property already isn’t an absolute right : you have to pay taxes, for instance). “These people living at the end of the XVIII° century thought it was the way to go” isn’t an argument which is going to convince me, I must say…
The basic needs of human beings are a just cause. The well-being of the society as the whole is a just cause. Or else you wouldn’t accept to pay taxes to fund public schools. Actually, the basic human needs are more important than freedom of speech. Being able to express your opinion won’t make you much good if you’re starving to death. And as I already wrote, I believe that a very inequal distribution of wealth is a major hindrance to a real political equality. Dollars vote too.
As for saying that taking away property is evil, regardless of the motives, that’s only an unprovable opinion of yours. I just reject this premise.
Define “better”. If the CEO gets the extra $5m and, say, spends it on the Gulfstream jet mentioned in another post, he is paying for the wages of the people that build the jet, service it, make the components for it, mine the raw materials to make the jet, make the equipment used to mine the materials, and on, and on, and on. The same argument applies to anything the money is spent on.
If the CEO doesn’t spend the money, but invests it, then he is providing capital to help create jobs.
So, how is your distribution “better”?
Absolutely not. the government would only take whatever you earn above a given amount (and I remind you the OP proposed a cap of 5 millions dollars/ year…it’s not like it’s stealing the bread from your starving mouth… I would be less generous than that). The government doesn’t own everything in this situation. Not more than he owns everything when it takes 30% of your income when you make more than a given amount.
I don’t even understand why you equate a capping of income to the concept that the government owns everything.
And you’re in no way the slave of the state. You’re under no obligation to work and pay 100% of your income. Just stop trying to amass wealth when you already earn 5 millions dollars. You just have to let the other kids play and try to make money too. Take leisury vacations in some sunny place and enjoy your 5 million dollars/year. That doesn’t look like slavery to me.
I already answered that in a previous post, refering to a diamond necklace instead of a jet.
Yes, people will get jobs building the jet/mining diamonds. They also will get jobs if someone else is spending the money to build houses or buy food. That’s not an argument. So, “better” is : to provide for more essential needs than a jet. Using ressources to (natural ressources as well as created wealth, by the way) to build private jets when people are dying from AIDS by lack of drugs appears to be a serious moral issue for me. There’s a need for incentives (which range from being able to buy a loaf of bread to being able to buy a beautiful car) if we want people to create wealth, but at some point, the waste of ressources on luxuries is morally properly abhorent to me. And as I said a dozen of times already, IMO also counter-productive.
As for the investment part, I answered to that in the post you quoted : it create jobs and wealth, so as long as this wealth is used for more necessary needs (which will be the case if it’s more equally distributed), it’s better than buying a jet.
Well, I’m too tired to wade into the moral issues in this thread so I will settle for setting points of fact straight…In a standard marginal tax rate system such as we have in the U.S., one cannot earn more pre-tax income yet have less after-tax income because one is pushed into a higher tax bracket. Tax brackets are marginal meaning that the highest rate is charged only on the part of your income above that highest bracket boundary. The technical way to put this is that a graph of after-tax income as a function of pre-tax income is monotonically increasing. Only the slope changes at the tax bracket boundaries.
[This point-of-fact was made in my first-ever post to the SDMB…so after 2 & 1/2 years and 1300+ posts, I guess I’ve come full-circle!]
And you’re wrong, or at least your statement is unfounded. The poor waste their money on junk food, cigarettes and lottery tickets in sizable quantity. If they were all spending their money at maximum efficiency, sales of these items would collapse.
Wishing something was true doesn’t constitute evidence.
I disagree with you on this point - the money actually did exist before. The $10 mil you make comes from the profits of the company, which comes from selling products or services. The profits of the company come from the pockets of the people who buy the products and services, and in turn, the money in their pockets comes from their own employment. What you are actually doing if you put $10 mil instead of $5 mil in your own bank account is preventing money from circulating the economy and benefitting more people - a trickle-up system where money flows from the less-rich to the more rich, and doesn’t come back down again. Perhaps it would be more beneficial to cap incomes at $5 mil/year, and say that anything over that figure must be spent rather than bankrolled or invested. Keep greasing the wheels of the world economy, you know.
I can just imagine the jackbooted “spend” thugs kicking down doors and tearing open mattresses and piggy banks to make sure you haven’t saved anything over your alloted amount.
You Americans sure do loves you some capitalism!
Two things: First, I may be an uninformed Canadian, but isn’t it “pursuit of happiness?” Second, from what I can tell, clairobscur is posting from Paris, France, not Paris, TX. So she probably doesn’t give a tiny little rat’s tuckus about what Americans define as “inalienable rights.”
I also take issue with the notion that people in the top 1% actually “earn” what the market will bear. Since most big business execs and their VPs decide for themselves what they are worth, they have taken the so-called market out of the equation. Believe me, I’d like nothing better than to wake up one day, look at the profit margin my company was making, and vote myself all of it, rather than reinvesting it into the company.
Here’s my take on the O.P. And I’ll concede from the get-go that it is completely unfeasible, but merely a what-if:
What if we say that earnings by an individual were capped, by international law, at $5 million, making it a punishable offense to earn any more?
I use, as my example of a system that works with a cap on individual earnings, the NBA. As it currently stands, a player’s annual wages are limited by seniority. Does this mean star players earning the maximum in their bracket simply stop playing in mid-season if they feel they are worth more? Of course not. But it does mean that players earning less than the maximum have a target to shoot for.
I don’t think capping wages necessarily limits motivation. People who are trained to excel, and who cherish the glory of being at the top, do not lose interest in continuing to do so. These people play to win and it is the competition that motivates them. The money is just a means of keeping score–if the money is limited, they will simply find another way of tracking how they’re doing.
I do not believe I am saying anything so bold as to shake the foundations of the American Dream. I am not suggesting that people should be punished for success. Rather, I am suggesting that people might re-evaluate their sense of what success is and maybe, just maybe, that might result a better world for everyone, including the rich.
featherlou: What your analysis misses is the fact that wealth and money are not the same thing. When companies build things, they are adding to the aggegate goods and services of the country. Wealth is being created. In general, the wealthiest people are the ones who work the hardest, or who have the best ideas, or the most talent. When GE makes an aircraft engine, it doesn’t just make a bunch of money that it gives to its CEO. It increases the country’s ability to move people and goods around, which raises economic output, etc. The country is now wealthier, regardless of where the money involved in the transaction eventually lands.
By capping the incomes of the best and brightest of a country, you reduce their incentive to build the stuff we want to have. Punishing the most productive members of society is not a smart thing to do.
The deductions when the marginal rate was 70% brought a person WAY below the 36% it is today.
If you want to learn something about anarchism, here is a good start:
Anarchist FAQ
Now you are venturing into the realm of “agency” issues. Basically, how do we garantee that the person managing the company is working in the best long-term interests of the company, not the short term interest of the manager.
The pursuit of property!? WTF?
How about if you take it away with just cause?
Yes, Locke wrote the phrase originally and Jefferson copied it, changing “pursuit of property” to “pursuit of happiness”. He meant the same thing, but felt that “property” was to restrictive a word.
If you have just cause, sure. We do that everyday. Whether it is simply forced payments for bills (collection agencies), or as restitution for an injustice or general damage committed against another (you get into a car accident and have to pay for damages as well as pain and suffering), or as punishment for a crime (the stupid, asinine, waste of paper parking meter ticket I got yesterday). All could be summed up better as cases in which a person is being held responsible for something.
Don’t have time to respond more fully ot the other posts just now.
The food may not be very nutritious, but nevertheless it still provides calories and contributes towards physical survival.
Nicotine is addictive, and they buy it to support their addictions. It’s arguably not voluntary.
Because the State preys on their hopes of not being poor anymore. 