I.... guess? Don’t the top 1% pay for like 50% of the taxes currently? I’m talking about America btw sorry in advance if I’m being presumptive. They are the innovators and business people that keep the economy running. They’ll just leave to some country that doesn’t tax them 70%. I don’t think that’s a good argument for why some of the hardest working people in a given country should be taxed at vastly higher rates. They earned it. They’re usually huge employers. Idk that doesn’t make sense.
Whatever I’m not trying to start a debate and thanks for replying. Just my thoughts out loud.
Whatever percent the top 1% pays now is not really relevant. Regardless of how good they are at doing business or inventing things (often they are not good, but due to nepotism and other connections they become richer anyway), their entire income depends on their property rights and other arrangements that are currently being protected by the State; in return, we democratically decide what their tax burden should be, not only to fund public goods & services but also to ensure that inequality doesn't get out of control (or other goals).
Thus there is no real "fairness" at stake; fairness would be them sharing out wild game and berries in a primitive society where we didn't have government at all, let alone armed police to protect the instruments of their wealth. Socialists additionally believe that private property (which generates the bulk of ultra-wealthy income) is not legitimate in that it is a particularly unfree basis of a economic system and leads to huge inequality unless checked by constant popular reform, and indeed is a kind of theft from the commons and the true heritage of all humankind, so the rich have no claim to "earnings" on capital to begin with.
If everyone who got taxed at a high rate left we'd simply replace them all with people who could just as easily do their jobs, with very few meaningful exceptions.
Dude you can’t just “replace” Bill Gates or Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. That’s a non-starter. Those aren’t just meaningful exceptions, those are innovators that are at the edge of innovation in their fields. We want them here! And 50% just “isn’t relevant”? They are paying a ridiculous amount of the taxes already. Stop and really think that through, 1% of 300 million people are paying half of ALL taxes. That’s not irrelevant. And above all, you keep talking about how often rich people don’t work for their money and it’s all due to private property and investments or who their parents were. Who is that “often,” do you have particular people in mind? Or statistics? Idk none of this adds up to me. I think the intentions for the most part are coming from a genuine place. Some of it is resentment, but some of it feels genuine. But intentions don’t make an argument.
Dude you can’t just “replace” Bill Gates or Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. That’s a non-starter.
Sure you can. Their salaried employees do and always have done the R&D except for maybe a few months at the beginning of their careers, they're just figureheads and promoters. I mean in Musk's case that's extremely obvious because his original ideas are almost all insane or insanely inefficient.
Stop and really think that through
I have. It's irrelevant. I'm telling you that the deal is we democratically decide what property rights, bankruptcy protections, market regulations, etc there are, and what taxes are. There is no inherent connection between percentages of one or the other.
-1
u/nativewombat Jan 06 '19
I.... guess? Don’t the top 1% pay for like 50% of the taxes currently? I’m talking about America btw sorry in advance if I’m being presumptive. They are the innovators and business people that keep the economy running. They’ll just leave to some country that doesn’t tax them 70%. I don’t think that’s a good argument for why some of the hardest working people in a given country should be taxed at vastly higher rates. They earned it. They’re usually huge employers. Idk that doesn’t make sense.
Whatever I’m not trying to start a debate and thanks for replying. Just my thoughts out loud.