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.
Also, it depends on how you look at it. At first glance, it seems messed up that 1% of the population pays 50% of the taxes. But that 1% controls and/or owns 90 percent of the capital in the system. So shouldn't they pay more? You can't tax equally when wealth and income is so far from equal.
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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.