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Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

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Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#121

Post by Tokkemon »

jdiff wrote: post #11
kuratkull wrote: post #4

I'm wondering if people understand that almost all the pleasures/comforts in modern life were created by people who wouldn't exist in this system.

This system doesn't eliminate people. It eliminates the pointless and harmful hoarding of wealth.

This is the same mistake Lawrence Van Dough makes in Richie Rich. He assumes the massive vault must be full of gold bars and diamonds, the wealth of the family. But it's not. It's invested in banks and stocks etc. The money is not just sitting there, it's producing other activity in the economy.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#122

Post by thunfischbrot »

ch4s3 wrote: post #28
dbingham wrote: post #6

Adding this to my reading list. I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million. Because that's the point at which you have enough wealth to live a comfortably middle class lifestyle for the rest of your life, still pass down a substantial chunk to your children, and never have to earn another cent. I've argued we should combine this with a move towards a worker o…

So what is your proposal if you own a company, or if some minerals are discovered on your heretofore low value land? It's not really all that uncommon for a company with a sole owner or a partnership to be worth in excess of $15 Million.

Pay your employees more, or be taxed near 100% on the excess gains?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#123

Post by dools »

boppo1 wrote: post #35

How about we just don’t empower a central planning body to make monetary decisions that devalue wages & salaries while inflating asset prices? QE & LIRP have literally been “rich get richer, poor get poorer: the policy”. People educated enough in finance to follow the effect tend to be in the asset-holding camp so there is less complaint. I’m not advocating high rates as good for the poor; I’m championing shaping the…

The best interest rate policy is zero, which is the natural rate of interested in a floating exchange rate economy.

Fiscal policy is the only tool through which equity can be managed. Monetary policy is pointless.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#124

Post by pphysch »

lostlogin wrote: post #63

What happened here? > ‘The best case I've read for putting an upper limit on the accumulation of wealth’ Richard WilkinsonNo-one deserves to be a millionaire. Mobile Safari.

Misconfigured MySQL database on site backend, nothing to do with your client.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#125

Post by doctor_eval »

glitchc wrote: post #31
dbingham wrote: post #6

Adding this to my reading list. I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million. Because that's the point at which you have enough wealth to live a comfortably middle class lifestyle for the rest of your life, still pass down a substantial chunk to your children, and never have to earn another cent. I've argued we should combine this with a move towards a worker o…

Any solutions that are in conflict with human nature will never be successful. Ambition and envy are basic human traits. At a deeper level, we are beings that measure everything (including light, sound, smell, touch and taste) by way of comparison. Communism fails because no one has anything left to aspire to and everyone is therefore equally miserable.

Communism fails because it’s just a different - and more difficult - kind of propaganda for politicians to make off with the loot.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#126

Post by NegativeK »

FredPret wrote: post #96
jszymborski wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even in your family hypothetical, the overall inequality is still much less than between billionaires and the middle-class (nothing said of the truly destitute). > Or worse still, the super-rich will realise that they can spend many times the wealth cap per year consumable/disposable items (so long as they stay under the cap, or get back there by year-end), and become more wasteful. "Might as well spend a few mil…

Ah yes, here come the arguments for "monitoring". Next come regulations about having to "cooperate". Then the question will be raised as to what happens to those rich people who don't cooperate, or middle class / poor people who, god forbid, don't agree with this plan for society. Pretty soon, you've got your jackboots and your re-education camps.

You made quite a few significant leaps there.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#127

Post by laserlight »

cosmojg wrote: post #75

Productive wealth is a good thing. It's what made our current society possible. Unproductive wealth is the real devil, the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil. I strongly prefer a society which permits the existence of Jeff Bezos over one which does not. Of course, more strongly than that, I prefer a society which taxes inelastic goods and negative externalities and returns that wealth to the public…

> I strongly prefer a society which permits the existence of Jeff Bezos over one which does not.

Can you expand? What did Bezos contribute to society?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#128

Post by NegativeK »

sackfield wrote: post #46
dbingham wrote: post #6

Adding this to my reading list. I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million. Because that's the point at which you have enough wealth to live a comfortably middle class lifestyle for the rest of your life, still pass down a substantial chunk to your children, and never have to earn another cent. I've argued we should combine this with a move towards a worker o…

Whenever people talk about how much wealth is comfortable (or ethical) to have, its usually just a notch above their own (well within their social class status). To be fair I don't know your wealth at all but its just an observation I've had from talking with others about this. The end result of this would be to make these people some of the wealthiest in the country by dragging the wealth curve to just above their l…

> its usually just a notch above their own (well within their social class status).

I'm a tech worker in the public sector.

To be blunt: tax me more, please.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#130

Post by abdullahkhalids »

dbingham wrote: post #6

Adding this to my reading list. I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million. Because that's the point at which you have enough wealth to live a comfortably middle class lifestyle for the rest of your life, still pass down a substantial chunk to your children, and never have to earn another cent. I've argued we should combine this with a move towards a worker o…

I don't have a problem with someone being a billionaire per se. Assuming, of course, the wealth was earned without worker exploitation.

However, I do take strong offense to politico-economic systems where the billionaire has more political power than a poor person. In the current system in almost every country, both individual super rich people and collectively the top 1-5% have enormously more political power than the remaining people. The system much be changed.

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