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Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

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Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#381

Post by yellowapple »

germandiago wrote: post #355
yellowapple wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect it is not someone that came and gave it for free. I suspect that whatever price was charged was a bargain compared to what it's actually worth - and thus the transfer was at the expense of the rest of society. > And if it was a gift, it would still be a property transfer. So still his. And if that "gift" was stolen from someone else beforehand?

> And if that "gift" was stolen from someone else beforehand? Then that would be theft and not legitimate property transfer. I was talking about cases where a gift is from someone who earned it and transferred something, a donation. Not from a government that gifts via regulations or a thief that steals something and donates after the fact. Though there is no difference in either IMHO.

How about from a government that conquers land and sells it to profiteers on the cheap (who then rent it out and/or resell it for considerable profit)?

How about from a government that - instead of taxing that aforementioned conquered land and the ownership thereof - shifts the tax burden onto the working class (via income and sales taxes), robbing us blind while subsidizing the owning class (who is then happy to rob the working class further via skyrocketing rents)?

The vast majority of people "earning" tens of millions of dollars in this country are not doing so via their own hard work. They are doing so by rentseeking - by being parasites on local, national, and global economies. Their wealth derives from theft, plain and simple.

And there just so happens to be a solution to that theft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#382

Post by yellowapple »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #367
yellowapple wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A land value tax alone would address the vast majority of this, considering that virtually all wealth derives from land access/ownership.

Almost anyone that's making substantial money off of land is already paying property tax on it, as well as any income tax that applies. Now, the income and the property taxes they're paying are in many cases woefully inadequate, but I'm pretty sure the solution to that is to improve the tax system and patch the loopholes, not to add a separate additional tax for everyone to keep track of.

This wouldn't be a separate additional tax; the vast majority of LVT proponents (myself included) propose it to replace property/sales/income taxes (all of which are just economically-inefficient taxes on land anyway: http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/ATCOR.html).

As for loopholes, LVT is the most effective way to patch them; you can't exactly move land to offshore bank accounts, after all.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#383

Post by kelseyfrog »

rockemsockem wrote: post #225
kelseyfrog wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is, we are planning our current society. It's just wrapped up in "markets are the natural order" rhetoric to obfuscate the fact that our current outcomes are intended.

Which outcomes in particular are you referring to? Wealth inequality? Because I don't think that's what the parent comment meant.

I'm aware; I just disagree with the premise.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#384

Post by benreesman »

Extreme wealth is not per se a problem, or not a terribly pressing one.

The rounds to always that extreme personal and corporate wealth becomes fungible into induced market failure, is deployed exactly that way, leading to you guessed it, even more extreme personal and corporate wealth is a huge problem. It’s going to cook us even faster than carbon emissions in fact on present course.

I can see why a middling academic like Friedman, or an embittered Eastern Bloc emigre like Rand, or generations of ambitious apparatchiks and politicos have seen fit to endorse some nonsense, zero-evidence economic theories to the contrary.

As for why a community like HN that both knows better and stands to lose thereby endorses this manure?

I don’t have any better explanation than Clements on temporarily impoverished millionaires.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#385

Post by vacuity »

FredPret wrote: post #335
satellite2 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are mocking people using a false dichotomy. Complaining that some individuals shouldn't be able to control trillion in wealth don't imply a push for centrally planned economies.

… yes it does? It implies a central authority that has opinions on the wealth of private citizens (inappropriate) that also has the ability to act on it (dangerous) and that goes ahead and implements its utopian visions (has never not ended in utter catastrophe).

First of all, there's already much to be said on how encouraging private citizens to amass wealth at all costs is highly dangerous to society. Clearly, there are massive problems that our current model has. Second, we don't need to go for a utopia right now. Personally, I'm not a "communist" or whatever fan. I think that we can remove the negative impacts of capitalism without a crusade, through borrowing elements of those political theories. That doesn't sound half bad to me: likely feasible (if only the political will could be scrounged up), not hugely radical, and already a big boon.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#386

Post by tsimionescu »

jacobn wrote: post #363
tsimionescu wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point was labor communally owning industry in the Soviet Union or DPRK? Did Stalin or Kim ever ask a laborer for their opinion on how a factory should be run? Or give them a penny of the work they were doing? The Soviet block and DPRK was exactly as close to socialism as it was to democracy: 100% in their propaganda, 0% in reality. Or would you say democracy doesn't work because the Democratic People's Republ…

The problem with collectivism is less with collectivism as platonic ideal (which has a lot of romantic appeal), and more with the inevitable concentration of power it requires and thereby enables. The reason there has been no successful implementation of it is that the process of enacting it is inherently fragile. And some bastard is going to exploit that fragility. Then you're screwed and we end up with the bountifu…

We have little to no idea if this is indeed inevitable. The same kind of arguments could have been made, and were in fact made, about democracy and capitalism before the American and French revolutions. And some attempts at democratic revolutions have indeed fallen into authoritarian rule - Cromwell's being one of the most well known.

Socialism is nothing more than extending democracy beyond the state to the workplace. It is no more collectivist than democracy is in any other economic system. And like any other form of democracy, it is naturally opposed to authoritarian rule, not conducive to it.

As such, the problem with socialism is not at all that it's easy for it to fall into dictatorship. The problem is that it is hard to convince the rich to allow it to form without aggression, since it necessitates them losing much of their power. The same problem that democracy faced: kings rarely step down, and bloody revolutions are typically worse than the status quo (and you can never be sure what will happen after one).

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#387

Post by itishappy »

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…

> (well within their social class status)

I bet you've discovered the cause of this effect. I suspect we're seeing people who live comfortable lifestyles say "this seems about right" and then hedge a bit.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#388

Post by JackFr »

kagakuninja wrote: post #310
JackFr wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, big talker, step up: Gifts to the United States U.S. Department of the Treasury Reporting and Analysis Branch 2 P.O. Box 1328 Parkersburg, WV 26106-1328

That's not how it works. Get Elon and friends to donate half his wealth and then we can talk. Progressive taxation is a good idea...

GP said “tax me more.” Nothing is stopping him from paying more.

What he really means is tax me (and certain others I deem appropriate) more.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#389

Post by yellowapple »

AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #349
yellowapple wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A land value tax alone would address the vast majority of this, considering that virtually all wealth derives from land access/ownership.

Is that still true? I’m probably in a software bubble, but like: none of FAANG have any real land holdings, for instance?

Their servers exist somewhere, and while it's called The Cloud™, that ain't literal ;)

Datacenters, offices, warehouses, factories... these all sit on top of land. Even a fully-remote company running off Raspberry Pis in someone's closet still requires some quantity of land on which the employees' homes and that closet full of Raspberry Pis sit. Even if the companies themselves don't own that land directly, somebody does.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#390

Post by CrazyStat »

AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #349
yellowapple wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A land value tax alone would address the vast majority of this, considering that virtually all wealth derives from land access/ownership.

Is that still true? I’m probably in a software bubble, but like: none of FAANG have any real land holdings, for instance?

I think it’s not a coincidence that land value tax is popular on Hacker News. Replacing all the taxes that tech companies currently pay with a land value tax that hardly affects them would be an incredible boon.
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