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Wealth Inequality

sayak83

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Friend of Mara said:
Lot of conflicting opinions on this in this site. Found this recently and it seemed relevant. If you got a few minutes go ahead and scroll through. Then with a strait face tell me why its justified.


Wealth, shown to scale
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I am less concerned about Jeff's wealth than how much his heirs can inherit. There should be limits to family inheritance (say 40% in the super-rich category) with the rest 60% distributed to all the people who ever worked in their estates/companies (weighted by number of years of work).
The logic is this. There can be super-genius entrepreneurs as there can be super-genius scientists, artists, composers etc. But Nobel prizes, grammys or bookers cannot be inherited...but wealth can. If wealth of a person is a signal of a person's value in the economic system (as it actually is) then inheritance has to be capped in order to have the signal correctly displayed and not be skewed by inheritors. Second, distribution of inheritance to people who supported the value-making enterprise creates an incentive in the work force as well who do not own the stakes but contribute through labour and effort.
 
Heyo

Heyo

Veteran Member
sayak83 said:
I am less concerned about Jeff's wealth than how much his heirs can inherit. There should be limits to family inheritance (say 40% in the super-rich category) with the rest 60% distributed to all the people who ever worked in their estates/companies (weighted by number of years of work).
The logic is this. There can be super-genius entrepreneurs as there can be super-genius scientists, artists, composers etc. But Nobel prizes, grammys or bookers cannot be inherited...but wealth can. If wealth of a person is a signal of a person's value in the economic system (as it actually is) then inheritance has to be capped in order to have the signal correctly displayed and not be skewed by inheritors. Second, distribution of inheritance to people who supported the value-making enterprise creates an incentive in the work force as well who do not own the stakes but contribute through labour and effort.
Click to expand...
Inheritance should be taxed at 100% (with income taxes lowered accordingly). The best time to get taxed is when you're dead.
There are benefits from having rich parents but it would be much fairer when people have to earn their own merits (and money).
Generationally built monopolies would end up in public possession eventually.
 
Shaul

Shaul

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
epronovost said:
That's a very severe dream you have there. Bankrupt people who lose their home and their sources of income aren't lesser winners. They are clear losers. People who can salvage a starvation wage aren't lesser winner either. They are losers.
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No, not necessarily. What makes a person a winner or a loser isn’t based on something unfortunately happening for them. It is determined by how the choose to respond.
 
Shaul

Shaul

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Friend of Mara said:
Sure. Do you think that people who are upset at wealth inequality today are motivated primarily with envy?

Do you feel that greed has the same corrosive effect?
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What I think is that most people who are upset about wealth inequality have a variety of reasons and motivations. Many are based on strange economic misunderstanding or even ignorance. Some are rank ideological.

In my personal experience many of the most envious people are also among the greediest. Greed and avarice are “corrosive” as you put it. I think where we disagree is on the point where you see greed as the main progenitor of wealth whereas I decidedly do not. Greed is tangential to wealth. There are both greedy rich and poor people. Similarly there are both charitable rich and poor.
 
Nakosis

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Heyo said:
Maybe I should be even more against religion than I am and do more against it. People believing in magic do hurt us all.
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Aw... I like the magic users. Wiccans are some of my favorite. Sure folks give them money but they are generally happy to do so.
icehorse said:
His wealth has been amassed at the expense of our education system, our infrastructure, the well being of countless of his employees, and on and on.
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Feel free to back that up and I'll listen.

Yours is a selfish perspective.
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As it should be. If I'm waiting for others to look out for my interests then I'm failing which is really just as selfish.
 
Heyo

Heyo

Veteran Member
Nakosis said:
Aw... I like the magic users. Wiccans are some of my favorite. Sure folks give them money but they are generally happy to do so.
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Wiccans are mostly harmless (as are most other religions) but people believing in magical sky daddies are also likely to believe in a magical "invisible hand of the market" or magically multiplying pie. Those beliefs lead to bad decisions at the ballot box. Remember:
those-who-can-make-you-believe-absurdities-can-make-you-commit-atrocities.jpg
 
Friend of Mara

Friend of Mara

Active Member
sayak83 said:
I am less concerned about Jeff's wealth than how much his heirs can inherit. There should be limits to family inheritance (say 40% in the super-rich category) with the rest 60% distributed to all the people who ever worked in their estates/companies (weighted by number of years of work).
The logic is this. There can be super-genius entrepreneurs as there can be super-genius scientists, artists, composers etc. But Nobel prizes, grammys or bookers cannot be inherited...but wealth can. If wealth of a person is a signal of a person's value in the economic system (as it actually is) then inheritance has to be capped in order to have the signal correctly displayed and not be skewed by inheritors. Second, distribution of inheritance to people who supported the value-making enterprise creates an incentive in the work force as well who do not own the stakes but contribute through labour and effort.
Click to expand...
It would be a real shame if we had to wait for Jeff Bezos to die to redistribute his wealth.
 
Friend of Mara

Friend of Mara

Active Member
Shaul said:
What I think is that most people who are upset about wealth inequality have a variety of reasons and motivations. Many are based on strange economic misunderstanding or even ignorance. Some are rank ideological.

In my personal experience many of the most envious people are also among the greediest. Greed and avarice are “corrosive” as you put it. I think where we disagree is on the point where you see greed as the main progenitor of wealth whereas I decidedly do not. Greed is tangential to wealth. There are both greedy rich and poor people. Similarly there are both charitable rich and poor.
Click to expand...
While I find it impossible to be rich and not greedy I have never made my point purely based on some moral judgement of character. I don't "care" what the moral character of a person is but of the situation. Wealth has accumulated in the hands of a powerful few. In order to fix large societal problems we may have to dismantle that large of an inequality to move forward.
 
Twilight Hue

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
sayak83 said:
Why would we want to redistribute his wealth? He earned it. If its done illegally then its a different matter.
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That's technically true but what happens if that wealth stays with one man alone, and never let go and stays stagnet?

I think the repercussions can destroy an entire economy and centralize power and influence beyond the monetary benefit.

 
sayak83

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Twilight Hue said:
That's technically true but what happens if that wealth stays with one man alone, and never let go and stays stagnet?

I think the repercussions can destroy an entire economy and centralize power and influence beyond the monetary benefit.
Click to expand...
Firstly, the current economy is set up in such a way that you can only earn more money by investing that money somewhere. When a money is invested, that wealth is being actively used to fund some activity. The cap on inheritance I proposed is one way that stops the wealth being concentrated in a family over the generations.
The answer to the second problem is to make the law making and legal enforcement system less vulnerable to bribery and special interests.
 
ADigitalArtist

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
sayak83 said:
Why would we want to redistribute his wealth? He earned it. If its done illegally then its a different matter.
Click to expand...
Nobody earns that much money. The only reason it's legal is because he can pay the egregious worker safety fines, and his legal team is just too big and too powerful to be threatened by anti-trust lawsuits or compliance lawsuits.

People die on his warehouse floors so he can extract the maximum value.
 
ADigitalArtist

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
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