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Comment by thesagan | Hacker News Reader

Within capitalism itself, some economists also argue that wealth concentration tends to suppress investment opportunities, because there aren't as many "moneyed eyes" on economic events worthy of capital and management; investment gets tunnel vision.

I don't have any links on-hand but there's plenty of material out there (from reputable sources, and not-so-reputable ones) with a quick Google search.

https://www.google.com/search?q=wealth+concentration+suppres...

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Seems like basic economic theory, the more capital you have flowing through the economy at a lower level, the more opportunities there are. Whereas these 8 people are siloing their wealth in investments, that same money divided up among people of low income would be spent upwards of 3x, and given to the middle class iirc it was something around a 2x factor. Both are much better for our economy than having that wealth sit siloed as an investment.

It seems like capitalism really needs something like a wealth tax -- ideally with the rate tied to the change in concentration of wealth over the whole society, so during periods of time when capital is concentrating, the wealth tax goes up vs epochs when it does not...

Interestingly, I was reading about the idea of a wealth tax and came across this depressing nugget ...:

> In 1999, Donald Trump proposed for the United States a one off 14.25% wealth tax on the net worth of individuals and trusts worth $10 million or more. Trump claimed that this would generate $5.7 trillion in new taxes, which could be used to eliminate the national debt.[18] A net wealth tax may also be designed to be revenue neutral as where it is used to broaden the tax base, stabilize the economy and reduce individual income and other taxes[citation needed].

Land value tax.

Is that accurate? 15% could generate that much? That's mind boggling, I always assumed it would take a 50%+ tax on multimillionaires/billionaires...

I can't comment on accuracy but considering the source ... I wonder if there is even a way to find out -- I'm not sure if anything in existing tax code would serve as a good proxy for estimating "net worth".

That makes a lot of sense actually, and has historically been the trend that most societies took. Once you accumulate wealth and power, you do everything to keep it.

Democracy and diffusion of political power have been very recent phenomena, in the larger scheme of things.

Hey thanks for the link- this is great.

Another arguing point for when I get into it with the "what's wrong with income inequality" folks here. :)

Linus' law? :)

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