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Comment by chipotle_coyote | Hacker News Reader

A lot of these arguments also tend to elide the fact that even under the most "extreme" tax structures in place or being proposed in first-world democracies across the globe, wealthy people are still wealthy even with those taxes. In practice, no one serious is actually talking about forcing Bill Gates to give up all his money so it can be apportioned equally to every American citizen. If Gates had to pay an annual wealth tax of 2%, started with $90B (the most recent estimate of his net worth I can find), and made $2B a year (which is less than the most recent estimate of his annual wealth increase I can find), then after 20 years he would have... $93B.

I'm aware libertarians believe it's the principle of the thing, dammit, but I'm truly weary of arguments which boil down to "Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax is philosophically indistinguishable from a call for nationalizing all industry."

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> I'm aware libertarians believe it's the principle of the thing, dammit, but I'm truly weary of arguments which boil down to "Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax is philosophically indistinguishable from a call for nationalizing all industry."

First, while some wealthy people remain wealthy, I'd guess there's a much larger impact on people who are becoming wealthy than those who are already super-rich.

Second, as you said, it's the principle. I've got an objection to seizing people's stuff to then give away to others. There is no reason government should supply anything that is not a pure public good, and it should supply precious few of those, too. Remember that every act the federal government takes is backed up with the threat of death. If you don't comply, a bunch of agents will bust down your door at 3 AM and haul you away (see the disturbing number of paramilitary groups many federal agencies now possess). If you resist, you get killed.

This applies to income tax too, by the way. I couldn't care less how much good you think you can do with it, no one gets to take someone else's stuff because he wants to give it to someone he deems more deserving.

That is objectively wrong though, isn't it?

The government absolutely can, and does, pass laws to legally take anyone's stuff for any reason it likes.

If that is your bottom line, then almost every government in almost every country I know of overran it almost immediately.

What we are discussing right now is....given that they ca, and do....under what circumstances we want them to do it.

Think of it as a reality based discussion.

Unfortunately, governments do indeed steal stuff all the time. That's why it needs to be as hyper-local as possible and why citizens should own military-grade arms. I think our arguments are jousting without clashing, so to speak, because I'm making a principled point rather than a pragmatic one.

Im not sure you have thought through the consequences of citizens owning military grade arms.

It (arguably) removes the government as a threat, but replaces the threat with other citizens.

It seems to me that history teaches that in the absence of a strong government, people are taxed by whoever is capable of becoming a strong local warlord.

Somalia or South Sudan would be current examples.

Im not sure how that is better?

> First, while some wealthy people remain wealthy, I'd guess there's a much larger impact on people who are becoming wealthy than those who are already super-rich.

Given that her proposed tax is for wealth over $50M, I'd guess there is not much impact at all on people who are "becoming" wealthy.

> If you don't comply, a bunch of agents will bust down your door at 3 AM and haul you away (see the disturbing number of paramilitary groups many federal agencies now possess). If you resist, you get killed.

The number of first-world multimillionaires brutally gunned down by federal agents because they underpaid their tax is indeed countless. I hear this is a real problem in Denmark.

> This applies to income tax too, by the way. I couldn't care less how much good you think you can do with it, no one gets to take someone else's stuff because he wants to give it to someone he deems more deserving.

Living in a society is quite a tragedy.

>Given that her proposed tax is for wealth over $50M, I'd guess there is not much impact at all on people who are "becoming" wealthy.

It's the corporate taxes that hurt the most because in a globalist society those taxes are taxes their competition does not have to pay and therefore can undercut them in price in world markets.

The income that is paid to you derives it’s value from the stability of the backing gov’t. I don’t think money is as “yours” as you think it is. Gov’t is already involved whether you like it not.

It has been since we went off the gold standard, yes. However, the government has already been taxing for this service in the form of inflation (which, incidentally, is one of the more regressive taxes one could devise). All we have to do is abolish the fed and go back to the gold standard and this problem is solved.

The state backs up your right to personal property with violence too. Your stuff is only your stuff we decided it is a right and have our state enforce that right.

Well sure, stealing from others is a violation of the NAP. That's part of the "keeping the peace" duty I mentioned in my above position that the state should keep the peace, uphold property rights, and enforce contracts.

What's the NAP? In any case, we rely on the state to uphold those rights, and since we cannot expect the state to work for free, we accept a percentage is needed for the maintenance of those right.

Sorry, non-aggression principle. Basically, no using force against someone else until he does it first. You're right that we do have to have some government to uphold basic duties. However, those duties are pure public goods and should be billed as such. Sum the total expenditures each year, divide by the number of adult citizens, and directly bill each citizen that amount.

I think it should be normalized to the amount of wealth rather than pax, because a larger pile of wealth relies more on this authority to maintain it. I'd even think perhaps supralinearly so.

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