Whenever I point that inequality out to people of the third estate, more often than not I get the response that the rich just got their wealth from hard work and that I am a communist for suggesting that anything's wrong.
But a line needs to be drawn somewhere of how wealthy you can get before it’s “too much” and has a negative affect on society. And how we can distribute a portion of that excess wealth to the people who would get the most benefit from it.
I don’t think anyone’s going to be discouraged from putting in the work to becoming a billionaire just because their billions are taxed more than their first few million dollars. That money accumulation has diminishing returns on value to self & value to society.
That depends on how you define 'wealthy.' There is a vast gulf between the kind of money people of sound mind and body can get through hard work and the degree of wealth the truly rich actually own.
The guy who grew up in a ghetto but is now making a six figure income (anywhere but San Francisco) did it mostly though his own hard work. I would not, however, call that guy wealthy when compared to the truly rich.
The 40 people who own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the US population own it by virtue of being born to the right parents. There is no degree of hard work that will make someone a billionaire. Those people got that far by being born into a family that could give them seed capital and access to elite education that enmeshes them into the right social networks.
When people talk about income inequality, they're not talking about people earning $500,000 in wage income by working 80 hour weeks. Instead, they're talking about people who are extracting a tens of millions of dollars in economic rents (as largely untaxed capital gains) without needing to do any work for it.
I’m a semi-follower of the FIRE idea, so I come in with that perspective. But it would be great to be able to build enough wealth that working becomes optional, and that I can help fund a future child in kick-starting their own company at a young age. My wealth then largely has come from my hard work, but I can also use that to further my kid’s success (in a responsible way). Isn’t that what every parent wants?
The situation where that kid becomes a billionaire is an edge-case of just two generations in a row of disciplined and fairly lucky individuals. There’s nothing wrong or immoral with anyone in that scenario.
Society then has to draw that line, where if my daughter becomes a multi-billionaire, how much of that wealth gets taxed and distributed to the people who it would help.
The current growth in inequality does look bad - the bank bailouts in '08 are a good example of a problem - but if you try to start a conversation first with inequality you aren't going to the underlying problem. The underlying problem is that increasingly the people with power are wielding it to stamp out prosperity. Commercial failures, in particular, should go bankrupt, not be rewarded. Companies that rely on massive amounts of debt should be crumpling under the load. The major governments of the world are creating an environment where these companies can limp on for extended periods of time, burning resources (that other people could have used) as they go.
One way of excusing yourself from such a conversation in a (hopefully) unoffensive way would be to make an honest statement like, "Gosh, my brain is so overworked right now that I can't even begin to delve into the nuance of that subject, but I hear where you're coming from."
Sure, until people realize that politics have the capacity to impact their lives negatively, and then all of a sudden the rationality for discussing it is quite clear.
> One way of excusing yourself from such a conversation in a (hopefully) unoffensive way would be to make an honest statement like, "Gosh, my brain is so overworked right now that I can't even begin to delve into the nuance of that subject, but I hear where you're coming from."
I wouldn't characterize this as a polite excuse so much as an honest admittance—you clearly respect the other person enough to indicate an acknowledgement of the meaning of what they're saying and an incapacity to respond. That is, unless you're lying, which is clearly disrespectful. In that case a "I don't agree but I feel like it's unprofessional to engage in these conversations" would suffice.