EDIT And any billionaire who says getting rich is a side effect is lying to someone. Possibly themselves. A billion dollars has never happened by accident.
> The article is trying to provide a framework for why it is that very wealthy people might be vocal supporters of taxes.
And I'm saying that it's wrong. They are vocal for higher taxes because they know that higher taxes reduce wealth inequality, and we know that inequality is bad for economic growth. But they also know that they can't just give their own money away to solve inequality, because then the people who aren't giving it away will just collect what they give away.
Even if your billionaire friends are super virtuous, it doesn't mean that other billionaires are the same. They could want higher taxes for the exact reason the article describes.
And regardless of why your friends say they want higher taxes, the bottom line is that it's very easy to say something is good idea when it doesn't affect you negatively. Did they also want higher taxes back when they weren't so rich, and were working on building their wealth? My guess would be no.
And also, you don't mention what kind of taxes your rich friends would like raised. I assume income taxes, of the sort that might not affect them all that much? How do they feel about wealth taxes, which likely would affect them? If they're in favor of higher income taxes but not the enactment of wealth taxes, then perhaps they aren't as interested in fixing wealth inequality as they say they are. It just sounds like, "we'd love to fix inequality, but only for the next generation; don't take away the result of how we've benefited from that same inequality!"
If I look at a list of top billionaires [0] all the American ones are men who are poster children of driving enormous economic growth, and frequently a great deal of social good. Bezos, for example & picking the top, is responsible for rewiring and modernising a big chunk of the worlds logistic systems in a way that was not going to happen if he had been taxed into oblivion.
The problem is the ossification of the upper class; and that is promoted far more by governments bailouts such as seen after the '07 financial crisis, or as will probably surface when people have time to go over what actually happened in the emergency COVID spending. Protecting idiots while they are in charge of the financial system is a much bigger drag on growth than the existence of wealthy people.
Now if we were to talk about stopping those sort of welfare-for-wealthy-people policies then I'm sure we all agree. But taxes are a different policy, they imply we keep going with the welfare and then guess where it landed to try and take it back. I don't buy that the democratic process can handle that level of precision.
Trying to tax billionaires out of existence while the existing ones enjoy a great deal of government support for the financial status quo is exactly the sort of kick-out-the-ladder behaviour the article would lead us to predict for people in quadrant 4 of the article's graph (which is where you're describing them). I'll even go as far as guessing they probably support policies that bring the US into line with Europe - because that is what the article would predict.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires#202...
If you're going to try to persuade me this is a good thing and not a Hobbesian nightmare, you're not going to succeed.
This isn't just about taxes. This is about humanism vs financial authoritarianism.
It's also about the fact that the world was both more stable and more obviously prosperous when tax rates were much higher.
Economies are supposed to be prosperity factories for everyone to enjoy, and not just billionaire factories for a few extremely privileged individuals whose wealth exists because they've placed unacceptable financial and personal burdens on the people who work for them.
In a world full of competition and alternatives, in a world where the low price is far from being the only differentiating factor, Amazon is winning due to innovation, better customer service and choice, massive, almost infinite, choice.
The world would be better if Amazon treated its employees fairly, hired enough of them that they didn't have to work themselves to the bone to achieve the desired speed of shipping, and allowed them the basic dignity and freedom every human being deserves.
The world would be better if the money Amazon has made were distributed much more evenly—even if it were only among Amazon's employees.
"This is a great idea, and should be in the world, as it makes it better" is not the same thing as "the person who came up with this idea deserves every cent they ever made."
The good aspects of any given person, company (or other organization—including countries), product, or service do not justify inequalities created by them, oppression perpetrated by them, and generally the negative things they create. The world is not black and white, and we can absolutely say "the convenience Amazon brings to retail is an amazing thing that is a benefit to the world," while also saying "Amazon is a predatory monopoly and monopsony in some areas, and should be better regulated" as well as "Jeff Bezos is a terrible person, and absolutely does not deserve the amount of wealth he has amassed."
And no, the world isn’t a better place with them unless your definition of world excludes billions of the population.
The “value” was lower cost (and later, convenience). But by hiding the actual cost.
Amazon grew a large customer by cutting corners, like sales tax; not taking monetary responsibility for defective and dangerous items; making IT “easier”, but eventually more expensive.
When that became insufficient, they began stealing small business ideas and making it their own.
In other words, their only path forward is becoming a monopoly. Not innovation.
Going to be a great world where success like that is "punished" in the name of "equality" or "equity"