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Comment by Joeri | Hacker News Reader

In our modern economic system wealth accrues more wealth. If you don’t actively redistribute the wealth, not just the income, then you end up with wildly unequal societies, in essence what we have today. Wildly unequal not just in terms of resources but also in opportunity. If you believe that equal opportunity should be a birthright of everyone then a sensible way to deliver a more equal opportunity for each new generation is to redistribute the wealth tied up in inherited estates from those with a lot of opportunity (the inheritors) to those lacking opportunity.

Do you understand it better when put like that?

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What's wrong with an unequal society? I get that you might want to help out the poor, but I don't care if someone has more money than me. I don't like what some of those rich people or corporations are doing to the society, but I really don't care about their money.

When you talk about opportunities, what do you specifically mean by that?

Considering how many things in our society are effectively illegal for the poor (e.g. the concept of fines for breaking the law as opposed to jail time) but legal for the rich, it's pretty clear why an extremely unequal society is inherently evil.

How's that inherent?

It's still illegal for the rich by the way. At some point your bail will be denied by the court, if you're a repeat offender.

Wealth becomes a proxy for power, freedom, liberty, and so forth in our society.

The most obvious example is that the very wealthy do not have to work. Their wealth snowballs at some point through investment vehicles and others manage their wealth. At that point you can do whatever you want with your life.

You and I on the other hand may not have that option. I'm in a high income bracket relative to most,, but I still rely on my labor (time), even if I live frugally. I have to spend a large portion of my life working to remain solvent in society. I could reject society and go out into the woods as a survivalist or become homeless but that's not a very desirable life for many to live.

To your example, let's say the offense is a speeding fine. If I get a fine for speeding, depending on the state and speed, you can accumulate these indefinitely. At some point it's just a fee to do something you want to do.

Let's assume that you can't speed indefinitely though, let's say it's a wreckless driving offense, well for me I'm out of options--after a ticket or two I'll lose my license to drive which is critical to my livelihood. I'll go to court for repeat offenses because I'm the driver.

What if I'm really rich and I hire someone to speed for me: a driver? As a passenger I have no legal responsibility, it's the driver. I could cycle through drivers willing to speed for me whenever they lose their licenses for wreckless driving. If I pay them enough, I guarantee you'll find drivers willing to speed regularly for you. The money goes back into the economy, sure, but using wealth, I've passed risks and liabilities off to others and inherently can do things others in society cannot. I've got you to trade your freedoms to drive to my desire to speed. Wealth has been used as a proxy to give rights someone otherwise wouldn't have. This is one silly example but there are many rights and laws that have no sort of co-conspirator offense wealth can buy away. We realized this with murder which is why you can be charged when you pay someone to murder someone else. Not all laws have these catches, buying co-conspirators rights.

> The most obvious example is that the very wealthy do not have to work.

Why is this a problem? People don't become wealthy through not working. Either they, or their parents or some of their ancestors worked to allow not working. What's wrong with that?

For what it's worth, the very poor can also avoid working and live off the government (obviously being poor and not working is a much shittier situation than rich and not working)

During communism in my country we still had a corrupted ruling class with more power, freedom, liberty and so forth. I'm never going to be a part of it and have the same options either way. Nor do I even have any desire to be a part of it.

> Let's assume that you can't speed indefinitely though, let's say it's a wreckless driving offense, well for me I'm out of options--after a ticket or two I'll lose my license to drive which is critical to my livelihood.

That's pretty much how it works in my country. I believe the only exception is when you have governmental immunity and that has nothing to do with wealth.

> What if I'm really rich and I hire someone to speed for me: a driver? As a passenger I have no legal responsibility, it's the driver.

And guess what happens then? He will lose his driving license too and he won't be able to do this job anymore.

Maybe instead of flipping the entire society upside down you should simply improve the law to prevent such scenarios. It can be done.

Comparing this to murder is too much of a stretch to me.

>Maybe instead of flipping the entire society upside down you should simply improve the law to prevent such scenarios. It can be done.

Which is what I continually advocate for.

We need to patch these flaws and add mechanisms to patch future flaws more quickly because corruption is highly adaptive, we need to be as responsive as it is. We have an otherwise pretty well functioning system. Wealth should not buy you more rights in society, it should buy you luxuries and serve as a reward, not allow oppression, authoritarianism, and so forth.

Think hard about the concept of bail while you're at it. It is essentially the purchase of temporary rights for people who have not been convicted of a crime. The underlying question being: "Who should be allowed to have their freedoms, and should it be based on your wealth?"

Not if the only penalty is a flat fine.

>> When you talk about opportunities, what do you specifically mean by that?

I said some in another comment here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27434550

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27441362

>What's wrong with an unequal society?

Because if you let the inequality to get too bad, the millions of poor murder the rich, to restore the balance.

>“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”

― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

It seems to me that you're speaking a bit past heipei's question, which is about the actual consequences, as opposed to the intended ones, of policies.

If you have a 90-100% estate tax, then the intended consequence might be "redistribute the money via the government" but the actual consequence is much more likely to be "most of the money is spent on luxury consumption, because why not?".

At lower levels of estate taxation intended and actual consequences might align better, of course. This is pretty specifically a question about calls for near-100% estate taxation, not a question about why there's an estate tax in general.

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