Something like “produces the most highly valued outputs per hour of worked input” which should roughly correlate with wages with the assumption that if those inputs are easily interchanged then there will be more competition and the output value will fall. I’m sure there are good exceptions, but I’m not sure they’re material to the argument that taxation to some degree influences social mobility and participation.

Perhaps I’m also considering situations in which there is a close link between labour and output, and where those outputs are deemed necessary for society (eg doctors, tradespeople), even where perhaps there may not be high productivity multipliers in the same ways there are at somewhere like Netflix.

So in my mind I’m thinking what role is taxation playing to keep electricians, plumbers, doctors, and software developers working for as long as they can without retiring (ie maximising their consumer value without compromising their productive value).

I’m trying to put aside a value judgement about what I feel taxation policy _should_ be doing around this subject, but broadly I feel there’s a modern lens of alienation here in which control of means of production is perhaps less important than control of means of consumption.