The Ownership Crisis
ystrickler.medium.com
ystrickler.medium.com
Nobody likes paying taxes, OK, neither do I... but as a reasonable individual I understand that the system itself is more of a factor in my overall success and standard of living than my own effort and ability.
I've lived (5+ years) in a few countries and have seen first hand that this is the case.
Corporations arguably are worthless without the support of the economic and social system they operate in; Amazon (as an example) would likely not exist had they started their business in a small market like Grenada which has less than 0.1% of global GDP.
Any company that operates in a large market and leverages an educated workforce, stable economy, rule of law, etc., should have to pay TAXES. Lots of taxes. LOTS.
my2c
That's true, but the same argument can be made about anything, so it's not a useful statement.
That is precisely what makes it useful. We often overlook the obvious, and discount it. The system is what provides the foundation of success, therefore it should be maintained, hence taxation.
I am not suggesting that the government is going to do a good job of allocating funds to maintain and grow the health of the system... I am merely suggesting that all participants are OBLIGED to "give back" to the system that makes their prosperity possible; and the more you get, the more you should give.
People also, not just corporations.
taxation is the system that maintains peace and stability and international commerce that enabled the success of amazon. But they are a product of the peace, stability and globalization of commerce - taxing them more doesn't increase the ease with which new amazons could come about. Taxes are fungible, and gets spent on things that may not help, so a company (or individual for that matter) would not just blindly pay more tax, and hope for the best.
Gov't should firstly set out the policies that they think will allow for the growth of more amazons and such, fund it, _then_ tax the population after the fact. Because tax dollars obtained without any difficulty is often merely just wasted in gov't.
Of course not, but I'm saying that you shouldn't even have that choice.
If you want to participate in the system and enjoy everything it has to offer, then you MUST pay taxes. It is not a matter of wanting to.
If you decide that the tax burden is too high, you always have the option of not operating in that system; but nobody will opt-out because even if they pay 80% tax, the 20% income that can be made in a G7 economy is SO MUCH MORE than tax-free in an underdeveloped one.
20 years ago I would have had a different opinion, but the system has been abused and gamed to a point where most of the participants are suffering, and I happen to think that a healthy society provides a stronger base for future prosperity, so I support taxation as a form of funding public health and education. I guess that's the caveat though, the tax revenue should actually boost standard of living for the bottom 80%.
It's a very difficult subject, far too nuanced for a comment section, but interesting to see the different opinions nonetheless.
It's a platitude that can be used to justify anything.
It's like saying "All humans deserve respect". Ok, so if Jeffrey Dahmer were still alive, I should respect him? What does that even mean? If I execute him humanely is that "respecting him"? Is keeping him in jail "respecting him"?
Amazon paid almost $5B in taxes in 2021. Is that enough? If not, why?
Last year 57% of Americans paid no federal income tax (yes, I know they pay other taxes - that's beside the point). Are they giving back enough? If yes, why? They are giving back $0 in income tax. Why is tax the right measure for Amazon but not for individuals?
Situation: People that don’t pay taxes are getting rich, while people that do pay taxes are getting poor.
Solution: Raise taxes by X%.
The problem has name - passionarity. The best source I know, Lev Gumilyov work (unfortunately in Russian, but google translation looks good enough, begin read on caption "Passionarity levels") https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Пассионарная_теория_этногенеза
Gumilyov does not write numbers, but current statistics say, in population there are 1.5%-5% passionaries, who usually demonstrate entrepreneur behavior (and in democracy countries, registered as self employed or run small business).
All others people have very low level of passionarity, and just avoid to show initiative, mostly because this lead to responsibility.
That's all. Without initiative, nothing will work. Except of fraud or theft schemes, where stakes so high, that even absolutely passive people could show initiative to get so high gaining.
And what differ modern world from times look better, those times where one of two things, either power where extremely concentrated, so most resources where in hands of those 1.5%-5%, or exists some extremely powerful resource, like oil 100 years ago, which where good enough so passive people show initiative.
Now resources distributed very wide, and barriers to enter business like oil are too high, so very few passive people try to enter there.
Some countries show even worse things, because they for some esoteric reasons define passionarity people as enemies of normal people, and they make economy by robbing passionarity people and share loot with passive. And all these schemes end in one - they just try to rob other countries, mostly neighbors, and when on some moment fail - break apart, what exactly happen with USSR and now happen with Russia.
Not all of them were unsuccessful, but their successes were mostly of local nature. A lot of the successes depended on favorable regulatory climate. Housing co-ops are significant players in some European countries and basically absent in neighboring ones, and differences in legal codes are the reason.
One friend has always had a lavish life style, and when recently hit by cash shortage, they sold their house to a bank as a reverse mortgage. They did this 18 months ago so current high inflation is harmful to them.
Someone else I know just sold their only rental property because of high prices. Such a mistake because that rental property was a small hedge against inflation.
The World Economic Forum (the Davos billionaire club) have been test running advertisements saying that you will own nothing in the future and be very happy. To me this seems like an attack on freedom of some degree of financial independence.
it's not fixable from within the system
That's just not true.
Doctors, lawyers, small business owners, tech workers. You can't just hand wave these people away.
And there aren't not a lot of these people. Many many millions. If you are in the top quintile of American earners give or take and with some minor exceptions like living directly in SF or Manhattan, you are not roughing it unless you are making bad decisions with your money. The top quintile is greater than >60 Million people. The top decile, >30 million people, are living arguably the highest standard of living of any cohort of that size in human history. So again, hand waving these people away is not particularly useful or explanative.