That is definitely the big question. Given that Gates is busy donating most of his cash to charity, there are counterexamples.
But even biting the bullet and accepting the premise, it’s not immediately obvious that losing all of the work from current billionaires would be a bad trade in exchange for substantially reduced inequality.
My counterpoint is that most billionaires don’t seem to be continuing to work hard primarily to get another billion. It’s more for the fun/fulfillment and status. If they can still have fun and status even without controlling as much wealth they will probably still go for it.
A charity of your choice vs being taxed more. If you had a few billion dollars to spare, which option would you choose?
>Why n̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶a̶x̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ let elected officials representatives decide how best to spend the money?
>Why should so few individuals have outsized social, political and economic power over the whole country?
Regardless of which political party you root for I'd be shocked if your really thought elected representatives do a good job of spending money, especially to the point you think they should be given MUCH MORE money.
You just answered the question. Because they are the elected representatives. If you didn't trust them, why did you elect them in the first place?
In the last few years, elected officials (in the USA) spent over $10 billion on a wall. The previous admin's COVID relief bill included billions towards missiles, warships and other military spending. The current admin's $1T+ infrastructure bill allocates less than half of that amount towards roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, etc.
It includes billions in corporate subsidies and items like over $500M to Alaska including $100M for an airport when no other airport in the country even received $10M (AL senator Shelby is the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee). Middleburg VA gets $2M for a new town hall, and Palo Alto CA gets $3M for their history museum. Giving these people _more_ money is madness.
The question remains open.
Blaming billionaires is failure to see that the money is already available, it's just that the voters refuse to stand up. Why would more money in the government's hands change anything?
If you think 100 million dollar houses are egregious, you could try to make building them illegal. But then they'll just buy one in another country, or a yacht, or something similar.
A lot of this is why capitalism works.
There are people who are not motivated by money, but they’re not billionaires. They’re professors, priests, politicians, etc. Pope Francis has achieved more glory and fame than nearly any billionaire CEO.
Yes, the billions is hugely motivational to those who have them.
They can still own the trillion dollar company for glory and fame; they just can't cash out.
Also I don't think there should be a cap, but the tax rate should go up indefinitely, causing diminishing returns for higher earners. I pay a higher percentage of tax if my employer pays me more, but I still prefer higher paying jobs.