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Comment by kelipso | Hacker News Reader

> wealthy Norwegians took with them a total fortune of $54 billion when they left. This means that the wealth tax, which was projected to increase revenue by nearly $150 million annually, will result in about 40 percent less revenue than it currently generates

So the problem is revenue from wealth tax will only be $90M instead of $150M? As opposed to $0M without the wealth tax? How does having these billionaires physically located in Norway benefit the average citizen? Capital investments should happen wherever they're physically located because economics, big corpos have their HQs wherever they want anyway. Is trickle down economics the entire argument here?

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Norway already had a wealth tax and raising it resulted in less overall revenue not more. That is what the article is saying.

Norway should have at the same time made a tax for expatriating wealth, to make capital flight very expensive.

Which would require leaving the EEA. Yeah, that would have worked out brilliantly!

If anything, it seems that improving the weak controls against capital flight is all it would take to correct this problem.

That would work. But it’s a terrifying worldview that citizens should be vassals to the state instead of the other way around.

How so?

Capital flight is a form of class warfare. Controls against it are the majority, workers who don’t own capital, enforcing a social contract against those who do.

Of course, that will only happen in states where workers are in power. In most countries that isn’t the case and, unsurprisingly, there are weak capital flight controls.

Almost every country with significant capital controls are ones you likely wouldn't want to voluntarily move to.

You’re assuming I own capital. I don’t.

Maybe you wouldn’t want to move to a country where the working class is in charge, as opposed to your own class. I don’t dispute that.

I did not make that assumption, with the idea that in countries with free (or freer, at any rate) market-based economies with little to no capital controls, the rising tide lifts all boats, including those of the proletariat without capital, to a standard of living higher than countries with unfree economies and significant capital controls.

In fact, in two of the countries that presently have significant capital controls (China and Russia), even your human capital is controlled with internal passports that limit where in your own country you can move to.

Of course, I likewise don't dispute that I don't know what your preferences are. My original statement ("you likely wouldn't want to") was intended to be a general statement, not for you in particular as an individual.

I guess I don't see the relevance. Are you saying any tactic or action is fair game in class warfare?

Voluntary association and participation of individuals should be a baseline understanding.

I’m saying that if one class is already engaging in warfare, it’s not unreasonable for the opposed class to attempt to respond. Of course that is only possible with state power, which in most countries is now in the hands of the owners of capitals. That’s their main tool for engaging in class warfare in the first place.

Individuals associating voluntarily is a liberal fiction. Such freedom only exists if you are already wealthy. Otherwise you have to work for an owner of capital or starve.

It sounds like we are coming from very different axioms.

I don't think being hungry negates voluntary association.

Being hungry should not compel another to association any more than being horny should.

Currently, the owners of capital further increase their capital by employing workers. The labour of those workers creates value, a part of which the owner of capital keeps despite having not laboured for it. Violence is used to keep workers from the entirety of the value their labour creates.

Is that voluntary association? Seems to me like the owners of capital exploit the labour of workers, because they have the ability to compel it.

What violence is used to keep workers laboring in their factories? Your position seems to hang on that point. I don't think refusing to intervene and letting someone starve to death is a violent act. To claim otherwise redefines violence as any actor action which does not meet your personal wants.

If workers were to seize the full value of their labour, or seize the means of production, capital armies (like the police) would attack them. Even when workers merely strike they commonly get attacked by police.

The laws (and even the liberal ideology you adhere to) exist to favour the ruling class. Why would the ruling class do anything else? When the ruling class are the owners of capital, the laws and culture disfavour workers.

Ultimately it’s not worth discussing this to death yet again, it has been done countless times in the last couple hundred years.

Nobody is using violence to stop workers from buying, renting, or building means of production. Buy your own example, violence only comes into play when they try to steal.

The only real violence you mentioned is if police attack striking workers, which is exceedingly rare in most developed countries with the rule of law. What percentage of striking workers do you think are physically harmed by police in the us? If you think that is a likely or common outcome, we are probably living in different realities. You say that laws just favor the workers, but I wouldn't want to be a worker in a society without property rights. There is no point in working if any value you create can be stolen with impunity.

Try to imagine yourself as a worker with little to no asset ownership. One day you decide voluntarily to cut yourself off from your job. You no longer are able to pay rent/mortgage, and you are on the streets. You're hungry but have no money. You think of the best place to get some money for food.. Maybe that rich neighborhood would be generous to you. You start panhandling, but 5 minutes into it, some local rent-a-cop starts harassing you to get off the sidewalk that's "reserved for the business in front of it". You refuse, stating that the sidewalk is public property. A few minutes later, the police come over and force you to relocate. Where to? You pick another spot, and the cycle repeats until you pick a spot far enough away from everyone. Still no food though.

Now you want to sleep.. need I continue?

In short, the violence is not in "letting someone starve". Most people aren't out there trying to starve themselves. The violence is in preventing someone from saving themselves. Being homeless/penniless is an eyesore for those that aren't. The actions taken to fix the eyesore are the source of violence. What happens to a panhandler if they refuse to comply with police's arbitrarily justified order to "relocate"?

Norway is part of the EEA which means that there is free movement of people and capital. Therefore it is impossible for them to prevent people leaving to other EEA countries. Changing the EEAs 4 freedoms is unlikely.

The article quotes the billionaire saying "My capital will continue to work in Norway". What evidence these people are taking their money out of Norwegian bank and depositing it elsewhere? Or is their wealth already offshore anyway and they are just shifting their personal chump change to Switzerland? I'm somewhat suspicious of libertarian neo-cons saying "Don't tax me Bro', it'll just hurt you."

Sure, most of them won’t even follow through on the threat of capital flight because it would affect their profits too much.

Wonder what Norway's land tax rate is? You can't move land offshore. (Shameless plug for Georgism)

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