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Comment by crotchfire | Hacker News Reader

Will you cap the wealth of corporations too?

Because if not, people with insatiable appetites will simply seek control of those corporations rather than direct control of piles of money.

Personally I'm an advocate of the exact opposite of what seems to be proposed here: controls on corporate size rather than individual wealth. Living cells don't grow without bounds; at a certain point they get too big and are forced to divide. Simply imposing a tax on corporate size (not a limit) would accomplish this.

Industries where massive size is simply unavoidable (e.g. passenger airplane manufacturing) would simply pay the tax; any economic distortions can be nulled out by reducing the industry's VAT rate in proportion to average size-tax paid by that industry. In all other industries smaller competitors would have the persistent advantage of lower tax costs, allowing them to eventually undermine the bloated colossuses.

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Yes, I think you could make the case that entities of any sort — corporations or individuals alike — should be allowed to exceed the threshold only if they’re under some kind of democratic control. And obviously that’s not a get-out that individuals can use.

The Commanding Heights, eh?

I think this has been tried already, unfortunately.

Will you cap military spending? Beyond the side people take there is some human natural tendency to power that cannot be artificially capped or if it you try to artificially cap it, there is a flow with a lot of pressure that go somewhere else.

I am not proposing to cap anything. Please re-read the entire comment you're replying to, not just the first line.

My question was just following your "brainstorming". Sorry, I didn't explain myself correctly:

My point is that when you start arguing about capping and/or taxes you should take into account the concept of power, governments, and realpolitik into account. You can put a set of rules for handling corporate power (e.g. taxes) but those corporations could be really smart and move to another jurisdiction such as Ireland (e.g. Google) as a kind of safe heaven. In those cases the whole thinking turns more complex. Gaming the system is part of the game and every rule you put has a loophole except if a government is really strict and/or a dictatorship, and power (e.g. reality) plays there beyond the rules.

move to another jurisdiction such as Ireland

The size tax should be applied to imports, just like VAT is.

This supposes that there's some naturally-right size for a corporation to be, without bothering to argue why that might be.

I don't see why that would be true, and abundant evidence that both large and small corporations add value to the world.

This supposes that there's some naturally-right size for a corporation to be

No, in fact, it doesn't. Please re-read the comment you're replying to.

There is no cutoff, limit, or threshhold. It doesn't prescribe a naturally-right size any more than a graduated income tax "prescribes a naturally-right amount of income".

Is a 'cap' not a 'cutoff, limit, or threshold'?

Please read the comment again; you have not understood it.

No cap is proposed.

No but you have to pick where and how quickly to ramp the tax schedule which will eventually lead to you having to make some “assumptions” about what size (range) is “too big”

you have to pick where

Everywhere.

and how quickly to ramp

Yes, that is the one and only tuneable variable. It's a single, obvious scalar, like the interest rate set by a central bank. There's no room for favoritism or shenanighans. Of course, like central bank interest rates, it will be an object of impassioned political debate. That's expected.

which will eventually lead to you having to make some “assumptions” about what size (range) is “too big”

Absolutely false. You're confusing a value with its rate of change. The speed limit on the highway doesn't constrain the length of the road.

Yes, in fact, it does. The objection just flies directly into the blindspot which leads you to make the proposal in the first place, which produces cognitive dissonance. You postulate, incorrectly, that "too large" is a coherent concept for corporations, and propose to "fix" your imaginary problem by punishing people who grow corporations larger than your imagined ideal.

Just want to highlight that the way you phrased it, someone doing 99% harm and providing 1% value can be said to be providing value.

I consider it a trivial lemma of the concepts of harm and value, that something which is causing more harm than they are creating value, is producing net negative value.

Although you gave me an opportunity to clarify that, which isn't nothing, I suppose.

I’m more in favour of having rules on who can own (how much) of certain types of businesses, like infrastructure and military equipment.

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