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True enough.

But under Capitalism, half our 1%ers would lose their shirts.

The cost of government isn't only, or even mostly, the taxes.

They probably should.

But under true capitalism, incomes would still stratify like this and the leftists will still see those at the top as their enemy and the cause of all society’s woes.

Low Information Voter 1y ago

Thats very true. But we'd also have fewer Leftists.

StackSats.IO 1y ago

Do you think so?

I’m of a mind that the rank and file leftists - not those at the top who guide systems leftwards to remain entrenched - are that way because they’re simply low intelligence and as such they will always want to rely on others to lift them up being unable to do it themselves.

Young people are indoctrinated leftist but any who manages to stand on their own, or has a family to care for, break out of it.

For me it is no coincidence that every 2-party liberal democracy splits into thirds; it matches IQ distribution.

Low Information Voter 1y ago

I think "Left" and "Right" are very approximate boxes to sort beliefs into. I think there are far fewer "party line" true believers than is popularly believed.

Party Line true believers are disproportionately likely to be stupid, whatever their affiliations.

StackSats.IO 1y ago

Sure. They’re roll-up categories for different subgroups with their own ideologies and thoughts.

I see it more like traits - they exist on a spectrum and nobody remains static on that spectrum throughout their life but like most traits, completely upending them can be difficult and takes a long time.

Low Information Voter 1y ago

I remember a year or two ago, the wife's cousin and cousin's husband came to stay for a bit (from the USA).

Both the cousin's husband and I were given strict instructions not to discuss politics, and I was further informed that he's a Democratic Party activist over there.

Needless to say, we ignored our orders, and got along famously, to much eye-rolling from the wives. Turns out we're both very critical of government corruption and overreach, especially on censorship, and he's an absolute loony gun-nut in a country where that's legal. He's promised to take me shooting if i visit.

People worth knowing are individuals, with their own unique "fingerprint" of views.

My personal pet conspiracy theory is that people who give a damn and are willing to give real thought to big problems secretly have more in common with each other than with the other 95% of humanity. But most would rather be waterboarded than admit this :p

🇵🇸 whoever loves Digit 8mo ago

I can't read discussions of "left vs right wing" without thinking of jreg's early work on the topic that had the same thesis as your comment here: far right and far left people must unite against centrists

𝕞𝕪𝕡𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕥𝕠𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 1y ago

It also depends on the % of the rich that are cantilionaires who make money from this system.

Low Information Voter 1y ago

There are a lot of small and medium-sized parasites, too, not just Cantillionaires.

They feel they earned those taxpayer $$$ because they do the submission displays to the right bureaucrats, spend hours doing often literally pointless admin tasks, and risk losing big time to legal liability.

But little or none of their business's non-value-adding activity would be required or funded in a capitalist society.

I get paid by the hour, but often by these exact people.

𝕞𝕪𝕡𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕥𝕠𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 1y ago

Exactly... These people pontificating that they pay so much tax but are parasites themselves... Damn we live in communist hell.

imnuso 1y ago

People just want to rip other people off and feel justified in doing so. Any theory of society is practically that: post hoc rationalization.

StackSats.IO 1y ago

The bureaucrats are the worst parasites. By sheer numbers they suck up so many resources and produce nothing for society.

If people want more efficient government one easy way to start would be to remove income taxes from the bureaucrats.

Make it very clear that they’re not contributing, that they are purely recipients of other people’s money.

Governments make them pay income tax to obfuscate this fact, it allows them to claim they are contributing to society but it’s just roundtripping already stolen money to government for illusory purposes.

Low Information Voter 1y ago

Ten years ago I would have heartily agreed, but I'm no longer sure the salaried, on-payroll bureaucrats are still the largest part of the problem.

Approved. Pre-approved. Compliant. Permitted. Registration. Authorised. Verified. Standardised.

All code-words for "private monopoly", or at least "private oligopoly".

And then we have the off-payroll bureaucrats: the middlemen, the assessors, the contractors, the industry associations, the lobbyists.

I think the salaried bureaucrats are only one of three. And the onion may have other layers I don't understand yet...

TheBitcoinManual 1y ago

If you don't feel like a victim, you won't delegate your power to another, you'd enjoy having agency, its all just a cop out! I think people also don't see that taxing and inflation is not just wealth confiscation, that is the seen, the unseen is all the wealth destruction from all the goods and services that could be created should people have been able to command more of their earnings and decide how they wish to deploy their savings into the market

Low Information Voter 1y ago

100%

af

Condor 1y ago

Activists should be wiped away from the planet and their enablers should be buried on the bottomless pit

Leigh 1y ago

Oooft that infographic makes me wanna get a pitchfork.

79

Duvel 1y ago

Also, taxes will always increase.

Blazar 1y ago

Say what you will, I think there are some folks that have too much “money” or “wealth”. It negatively skews the society. It does.

StackSats.IO 1y ago

Blazar 1y ago

I mean, make a case for extreme wealth…

StackSats.IO 1y ago

It’s on you to prove the negative skew and delineate what too much wealth actually is. There’s plenty of examples of extreme wealth doing amazing things - ie the entire Renaissance, or the “robber barron” era which built the United States.

People who complain about other people’s wealth tend to be retarded

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Blazar 1y ago

Well I’m not complaining, just observing. I tend to find folks who use the term retarded to be well, not anyone I care to listen to.

And Alas Shrugged? 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️.

Just because extreme wealth has created things that have been beneficial/are arguably beneficial does not necessarily mean those things wouldn’t have arisen another way. Even in old times, the amount of extreme wealth was not even close to the amounts being bandied about nowadays.

And no, it’s not on me to prove an opinion.

GM!

StackSats.IO 1y ago

I tend to find anyone who attempts to police other people’s language is retarded and incapable of forming worthy arguments worth my time engaging.

Blazar 1y ago

I’m not policing your language. I find that people who immediately reach for an Ad Hominem attack are usually not worth my time.

Hey look! Something we agree on!

f4

Krv 1y ago

If a person provides value that people are willing to pay for, then whatever quantity that amounts to is what they can and should have.

Blazar 1y ago

I think there are plenty of things we pay for unwillingly

Space Hodler 1y ago

It's not your money, and "negatively" is just your opinion.

Blazar 1y ago

As evidenced by “I think” yea, it is an opinion.

Square cuts 1y ago

Income inequality is a feature, not a bug. But too much inequality destabilises society, leads to turmoil, revolt, and redistribution. Progressive taxation is an attempt to redistribute nonviolently. I’m not sure there’s another option… open to ideas tho.

StackSats.IO 1y ago

Income inequality is natural.

Progressive taxation is an attempt to undo the natural order by taking from the most productive and giving to the least.

If we stopped feeding people bullshit that we’re all equal we could move past this nonsense. We are equal in humanity and that’s it; beyond that we all differ along a variety of spectrums and trying to normalise that inherently leads to destabilisation.

Square cuts 1y ago

I agree it’s natural, and desirable to a degree. Violent revolution is also natural. Nature is redistribution, whether by creative destruction in the microcycle or violent destruction in the macrocycle. I see progressive taxation as an attempt to avoid violent redistribution due to extreme inequality. Maybe it doesn’t work as intended. An alternative might be an expectation (or government force) for the wealthiest in society to create public works like the ancient Greeks.

StackSats.IO 1y ago

Yes violent Revolution is also natural. Democratic governments have no qualms doing anything and everything to suppress that because they’re the first on the chopping block when society is imbalanced.

That’s the whole point of redistribution for them. They believe they can balance the scales between the 2 and effectively arbitrage their position at the top of the pyramid to enrich themselves and their friends whilst convincing the poorest half of the population it’s the top 10% who are the only reason they’re not themselves better off.

It’s a ridiculous game which holds everyone back.

Square cuts 1y ago

I mostly agree with you. I think I’m more bullish on democracy than you might be though 😅.

I don’t think personal income taxation is good, but if you do it, it’s probably the case that 10% of a $10,000 salary hits way harder than 50% of a $300,000 salary.

StackSats.IO 1y ago

Yeah I’m all-in with Plato at this point. Democracy is ostensibly shit and only tyranny is worse although the line between the two in the modern world is barely existent. People point to Churchill’s famous quote to justify democracy and ignore the fact that he got to the very top of the democracy tree and abused the shit out of the position and was instrumental in millions of deaths.

As to your progressive taxes - who is likely to produce more in the economy? The one whose output is valued at $10k or the one on $300k?

All taking 50% of the latter’s is doing is entrenching government to be the only one with means to address market inefficiencies, which is the most inefficient way of doing so.

It’s harming far more than it’s helping.

Square cuts 1y ago

I’m a big fan of Switzerlands direct democracy approach, but I agree modern representative democracies tend toward crony, government funded, capitalism. No such thing as too big to fail.

Also agree government are bad capital allocators. Unfortunately, because of 50 years of worsening crony capitalism and elite overproduction (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction) I’m not sure wages are a good proxy for societal value. Consider the value of your McKinsey hack vs a lot of engineers in Australia. Former overpaid. Latter def underpaid relative to value they could provide.

StackSats.IO 1y ago

I’ve got Turchin in my book pile for next year so can’t yet comment on that theory specifically, but I’ve posted about similar before: nostr:note14hd2z48knluwy5t77ff6zkkf6fw4zrk3h06g4v2ttgakk67hqrusuv56eg

And whilst you’re right about wages not being a great proxy for productive value to society, it being heavily skewed by financialisation (all the best minds go to Hedge Funds instead of working as engineers) and regulation (McKinsey et al creating industry around Gov policy), that wasn’t my point.

My point was that if you want productivity to grow then you want the one earning $300k to have more of that pie available so they can go and be entrepreneurial.

Most people think of people like Zuck starting FB out of a dorm when they think of entrepreneurs - they think young guys with little behind them. In reality most entrepreneurs are 30-40 who have accumulated enough wealth, experience and knowledge that they can branch out on their own to start something with their capital.

Taking half their shit away from them every year makes it less and less viable for these people to flip from employee to entrepreneur because they can’t accumulate the capital needed to start, they’re stuck living comfortable upper middle class lives as wagies but can’t take that next step which would actually be much more beneficial to broader society.

Square cuts 1y ago

I think that’s a pretty fair argument. On average people are more likely to start businesses if their income wasn’t taxed to serfdom. Looks like pretty reasonable data to support that claim too.

It’s why we should get rid of personal income tax entirely.

Space Hodler 1y ago

Taxation is not an attempt to redistribute violently.

Taxation *is* violence.

Space Hodler 1y ago

* redistribute non-violently

Square cuts 1y ago

That’s a bit of language creep. The threat of violence isn’t violence 😅

🇵🇸 whoever loves Digit 8mo ago

Is killing people violence too?

Space Hodler 1y ago

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🇵🇸 whoever loves Digit 8mo ago

You want to tax everyone's income equally? That's retarded

I want to get rid of income taxes altogether

Taxes should be on shit like fuel and cigarettes, not work and housing

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