And all those accountants and lawyers actually do Is it tax avoidance for wealthy customers?You can begin full-scale efforts to hold the event. they He faces criminal charges for aiding and abetting the use of tax havens by wealthy people to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
All of these may be possible. The historical record shows that many countries have successfully implemented strict tax rates, including the United States. During World War II, the U.S. federal tax rate on top-tax income reached an astonishing 94 percent. Top tax rates in countries such as the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark rose to over 90 percent through the 1970s. Overall, the top tax rate in the United States averaged 81% for almost half a century, from 1932 to 1980.
What about the claim that the costs of taxing the wealthy outweigh the benefits? The evidence shows just the opposite. The benefits of high taxes on the wealthy and low levels of inequality far outweigh the costs by orders of magnitude.
To be sure, high taxes have some costs. However, these are rarely large amounts. For example, consider the argument that rich people will respond to higher taxes by working less. There is precious little evidence to support this claim. For example, does anyone really believe that LeBron James would quit playing basketball if taxes went up? Many high-income earners don't just work for the money. They find motivation in status, power, prestige, and sometimes even love for what they do.
Perhaps the most serious argument against higher taxes on the wealthy is that they reduce private investment. However, severely taxing the wealthy does not necessarily reduce investment.In many cases, higher tax rates are simply rearrange investment. If the country collects taxes, spend If you use that money in a productive way, the economy will grow. In fact, cutting-edge evidence shows that, all things considered, inequality tends to be high. reduce Growth rate of the economy as a whole.
Such is the cost of significantly taxing the wealthiest among us. What about the benefits? Five people stand out.
our environment. The 20 richest people emit 8,000 times more carbon dioxide than the poorest people on the planet a billion People gathered. Redistributing some of the wealth at the top to invest in things like public transport would directly reduce emissions and help build much-needed low-carbon infrastructure.
our democracy. Inequality erodes democracy. As political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page point out, the vast majority of Americans “do” do not have At least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. ” Democracy collapsed and became an oligarchy.
opportunity for everyone. Inequality makes a mockery of the equal opportunity we claim to value. Today, Chicago's poorest residents face a full 30 years less life expectancy than its wealthiest residents. High redistributive taxes could reverse this most brutal of disparities.
Reducing xenophobia and racism. Right-wing populism typically grows in close conjunction with economic instability. Taxing the wealthy to fund free public services, a stronger safety net, and perhaps a guaranteed basic income could alleviate that fear.
Reducing social friction. Evidence also shows that reducing inequality builds community health and cohesion. Reducing inequality increases levels of trust and tolerance, improves mental health and reduces crime. That said, he did find one area where his initial suspicions did not apply. The jury is still out on whether inequality clearly reduces life expectancy.
There's one last problem. It's a meritocracy. Do the wealthy really deserve their vast wealth?
Standard answer from the left: We don't have anything close to a level playing field. Inheritances, privileged private schools, and all sorts of other advantages give the wealthy a very unfair head start. Poor people inherit all sorts of disadvantages, from poverty to sexism and racism.
That's certainly true, but the most fundamental problem with meritocracy is even deeper. High levels of economic performance never result from a single effort. All production is fundamentally based on fundamentally social and cooperative processes. We always stand on the shoulders of our predecessors.
All market production depends on what I call. basic structurethe background human and environmental labor and consideration that makes it possible for production to take place in the first place.
Microsoft's Bill Gates benefited from a network of parents and teachers who cared for and socialized him. He supported the safe, clean and peaceful communities in which he lived, the generations of scientists and computer engineers who created the vast intellectual edifice he built, and those scientists and engineers. We benefited from countless support workers and caregivers. .
Gates also has access to a legal infrastructure that allows for copyright protection and the ability to keep most of the value created by employees for himself while simultaneously depriving those same employees of a say in corporate governance. I also personally benefited from the “shareholder first'' law. Mr. Gates did not create the vast and productive infrastructure of the American economy, so he is not entitled to the rewards that flow from it.
Overall, I calculate that about 99 percent of the income of the top 1 percent is not actually attributable to the efforts or talents of wealthy individuals. The true source of 99 percent of their wealth is the labor of others, a reality that makes their wealth overwhelmingly undeserved.
There is a deeper problem with meritocracy. All our talents and efforts reflect forces beyond our control. We did not choose to have our own physical bodies. We do not choose our own personality, intelligence, or disability. But such things have a huge impact on our abilities. Meritocracy essentially declares that people who are not physically or mentally stronger or smarter than others deserve a worse life, even through no fault of their own. This truly harmful belief causes us to reward some people and punish others because of random luck.
A good society should abandon talk of “what is natural.'' Socialist historian Howard Zinn said: “Give people what they need: food, medicine, clean air, clean water, trees and grass, a nice house, a few hours of work, more leisure time. Don't ask who deserves it. All. Humans deserve it.”
You don't need to be incredibly rich. In fact, you'd be much better off without them.
Tom Marson, an associate professor at King's University College, Western University in Canada, published the following paper with Oxford University Press: Against Inequality: A Practical and Ethical Case for Abolishing the Super-Wealthy.
