What you said, while true, is one-sided. It omits that companies like Apple are the beneficiaries of large tax breaks that ipso facto function as subsidies (because Apple is the beneficiary of tax spending in innumerable ways). It also looks at different taxation rates for individuals as well, with a capital gain tax that's far lower than ordinary income tax rates, as one example.

So "as a society" applies here, in the loose sense of government decision-making.

There's no market in the abstract - there are courts, tax laws, civil laws, and many other things that mediate.

I would ask, what courts, tax laws, civil laws, etc are you referring to? Of course they impact the outcome, but which of those do you think is unfair or antithetical to my point about the free market?

I think the tax thing is a huge misconception that just isn't backed up by reality. The US still has a progressive tax system, even after taking into account the many rules (or the mysterious and nefarious "tax breaks" that everyone alludes to).

The top 1% have around 20% of the income, but pay 40% of the federal income taxes!

Real federal income tax rate paid:

Top 1% - 27%

Top 5% - 23%

Top 10% - 21%

Top 25% - 18%

Top 50% - 16%

Bottom 50% - 3.45%

https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...

The federal income tax is a small part of the annual taxes paid in the US, you aren't showing enough information to provide more than a guess about how fairly the tax system is working.

Look up the total federal tax rate, it's available. It's not skewed as much as just federal income tax, but it's still significantly skewed.

The top 5% pay 53% of all federal taxes including social security and Medicaid.[1]

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15573269

Federal tax is still a small chunk of the taxes paid in America, it's still guesswork and the "tax breaks" are even more prevalent there.

Top 1% pays ~15% of total federal income taxes. Your numbers ignore Social security which provides ~34% of total federal revenue and cap at 120k vs a minimum 465k to make it into the top 1%. It's also clearly income tax while 'income taxes' provide ~47% of the federal revenue.

PS: Social Security pays money for blind people who have never worked, it's in no way a just a 'retirement' fund and is simply general welfare under a new name.

Well duh,the top 1% have more that 27% of the wealth...

Income taxes are paid on... income.

Income's value is… diminishing with existing wealth. Receiving 20% of the income and having an amazingly outsized 40% of the wealth is more than enough reason to consider seeking funding from the 1% rather than their far poorer countrymates.

The coercion is embedded in the corporate structure, where many employees do the actual work of bringing a new product to market, but only one executive has the power to fire any single one of them if they demand a greater share of the profits, or all of them if they form a cartel to collectively demand more.

The consumer does not have an option at the point of purchase to direct those dollars to specific employees. Their choice is to buy the phone and pay the executive the most, or to not buy the phone at all. You cannot buy the phone and direct the bulk of its purchase price to the guy who wanted to save the TRRS headphone jack.

Your option in that vein is to purchase enough stock in a public company to get a board seat, then propose that the workers be paid more, and the executives less. And hope you get enough votes. This is not realistically possible for any individual consumer.

The choice that "society" makes is to allow that company to continue to exist, and to operate itself as it sees fit. The decisions about the distributions of profits are overwhelmingly made by rich people alone, who unsurprisingly vote to direct the majority of profits to themselves.

My assumption is that the parent comment means, in part, that how we choose to do things like structure corporations and corporate compensation is a societal thing.

Yes. (Among a million other things. ALL the rules that determine who is a billionaire and who is a beggar are social choices, because wealth is a social relation. The fact that there even are these particular different possible ways for people to be treated is a social choice.)

"Possession is nine tenths of the law."

(Though Wikipedia tells me it means something else:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_is_nine-tenths_of_t...

My assumption has always been that the phrase meant that 90% of law is related to who owns what, basically.)