Maybe we should build lots of housing around (at least some of) the areas where economic opportunity is concentrated. Many US cities exist as they are today due to people looking for economic opportunities in the past (for example Chicago grew from 299,000 to around 1.7 million in a 30 year period).

These days it seems like non-professionals are priced out of all the most booming cities (despite there being plenty of non-professional work available). I don't think it's a coincidence that it's currently very difficult to get permission to build in many of those places (in 2014 Tokyo permitted 70% more housing units than all of California, despite having 1/3 the population). The under-supply of housing in places California of course increases the demand elsewhere too since those people that would otherwise live in California have to live somewhere.

Basic income could help mobility too since it makes it easier for lower-income people to move to where the jobs are (where they may not have a family safety net). Currently internal US migration is at a historically low level.

So, in order: 1. Stealing from Peter to pay Paul 2. Good idea. Make it happen. 3. Also stealing, but if it were to replace the system we have now (which won’t happen) it would at least be more efficient.

Call it what you want, but the alternative is living in a society with extreme wealth/income disparities.

No, the alternative is adaptation.

Well, I guess all those people living in tents under the freeway in Seattle have "adapted" then. Problem solved!

And the only reason for that is you haven’t taken enough of my money?

It's not "stealing"

What would you call 9 people in a group of ten voting to take away the tenth guy’s stuff because they wanted to? I call it what it is - stealing. Greed. Envy. Interestingly, it will probably lead to more equality; it just won’t be what you’re expecting and I don’t think you’ll like the result. At this point though, the people probably deserve to get what they want and get it good and hard.

> Except the 10th guy has more stuff than the other 9 combined.

By that logic, you should be made to give everything you have to the people of Congo. Since when is morality determined by the size of one’s wallet?

Small thought experiment: Imagine an agricultural society where the nobility own the land, and serfs work it for subsistence wages only. The nobility largely don't work, and live lavish lifestyles supported by others. Nothing too unusual historically. In those circumstances, is maintaining the status quo the only morally correct choice, and any deviation from that "stealing?"

I don't think it's reasonable to measure a society's morality by its tax rates only or to draw an equivalence between taxes and theft.

It's true that minimal government and taxes worked well in the US's early history. But if you think about it, that was an agricultural society where the main source of capital, land, was practically free. It's not surprising that relatively pure capitalism worked OK then, but historically it seems to have worked out less well in almost all other circumstances.

These days a lot of capital is in stocks in global corporations, with barriers to entry measured in the billions of dollars. It's not as simple as moving to the frontier and finding your own plot of land.

I think an ideal society delivers broad-based prosperity and individual freedoms with a dynamic market economy. And tax policy should preserve incentives to work and invest efficiently. But if there is a conflict between broad-based prosperity and zero tax rates / income redistribution, like in the example society above, the former should definitely be chosen over the latter.

I think going the other way around, rather than leading to a capitalist paradise, will only lead to the rise of ideologies that advocate heavy-handed state control of the economy, probably to the detriment of everyone.

Except the 10th guy has more stuff than the other 9 combined.