Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

Re:Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll by happytoexplain on Friday January 10, 2020 @01:31PM (#22013571)

That's pretty reductionist - it seems to me like we have many non-rich Americans who possess varying strengths of the belief that, generally, the rich rightfully earned all they've come to and in turn provide more or less proportional value to society, and that opinion informs their opinion on wealth taxes. As well, the implication that not-havers broadly can not be relied upon to express holistic or worthy opinions on their own society's rules regarding havers is ridiculous.

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Re:Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll by lawnchair_larry on Friday January 10, 2020 @02:02PM (#22014055)

Nobody made the general statement that not-havers can’t be relied upon to express worthy opinions regarding society’s rules.

In this specific case, the only thing that I might call ridiculous would be expecting that populations will not choose to act in accordance with what is in their individual best interest. It’s pretty rare, at least in western societies, for people to knowingly make choices that hurt themselves as individuals in order to benefit society as a whole.

Ultra wealthy people will always be the minority by definition. Nobody is going to complain if Bezos, Gates, and Buffet has to pay more. Even if a handful of the population disagree on principle, they are too busy with their own challenges in life to mount a fight on behalf of deca-billionaires.

So I think this survey is about as meaningful as asking every employee if they think they should get a raise if it means that their CEO has to take a pay cut. You’d be dumb not to, unless you’re the CEO, or you think you may become the CEO.

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