Re:The Economic Consequences of Major Tax Cuts for the Rich ...
by PaulDavisThe1st on Monday July 26, 2021 @03:53PM
(#27964529)
> Yes - imagine that job was cutting down trees and the amount of hard labor it took to cut down a tree was very high. You decided to invent chainsaws. Now each person doing this labor (which is now less hard) can cut down more trees and you need fewer people overall to cut down more trees and you can pass the savings on to your customers who now get lumber more cheaply.
That's a viable argument if the domain of the argument is only economics.
Some people want the domain to be restricted to economics only, of course. Some of us think that morality / philosophy plays a role too.
So we can recast your example in more general terms. Suppose that what society "said" about invention was along the following lines:
"We want to see productivity increase, and so we value and cherish invention, particularly invention that enhances the efficient use of human labor. People who manage to invent tools and processes that increase efficiency can expect to see some part of economic value of their inventions accrue to them. So, if you want to be richer and improve the wealth of our society, please go ahead and do so with your creativity and imagination and organizational skills. But if you imagine it as a pathway to unimaginable wealth, understand that this will not happen. To be blunt, just because your invention creates US$200M of value to society, you will not be US$200M richer under any circumstances."
In the end, it depends on what you think really motivates people.If you think that chainsaws get invented because people dream of being unimaginably richer than their neighbors, you will likely think that any limitations on how wealthy someone can be will cause us to miss out on possible improvements. But I don't believe that (and I could cite lots of evidence that money is almost the worst possible human motivator for most Americans), and I think that we can cap income and wealth without destroying innovation and productivity gains, while still leaving room for some people to be substantially richer than others.
That's a viable argument if the domain of the argument is only economics.
Some people want the domain to be restricted to economics only, of course. Some of us think that morality / philosophy plays a role too.
So we can recast your example in more general terms. Suppose that what society "said" about invention was along the following lines:
"We want to see productivity increase, and so we value and cherish invention, particularly invention that enhances the efficient use of human labor. People who manage to invent tools and processes that increase efficiency can expect to see some part of economic value of their inventions accrue to them. So, if you want to be richer and improve the wealth of our society, please go ahead and do so with your creativity and imagination and organizational skills. But if you imagine it as a pathway to unimaginable wealth, understand that this will not happen. To be blunt, just because your invention creates US$200M of value to society, you will not be US$200M richer under any circumstances."
In the end, it depends on what you think really motivates people.If you think that chainsaws get invented because people dream of being unimaginably richer than their neighbors, you will likely think that any limitations on how wealthy someone can be will cause us to miss out on possible improvements. But I don't believe that (and I could cite lots of evidence that money is almost the worst possible human motivator for most Americans), and I think that we can cap income and wealth without destroying innovation and productivity gains, while still leaving room for some people to be substantially richer than others.