Let's not pretend that billionares are working 1.44 million hours a week to earn 18000 times what the janitor earns working two jobs in an 80 hour week. The quality of a billionaires 'work' is different than 'real work' so what you feel intuitevely about work may not be a great touchstone for how billionaires should be taxed.
They are already doing that, so what would be the difference?
Let's say I earn over the threshold, and I can now either choose to continue to try and innovate and add value to society, or retire to a private island and just become a carbon contributor, I mean, why work myself into the ground if I can no longer benefit?
Most people have assets not liquidity too, so it's like saying, if you own too much, you have to stop. Well, what if Elon stopped and we reverted back to dropping rockets into the ocean? What if Bill Gates stopped and never did any of the philanthropy that he does?
I feel like this is used by people as a cheap excuse for a problem they can't solve.
Not sure what your point is here--Bill Gates is not getting paid to do his philanthropy...he is in fact trying to give his money away. Are you arguing that it's a greater benefit to society for him to acquire his billions and then give some portion of it away after the fact?
It's an interesting thought experiment--how might the world be different had Gates's assets been capped at $1B back in 1987 or whenever, and whatever earnings he made been allocated to a social wealth fund?
That's a good question for the current situation -- why does Bezos still go to work? Once you have $100B, what tangible benefit do you get from more? Surely he's not doing it for the money, another $1B, or even $100B isn't going to change his lifestyle.
It’s not like my increasing savings bring me any material benefit.
If a world-class marathon runner is 4 minutes ahead in a race, and can see the finish line, do they start walking? Or do they try to push themselves even harder to see how much more they can win by?
People are competitive, and are always motivated by achieving “more”, even if it doesn’t change the outcome for them. Does society benefit by billionaires pushing for more? I’m not sure, but I don’t think that the answer is clearly “no”.
Does society benefit by billionaires pushing for more? I’m not sure, but I don’t think that the answer is clearly “no”.
I think the correct question is "Is there a net benefit to society", not any benefit at all.
Especially past 100M
Your suggestion is to give it to the government, which will more wisely spend it?
I think not.
[1] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2015/06/basics.ht...