The 'Laffer Curve' concept is treated at first glance as some kind of complex model created by experts that Explains A Lot, at second glance as something a bunch of drunk political operatives scrawled on a cocktail napkin in 1974 that doesn't necessarily have any relation to reality, and at third glance as a tautology whose dishonest core is the labelling of the x axis.

Academic attempts to identify the optimal maxima of tax receipts, which conservative political operatives will always implicitly assume is "half whatever the current rate is", suggest something on the order of 60%.

> In economics, the Laffer curve illustrates a theoretical relationship between rates of taxation and the resulting levels of the government's tax revenue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

I would dispute the premise of the Laffer Curve: that the goal of setting a (high) taxation rate is to maximise government revenue. I think that reducing wealth inequality is a good in and of itself. And especially under a capitalist system that depends on it's citizens having vaguely equal purchasing power to function efficiently.

Assuming that our starting point is our current situation where wealth is very unequally distributed, that is. I would agree with the suggestion that things being too equal, and there being no reward for hard work and/or ingenuity also leads to problems.

Optimisation that tries to balance that trade-off would interest me greatly.

Point 1 tends to fall apart when the government can't control its own coffers and after a few decades of mismanagement decides that privatisation is the main way to reduce their debt burden. So I think this one ebbs and flows over time generally.

See South Africa for an example. Power production is slowly opening up to market forces as an alleviation to the extreme mismanagement and corruption of the last 2-3 decades.

On the other hand, there are also some alternatives, like "devolution" of state services to the provincial or municipal level. The local Cape Town government is busy trying to gain control over the city's train lines from the government org that owns them, to provide better service.

There's no substitute for competence and integrity, but private entities are just as capable of being inept and corrupt. Look at companies like Enron or Comcast.