I agree with your sentiment that we don't need billionaires and should tax their excess wealth. However, I am concerned with how this could actually be done well. I've yet to hear a good plan. No one seems to consider 2nd and 3rd order affects. You do in part with your concern about the threshold being lowered over time. Also, taxing wealth is very different from taxing income or purchases. As so much wealth is bound up in stocks and bonds, it changes daily in often arbitrary ways. I am concerned that everyday people with substantial retirement accounts they've spent their whole lives building may be (eventually) pulled into this in a way that damages them. But then, I also recognize (like you) that this may be my privilege talking. In any case, it is an idea worth considering and exploring how it might be implemented.
Those are all the specific qualms that bounce around my head, but then I go back to the fact that we're talking about BILLIONAIRES. It's difficult to even comprehend the scale of that wealth. If I was worth 10 million dollars, I would be so far beyond financial concerns that even that seems fantastical, but we're talking about having 100x more than that. Part of the present problem is that people with this much wealth use it to generate access to money that cannot be taxed as income because of the present set of rules. I think in the end, we don't really know what the 2nd and 3rd order effects might be until we get the 1st order in place. A society that puts wealth back in the hands of the people will be a very different place.
I can't imagine a billionaire ban having any effect other than billionaires finding creative ways to hide the money that takes them over the billionaire line.
Outside of practical considerations (how would you get all of the countries of the world to coordinate on the confiscation of wealth?), I've never heard a good reason not to abolish billionaires. It's one of those dead-simple ideas that is a) obviously the correct thing to do and b) unthinkable given the way we've constructed our society.
Aphorisms which come to mind about getting rid of the billionaires: Be careful what you wish for; No good deed goes unpunished. When I read articles about billionaires or even $100,000 millionaires, I will consider how I would live with the much money. My conclusion is that I cannot conceive of a life like that. Maybe I would be like the billionaires of old and donate the money to serve the general good, including the arts, but maybe that air is too rarified to see beyond itself.
Your comments about tenured faculty resonated more with my life, as my son teaches at the Citadel, in your part of the world, and has for 5 years now. He had been an adjunct, a step below slave labor, and has scrambled to get full time teaching hours allowing him a living wage. There is a tenured position open, but he does not publish, although he is a spectacular instructor (spoken as only a mom could speak) but knowing his chances, he has not applied. He is, like yourself looking to pivot.
As other commenters have noted, a billionaire ban would be difficult to enforce because we have allowed money to completely warp our politics for too long. As Nolan already addressed in his piece, that doesn't mean it's not worth doing, just that we'll have to keep blocking the backroom deals and financial magic they attempt
John, I'm 100% on board. The sad reality of academic employment, even as it was many years ago, steered me away from what looked like a life I was made for (sigh). The even sadder reality of how extreme wealth warps politics is a good part of Autocracy, Inc., by Anne Applebaum. Readers of the Larson book you cite may find it interesting or terrifying, or both.
So very true and cuts right to the chase. Also, brillliantly written!
I agree with your sentiment that we don't need billionaires and should tax their excess wealth. However, I am concerned with how this could actually be done well. I've yet to hear a good plan. No one seems to consider 2nd and 3rd order affects. You do in part with your concern about the threshold being lowered over time. Also, taxing wealth is very different from taxing income or purchases. As so much wealth is bound up in stocks and bonds, it changes daily in often arbitrary ways. I am concerned that everyday people with substantial retirement accounts they've spent their whole lives building may be (eventually) pulled into this in a way that damages them. But then, I also recognize (like you) that this may be my privilege talking. In any case, it is an idea worth considering and exploring how it might be implemented.
Those are all the specific qualms that bounce around my head, but then I go back to the fact that we're talking about BILLIONAIRES. It's difficult to even comprehend the scale of that wealth. If I was worth 10 million dollars, I would be so far beyond financial concerns that even that seems fantastical, but we're talking about having 100x more than that. Part of the present problem is that people with this much wealth use it to generate access to money that cannot be taxed as income because of the present set of rules. I think in the end, we don't really know what the 2nd and 3rd order effects might be until we get the 1st order in place. A society that puts wealth back in the hands of the people will be a very different place.
I can't imagine a billionaire ban having any effect other than billionaires finding creative ways to hide the money that takes them over the billionaire line.
Ha! My son went to UVA. There is no joking about Grounds. (Generally no definite article)
Or the Academical [sic] Village
Outside of practical considerations (how would you get all of the countries of the world to coordinate on the confiscation of wealth?), I've never heard a good reason not to abolish billionaires. It's one of those dead-simple ideas that is a) obviously the correct thing to do and b) unthinkable given the way we've constructed our society.
Good observations, John.
These are the logical expressions of escalating wealth and income inequality, which our country has generally embraced since the early 1990s.
Aphorisms which come to mind about getting rid of the billionaires: Be careful what you wish for; No good deed goes unpunished. When I read articles about billionaires or even $100,000 millionaires, I will consider how I would live with the much money. My conclusion is that I cannot conceive of a life like that. Maybe I would be like the billionaires of old and donate the money to serve the general good, including the arts, but maybe that air is too rarified to see beyond itself.
Your comments about tenured faculty resonated more with my life, as my son teaches at the Citadel, in your part of the world, and has for 5 years now. He had been an adjunct, a step below slave labor, and has scrambled to get full time teaching hours allowing him a living wage. There is a tenured position open, but he does not publish, although he is a spectacular instructor (spoken as only a mom could speak) but knowing his chances, he has not applied. He is, like yourself looking to pivot.
As other commenters have noted, a billionaire ban would be difficult to enforce because we have allowed money to completely warp our politics for too long. As Nolan already addressed in his piece, that doesn't mean it's not worth doing, just that we'll have to keep blocking the backroom deals and financial magic they attempt
John, I'm 100% on board. The sad reality of academic employment, even as it was many years ago, steered me away from what looked like a life I was made for (sigh). The even sadder reality of how extreme wealth warps politics is a good part of Autocracy, Inc., by Anne Applebaum. Readers of the Larson book you cite may find it interesting or terrifying, or both.