So how do we calculate wealth if it isn’t based on what the market says it’s worth? If we are going to tax Musk on his wealth, most of which is stock, how do you figure out the “real” wealth to tax?
In the case of stock, when we say it is “overvalued”, that is implicitly based on the idea that there is a better evaluation that we can at least estimate, wherein (using more Marxist terms) the use value and market value are more correlated.
How a wealth tax should be implemented depends a lot on the society in which it is implemented. If we are assuming it is just the US but with a wealth tax, then I think ignoring what I said and taxing people more when their stock is higher makes sense, because market-dictated wealth represents really the ultimate ability to direct society within the US. In other countries with more checks against the wealthy, another approach may be more justified.
Really, I don’t like wealth taxes compared to other models like a higher capital gains tax, but anything that takes money disproportionately from all billionaires is probably going to have my support merely for that fact, because anything that mainly hurts them is likely to be a good thing relative to the nothing we have.
What about the middle class that relies on stocks to retire? If you aren’t aware, retirement accounts are usually mostly stocks, do we tax the middle class retirement money?
I think your last paragraph is pretty telling, just blindly supporting anything that hurts billionaires simply because they are billionaires, no matter how unfair or unjust it is, or even his bad the consequences would be for the country.
I think there is a reason the most successful companies are from the US, you would have them move their bushes elsewhere that’s more supportive of their size?
Obviously I don’t want to fuck over retirees, so it should be a progressive tax, since those retirement accounts don’t reach 8 figures, let alone 10 to 12.
I was pretty careful in my phrasing about it hurting billionaires specifically rather than hurting a larger swath of the population that included billionaires. Given that, I don’t think it would hurt “the country” very much at all, and indeed benefit the country because billionaires are a perpetual malus on us.
I think there is a reason the most successful companies are from the US,
There are several reasons, and I think you probably aren’t adequately accounting for the US being the global hegemon and engaging in brutal imperial exploitation as being chief among them. The US literally goes to war using the most over-funded military in the world for the sake of oil companies. It backs juntas to get cheap deals on lithium. It authors puppet governments for fucking bananas.
Regarding capital flight: It’s awesome if billionaires want to flee. If they try, seize everything from them. They play ball or fuck off, no need to accommodate them playing God.
