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Is it time to take on the super-rich?

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    I never go out in Dublin :-)

    Actually I don't care about corporate tax. Personal taxation is more important as it creates clear divisions in how people live. In the UK -where I do live for now - London has, because of the 30K tax for non-domiciled earnings- allowed the super-rich, and the rich i.e bankers to buy up huge swathes of the property. This means that housing is unaffordable to normal workers.

    Ken Livingstone had a piece in the Guardian recently where he said people on £70K complained about not getting on the housing ladder. That's true. And house prices have increased during a recession - one which is now a double dip. Unlike Ireland, this is not a boom led bubble, but a structural market driven increase which wont reverse in a recession, because the recession is already here. It will keep most people out of the market for ever.

    did ken mention his tax dodges .......legal yes.....but morally wrong for a man who continuesly goes on about a fair society......

    yes, he wants it (or so he says) so long as other people pay for it...

    he is a genius at spending other people money...while saving his own..

    Ken didn't tax dodge. He paid into a company and pays when he receives the income as dividends, or PAYE. Like the vast majority of the self employed.


    But even if he had it would be small beans compared to super-rich i.e billionaires. In the link I linked to Smurfitt complained about a 30k tax on his worldwide income - which means he thinks that too much , so he was paying less. His wealth is 500m. Assuming a ridiculously low return of 1% on that he earns 5M a year, and considers a tax of 30k too much. That is 0.6%.

    An intelligent alien would ask himself why middle income tax payers who clearly pay more because of this, would support such a system since it makes no economic sense to them. Then he would work out, as chuck has been mentioning, that capital is not just about buying flash cars and yachts but power and influence in newspapers; it's about creating opinions. No surprise then, to the intelligent alien, that a well known Irish businessman who is domiciled abroad owns organs of influence in Ireland.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,364 ✭✭✭golden lane


    Ken didn't tax dodge. He paid into a company and pays when he receives the income as dividends, or PAYE. Like the vast majority of the self employed.


    But even if he had it would be small beans compared to super-rich i.e billionaires. In the link I linked to Smurfitt complained about a 30k tax on his worldwide income - which means he thinks that too much , so he was paying less. His wealth is 500m. Assuming a ridiculously low return of 1% on that he earns 5M a year, and considers a tax of 30k too much. That is 0.6%.

    An intelligent alien would ask himself why middle income tax payers who clearly pay more because of this, would support such a system since it makes no economic sense to them. Then he would work out, as chuck has been mentioning, that capital is not just about buying flash cars and yachts but power and influence in newspapers; it's about creating opinions. No surprise then, to the intelligent alien, that a well known Irish businessman who is domiciled abroad owns organs of influence in Ireland.

    poor ken.....just like anybody else......yes, a tax dodger who at the same time moans about everybody else.....

    at least the rest have the decency to keep quiet about what other people do.....his righteousness is sickening....

    .


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Ken didn't tax dodge. He paid into a company and pays when he receives the income as dividends, or PAYE. Like the vast majority of the self employed.


    But even if he had it would be small beans compared to super-rich i.e billionaires. In the link I linked to Smurfitt complained about a 30k tax on his worldwide income - which means he thinks that too much , so he was paying less. His wealth is 500m. Assuming a ridiculously low return of 1% on that he earns 5M a year, and considers a tax of 30k too much. That is 0.6%.

    An intelligent alien would ask himself why middle income tax payers who clearly pay more because of this, would support such a system since it makes no economic sense to them. Then he would work out, as chuck has been mentioning, that capital is not just about buying flash cars and yachts but power and influence in newspapers; it's about creating opinions. No surprise then, to the intelligent alien, that a well known Irish businessman who is domiciled abroad owns organs of influence in Ireland.

    poor ken.....just like anybody else......yes, a tax dodger who at the same time moans about everybody else.....

    at least the rest have the decency to keep quiet about what other people do.....his righteousness is sickening....

    .

    Once again. He didn't tax dodge. You believe he did because a billionaire owned newspaper told you. In any case Ken is off topic, I mentioned him on passing because he was complaining about house prices in London.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,745 ✭✭✭Eliot Rosewater


    Of course taxing the super-rich would help re-distribute more money as more money would be collected. That said it is a good in itself, as too much capital in the hand of fewer people creates a power imbalance.

    I think you need to do a bit more work than that, though. I'm not convinced that merely taxing the super-rich and giving it to people in lower-income brackets is, under any system, a good thing. The main risk is that instead of empowering people (which I think is what desiring a minimum standard of living should be about) you create dependence and a system whereby a lot of people have no immediate incentive to create their own source of income. And it's definitely not the case that our current use of tax money is an efficient and successful means of fighting low-income based dis-empowerment. I'd like to hear more about sensible and honest solutions to the problem of children from lower-income families generally ending up a lot worse than their middle-income peers. The habit of selling the "tax the rich" mantra as a solution to social problems is to me naive and counter-productive.

    By the way, this is not to say I'm against taxing the super-rich. In fact, a system whereby the marginal rate of tax is at least non-decreasing as a function of income is probably most "fair". But that argument isn't being used much here, which adds to my suspicions that people primarily want "taxes for taxes' sake".

    EDIT: on the subject of money creating power (undoubtedly true) - other than influencing the political system, what other "abuses" do you think are accessible through money? Because the political one can be solved by giving the political system less money; in particular, it is not necessarily to cap peoples' income to stop that problem. So I wonder what other problems would also admit a non-capping solution.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Of course taxing the super-rich would help re-distribute more money as more money would be collected. That said it is a good in itself, as too much capital in the hand of fewer people creates a power imbalance.

    I think you need to do a bit more work than that, though. I'm not convinced that merely taxing the super-rich and giving it to people in lower-income brackets is, under any system, a good thing. The main risk is that instead of empowering people (which I think is what desiring a minimum standard of living should be about) you create dependence and a system whereby a lot of people have no immediate incentive to create their own source of income. And it's definitely not the case that our current use of tax money is an efficient and successful means of fighting low-income based dis-empowerment. I'd like to hear more about sensible and honest solutions to the problem of children from lower-income families generally ending up a lot worse than their middle-income peers. The habit of selling the "tax the rich" mantra as a solution to social problems is to me naive and counter-productive.

    By the way, this is not to say I'm against taxing the super-rich. In fact, a system whereby the marginal rate of tax is at least non-decreasing as a function of income is probably most "fair". But that argument isn't being used much here, which adds to my suspicions that people merely want "taxes for taxes' sake".

    You are continuing to invent straw men. I am representing my class interests, if I pay 33% on my income everybody above me should pay that - in theory - which might mean I and they have to pay 25%. This is unrelated to any other thing about the poor, or social welfare . otherwise the tax system is 33% from me, 0.3% from a billionaire. it is the legitimacy of that system which is in question.

    Also the power they have to influence and control democracy. That's what we mentioned so far. The poor are not relevant.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,364 ✭✭✭golden lane


    Once again. He didn't tax dodge. You believe he did because a billionaire owned newspaper told you. In any case Ken is off topic, I mentioned him on passing because he was complaining about house prices in London.

    he was on telly...i don't read newspapers...anyway, yes ken is relevent, to the uk anyway.....he hates people with money and would tax them to oblivion if he could.....people like him should be hidden...forever..


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    I'm not convinced that merely taxing the super-rich and giving it to people in lower-income brackets is, under any system, a good thing. .

    Who said it was?

    American infrastructure has suffered from lack of funding in recent decades and could do with being refurbished - they've also talked about building high-speed rail infrastructure (the US being one of the few highly developed economies not to have it). How about using redistributive taxes to rebuild it?

    Taxes spent in that manner would provide jobs to middle and lower income earners and boost local businesses, make trains in Detroit and rails in steel mills, you can't make concrete in China and ship it to Ohio (at least, I don't think you can).


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,949 ✭✭✭A Primal Nut


    Tombo2001 wrote: »
    Not true, you cant avoid paying the tax on a huge income without having the huge income in the first place. So tax avoidance excarbates the problem, not causes it.

    As regards the former "I dont care about corporate tax"......I dont see how you can take a position on one and not on the other, as the same argument applies to both.

    Ireland has made vast amounts by offerring tax breaks to multinationals. Do you think this should be reversed?

    Multinationals employ people, rich individuals don't.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    I think you need to do a bit more work than that, though. I'm not convinced that merely taxing the super-rich and giving it to people in lower-income brackets is, under any system, a good thing. The main risk is that instead of empowering people (which I think is what desiring a minimum standard of living should be about) you create dependence and a system whereby a lot of people have no immediate incentive to create their own source of income. And it's definitely not the case that our current use of tax money is an efficient and successful means of fighting low-income based dis-empowerment. I'd like to hear more about sensible and honest solutions to the problem of children from lower-income families generally ending up a lot worse than their middle-income peers. The habit of selling the "tax the rich" mantra as a solution to social problems is to me naive and counter-productive.

    By the way, this is not to say I'm against taxing the super-rich. In fact, a system whereby the marginal rate of tax is at least non-decreasing as a function of income is probably most "fair". But that argument isn't being used much here, which adds to my suspicions that people primarily want "taxes for taxes' sake".

    EDIT: on the subject of money creating power (undoubtedly true) - other than influencing the political system, what other "abuses" do you think are accessible through money? Because the political one can be solved by giving the political system less money; in particular, it is not necessarily to cap peoples' income to stop that problem. So I wonder what other problems would also admit a non-capping solution.
    One of the major problems (which others have pointed out earlier), is that even by the standards of our current system, with the tax brackets in the configuration that they are, the wealthy are able to use their means to avoid paying their share of the taxes, and this is legalized through 'technicalities' i.e. loopholes.

    These earners are not living up to their side of the social contract, and it doesn't matter if they disagree with that contract or the current systems of government, it is what we have now and it should be followed.

    None of that is about lesser earners becoming dependent, or disincentivising work (lets remember also, that in todays world it's highest earners who provide the least return to society, in proportion to their earnings), it is about following the rules and social agreements already set down.


    As I touched on above, many of the heaviest earners, gain their income far out of proportion to what they provide to society, and (particularly in finance) often on the back of fraud, as well as 'legalized' fraud and other unethical means (partly brought about through monetary control over politics); I don't know if I agree with a wage cap, but I do think that using it to curb the worst excesses of this will help reduce income stratification in the current broken system, even if I may not support the same measures in a less corrupt political/financial/etc. system.

    Whatever ideal political system I or anyone else would desire, the transition has to start within the current broken system, and to do that the power and inequality brought about through excessive wealth needs to be seriously curtailed, otherwise whatever political system we end up with will primarily be shaped by their interests.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    That's a rather dramatic if. I'd be interested in hearing a description of the mechanism by which a mass famine would occur in the western world?

    Oh, I've no doubt that its dramatic, and quite unlikely to boot. But impossible? No. Did Hadrian forsee the collapse of his empire within three centuries? Or George III the loss of his colonies? Revolution is always possible, precisely because it is so improbable. Absurd, even.

    A famine could occur if we continue to see irregular weather events (Such as the great American drought, evoking memories of the dust bowl of the 30s), combined with an economic collapse, such as a particularly nasty Euro implosion (IE, the euro ceases trading overnight, every western bank goes into a tailspin, the US is no longer able to pay its debt, China's economic 'miracle' implodes - in reality a cruel facade that will ultimately have its reckoning - plus a major global pandemic of the hollywood variety... If some or all of these events were to occur simultaneously I'm confident that the leisure and political stability we've become accustomed to will quickly seem a distant memory.

    But in reality a famine in the historical sense is very unlikely. Its more likely that a combination of factors make the widespread distribution of food nigh on impossible, leading to several food shortages in major urban areas, sparking mass unrest, thus leading to revolution.

    Or perhaps I've read too many dystopian novels.
    Because, pending such an "apocalypse", there will never be a large scale revolution of the kind you describe. People like Facebook and their iPhones too much. Any kind of revolution will risk the middle-class consumer lifestyle that most western people have become accustomed to.

    I'd like to point out that the idea of revolution terrifies me. I'm a geeky, gentle spirited middle class kid (Though I suppose someone is their mid 20s is technically classified as an adult these days) with a distaste for political extremism of any hue. I cried when I saw Hotel Rwanda. I'd be the first to get lined up in a death camp should a violent revolution break out!


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    I think you need to do a bit more work than that, though. I'm not convinced that merely taxing the super-rich and giving it to people in lower-income brackets is, under any system, a good thing. The main risk is that instead of empowering people (which I think is what desiring a minimum standard of living should be about) you create dependence and a system whereby a lot of people have no immediate incentive to create their own source of income. And it's definitely not the case that our current use of tax money is an efficient and successful means of fighting low-income based dis-empowerment. I'd like to hear more about sensible and honest solutions to the problem of children from lower-income families generally ending up a lot worse than their middle-income peers. The habit of selling the "tax the rich" mantra as a solution to social problems is to me naive and counter-productive.

    By the way, this is not to say I'm against taxing the super-rich. In fact, a system whereby the marginal rate of tax is at least non-decreasing as a function of income is probably most "fair". But that argument isn't being used much here, which adds to my suspicions that people primarily want "taxes for taxes' sake".

    EDIT: on the subject of money creating power (undoubtedly true) - other than influencing the political system, what other "abuses" do you think are accessible through money? Because the political one can be solved by giving the political system less money; in particular, it is not necessarily to cap peoples' income to stop that problem. So I wonder what other problems would also admit a non-capping solution.

    I'm really not convinced of this argument. Most of the criticism of welfarism has emerged in the aftermath of the 1980s economic revolution, which saw widespread deregulation of financial industries and the mushrooming of enormous wealth into fewer hands. Welfare thus subsequently became a cheap trick that governments could use to paper over systemic inequalities in the system they devised. In reality welfare solves nothing. What people lack are the necessities of life, which are created by work. However, work is often low paid, demoralising, and plays a disproportionate role in our lives, leading to higher incidences of mental illness, anguish, and worry for an increasingly strapped lower and middle class.

    The high levels of unemployment seen in most western countries would indicate that there are too few jobs for so many people. The solution, it would seem, would be for more people to work fewer hours, so that more people could avail of the necessities of life, and thus spend greater amounts of personal time indulging in the non material leisure activities that come with reduced emphasis on work as the central purpose of our modern day 'economic units' - i.e, autonomous persons. There comes a point when greater productivity becomes pointless. Spreading employment - i.e., job-sharing, in a technologically advanced society, would lessen many of the mental and economic strains currently holding us back.

    In summation, extracting more wealth from the super-rich, who seem to enjoy hoarding vast amounts in havens and enclaves and delight in allowing such wealth to wallow unproductively, would enable governments to spend more resources on cultural and social programmes designed to alleviate poverty of both the economic and cultural variety.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,452 ✭✭✭Icepick


    You are continuing to invent straw men. I am representing my class interests, if I pay 33% on my income everybody above me should pay that - in theory - which might mean I and they have to pay 25%. This is unrelated to any other thing about the poor, or social welfare . otherwise the tax system is 33% from me, 0.3% from a billionaire. it is the legitimacy of that system which is in question..
    And they still pay much more € than you. So how is it immoral?
    Multinationals employ people, rich individuals don't.
    O RLY?

    Yacht-Crew1.jpg


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    Icepick wrote: »

    Yacht-Crew1.jpg

    I love how they make those poor deluded fookers smile for the camera. There is no dignity in that photo.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,696 ✭✭✭Jonny7


    Denerick wrote: »
    I love how they make those poor deluded fookers smile for the camera. There is no dignity in that photo.

    How can they look themselves in the mirror every morning.. spending their hard-earned paychecks.. in Monaco.. jesus capitalism makes me sick! ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Icepick wrote: »
    And they still pay much more € than you. So how is it immoral?

    The immorality should be obvious to all observers. Imagine it is the middle ages. There are three classes, rich, middling and poor. The poor are the vast majority.

    The rich aristocrats pay no taxes, or 1 percent at most. They earn 1,000 to 100,000 pounds per year.
    The middling gentry earn 100s of pounds per year and pay 5-10% a year.
    The poor earn between 1 pound and 20 pounds per year, the median is 3 pounds, and most are well below 10 pounds per year. It is in the poor class that most of the taxes are collected. The poor earning above 4 pounds or so pay 55% of their income after that.

    This isn't really the middle ages - although the distribution of income was similar to that, the taxation wasn't. It is now. I just divided by 10,000. Putting it in those terms makes it a bit starker. Of course the Rich in those days, born to wealth, would also employ people. So you could use that as an excuse for their non-taxpaying. Apparently.

    The middle ages in fact didn't tax the lower orders, more the middling orders , merchants, inn owners, large farmers etc. Todays business man.

    However, no doubt were the arrangement as above there would have been peasants earning slightly more than the average - say 4, or 5 pounds rather than 1 or 2 - not only accepting the aristocrats can do this, but supporting that they should. After all the top aristocrats who pay 1% are paying more than the better off poor.

    There are precious few billionaires on this thread, and some billionaires are opposed to tax dodging. It is very difficult to explain this, except that where there are wolves, there are sheep.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Icepick wrote: »
    And they still pay much more € than you. So how is it immoral?

    O RLY?

    Yacht-Crew1.jpg

    Ok, multinationals employ vastly more people than the rich, employees who produce mass market goods and services for the rest of us, rather than being a servant class for the rich.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,341 ✭✭✭✭Chucky the tree


    How to do you think multinationals started up? Here's an article about the 10 richest people in the world. The numbers these 10 employ through their companies would be huge.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,452 ✭✭✭Icepick


    The immorality should be obvious to all observers. Imagine it is the middle ages. There are three classes, rich, middling and poor. The poor are the vast majority.

    The rich aristocrats pay no taxes, or 1 percent at most. They earn 1,000 to 100,000 pounds per year.
    The middling gentry earn 100s of pounds per year and pay 5-10% a year.
    The poor earn between 1 pound and 20 pounds per year, the median is 3 pounds, and most are well below 10 pounds per year. It is in the poor class that most of the taxes are collected. The poor earning above 4 pounds or so pay 55% of their income after that.

    This isn't really the middle ages - although the distribution of income was similar to that, the taxation wasn't. It is now. I just divided by 10,000. Putting it in those terms makes it a bit starker. Of course the Rich in those days, born to wealth, would also employ people. So you could use that as an excuse for their non-taxpaying. Apparently.

    The middle ages in fact didn't tax the lower orders, more the middling orders , merchants, inn owners, large farmers etc. Todays business man.

    However, no doubt were the arrangement as above there would have been peasants earning slightly more than the average - say 4, or 5 pounds rather than 1 or 2 - not only accepting the aristocrats can do this, but supporting that they should. After all the top aristocrats who pay 1% are paying more than the better off poor.

    There are precious few billionaires on this thread, and some billionaires are opposed to tax dodging. It is very difficult to explain this, except that where there are wolves, there are sheep.
    So back to my question, how is paying much more in taxes than you and almost everybody else immoral?

    To give you an example, calling ordinary people with honest jobs 'a servant class' is immoral.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    If you work for someone on his private yacht you are his servant.

    I've already answered your question - the immorality is in the percentage. In the middle ages example I gave a tax of 1% on an aristocrat woulg generate more income than a tax of 55% on any one of his peasants. That's what I am saying is immoral - the difference in the percentage take. Not least because it increases the take from the middle.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    There's a difference between a super rich person creating work in their gardens and boats and a business like Intel or large infrastructure projects creating jobs, careers, expertise, technological advancement etc.

    Trying to compare the two is laughable.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,696 ✭✭✭Jonny7


    If you work for someone on his private yacht you are his servant.

    Have you just built a time travel machine and come from another era or something?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Jonny7 wrote: »
    Have you just built a time travel machine and come from another era or something?

    What in God's name is the difference from working on a guys yacht with other employees tending to the need's of one person or family, and working in a 19th century Big House?

    I dont think the differences between now and the Victorian ages are all that great in terms of relative wealth, partly due to the ideologies of the libertarians on this thread.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,452 ✭✭✭Icepick


    What in God's name is the difference from working on a guys yacht with other employees tending to the need's of one person or family, and working in a 19th century Big House?
    By your logic, everyone with a boss is a servant, which makes the word meaningless.
    I dont think the differences between now and the Victorian ages are all that great in terms of relative wealth
    :D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Icepick wrote: »
    By your logic, everyone with a boss is a servant, which makes the word meaningless.

    This is offtopic, but I will bother one last time. Its simple. When I work for a boss who is a manager we are both serving the company neither of us own. Even if it is his company, we are both working for the company. Thats the employer in law.

    When you work for one man, on his own yacht, fixing his food, or making his bed etc. then you are his servant. It is NO DIFFERENT working for a super rich billionaire on his yacht than a 19th century Big House, and I an sorry to break it to you mate, these billionaires have servants on the yachts and in their big houses. Do you think that Ambronovich doesn't have a cook?

    :D

    A smiley is hardly an argument.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Okey lets just get this one other fallacy out of the way for good:
    High earners (the super wealthy) do not create more jobs than they take away.

    Money (we are talking millions, billions and up to tens of billions depending on the person) that stays in the economy, or that stays in a business, gets spent employing people and on assets that create indirect employment.

    Money (the millions/billions/tens-of-billions) that gets siphoned out of the economy into a rich persons bank account (in the Cayman islands or wherever), sits there and does not get spent employing people; that rich person may spend a tiny portion of his money to employ his luxury yacht grew, but it is nowhere near the amount of employment that is provided by that money staying in the economy.

    It has been well demonstrated by others, with the relevant stats, that wealthy people hoard their money and do not spend nearly as high a percentage of their income as middle/lower class earners.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 564 ✭✭✭thecommietommy


    Contrary to the barrage of propaganda cutbacks are not an inevitability arising from the fact that Ireland is broke. The richest 300 people in Ireland alone have a combined wealth of €57 billion, an increase of €6.7 billion in the last year. A simple act of introducing an emergency wealth tax of 10% would raise €5.7 billion, more than one and a half times the amount of austerity that which is to be introduced in next month’s budget.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    Contrary to the barrage of propaganda cutbacks are not an inevitability arising from the fact that Ireland is broke. The richest 300 people in Ireland alone have a combined wealth of €57 billion, an increase of €6.7 billion in the last year. A simple act of introducing an emergency wealth tax of 10% would raise €5.7 billion, more than one and a half times the amount of austerity that which is to be introduced in next month’s budget.

    The problem with this policy being that the wealthy will simply leave and/or move their wealth elsewhere, thus exacerbating the problem of tax havens and enclaves.

    A global solution is needed to apply pressure to international tax havens and close them down, and dealt with accordingly. Whether this could possibly happen in the present global economic and political order is doubtful, thus strengthening my pessimism.




  • A communist system has a centre of power, capitalism doesn't.

    I don't think that's true. Capitalism relies on the state to prop it up.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    I don't think that's true. Capitalism relies on the state to prop it up.

    So you are going to get rid of the State to endanger Capitalism? Thats worth joining the libertatian party for....

    The State can help capitalism - in fact I am a supporter of State Capitalism - but you cant get rid of the market by getting rid of the state. Or even using the state to ban markets. Think drugs.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,696 ✭✭✭Jonny7


    What in God's name is the difference from working on a guys yacht with other employees tending to the need's of one person or family, and working in a 19th century Big House?

    They are employee's.. just like everyone else.

    Why would you single them out as servants? in that case most of us are "servants".

    Whether a pilot works for an airline or a private individual, they are still an employee regardless. I wouldn't be so quick to scoff at them :)

    Anyway, back to the super-rich. Due to the nature of capitalism in its many forms, its pretty unavoidable that we have a very wealthy class, it's part and parcel really - it's just up to government, economists, society how much we want to tax the super-wealthy. Too much and they bugger off somewhere else which will very gladly take them.. too little and the public coffers suffer.

    As others have mentioned.. the simple way of looking at it is the corporate tax model in Ireland - low corporation tax - we attract more business.. which provides more benefits than the lower relative net tax income.


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