I used to think this would be sufficient as well but as you’ve probably noticed it’s damned near impossible to get our “democratic” governments to even consider something like this since they have been so thoroughly captured by the wealthy elite. You don’t have to call it revolution or socialism if those are scary words or just don’t seem possible but somehow we have to overcome that reality and I don’t see how it can be done without dispossessing these elites of their power so we can dispossess them of their wealth.
I feel like perhaps a slightly easier first step would be to push for a cap that is higher than anybody’s wealth (say £100B) — so that the debate is initially only about the principle — and only then demand it be lowered. 1) salami slicing works, and 2) even just the fact of there being one (albeit unreachable) would imo do a lot psychologically.
And while we’re at it, another pet policy of mine is a tax that starts at 0 and approaches 100% as your income approaches infinity. Then you’d just play with the steepness of the curve. You’d still have the problem of pre-existing hoardrd wealth though.
Also the astronomical additions to the govt budget from all this would prob lead to equally astronomical embezzlement, rendering the whole limit ineffective. So another, prob more decentralized, mechanism of redistribution would need to be devised first.
Imho a hard cap on personal wealth would be sufficient.
I used to think this would be sufficient as well but as you’ve probably noticed it’s damned near impossible to get our “democratic” governments to even consider something like this since they have been so thoroughly captured by the wealthy elite. You don’t have to call it revolution or socialism if those are scary words or just don’t seem possible but somehow we have to overcome that reality and I don’t see how it can be done without dispossessing these elites of their power so we can dispossess them of their wealth.
I feel like perhaps a slightly easier first step would be to push for a cap that is higher than anybody’s wealth (say £100B) — so that the debate is initially only about the principle — and only then demand it be lowered. 1) salami slicing works, and 2) even just the fact of there being one (albeit unreachable) would imo do a lot psychologically.
And while we’re at it, another pet policy of mine is a tax that starts at 0 and approaches 100% as your income approaches infinity. Then you’d just play with the steepness of the curve. You’d still have the problem of pre-existing hoardrd wealth though.
Also the astronomical additions to the govt budget from all this would prob lead to equally astronomical embezzlement, rendering the whole limit ineffective. So another, prob more decentralized, mechanism of redistribution would need to be devised first.