In the US it stops at ~35. Lets go all the way to 100%.
> Then that hundred million dollars collects interest every year going forward.
The progressive capital gains taxes also need to go up to 100%.
>Corporations have more money than any individual, but the largest ones are publicly traded, so that would still be the case even if no individual shareholder had a lot of wealth. Because the corporation would, and its executives would thereby be in control of those resources and use them to capture the government.
That is why we have monopoly laws. The point isn't that corporations should not accumulate wealth, the point is that the state should not have a rival in terms of power.
>Why is it that the largest corporations and most corrupt organizations are the ones asking for regulations?
Sure, they want regulations that build a moat, they don't want regulations that reduce their wealth. I'm talking about the latter.
>What you need is to constrain the legislators from passing those laws to begin with, regardless of whether they start off at the behest of a billionaire or a trade organization or just the Senator's brother-in-law.
Yes, and campaign finance reform would reduce some of this donor/lobby culture. Fixed amount of ad-spend per candidate, no PACs, etc.
> In the US it stops at ~35. Lets go all the way to 100%.
What do you think the result of that would be? Anyone who can provide value to someone else in that tax bracket couldn't be paid for it, so they'd arrange to be compensated in some other way.
The most likely way is favors. That is not likely to reduce corruption.
> The progressive capital gains taxes also need to go up to 100%.
So now you're doing one of two things. If unrealized capital gains aren't taxed until the shares are sold (as is the case now), nobody would ever sell, because all of the money would be taken as tax. If they are, you have all the problems with trying to value a capital asset which is not being traded, and on top of that then people would establish their companies as a non-profit (since they can't keep the profits anyway) and we're back to compensation as favors.
> That is why we have monopoly laws.
But how do you enforce them once there is an incumbent monopolist using its power to corrupt the system? That is the problem already, you need some solution to it.
> The point isn't that corporations should not accumulate wealth, the point is that the state should not have a rival in terms of power.
That seems like a bad thing. Then what is the check on the state if it becomes authoritarian? All concentrated power is bad, not just corporations.
> Sure, they want regulations that build a moat, they don't want regulations that reduce their wealth. I'm talking about the latter.
They're more than willing to pay their lawyers to draft something which claims to be the latter and is actually the former. That is how the majority of such regulations are enacted. They don't call it the "reduce competition in telecommunications act" now do they?
> Yes, and campaign finance reform would reduce some of this donor/lobby culture. Fixed amount of ad-spend per candidate, no PACs, etc.
This was never really the problem. The reason politicians are beholden to Google or Apple isn't just that the company buys ads, it's that the company buys ad networks, and YouTube, and chooses which apps to evict which controls what constituents see and hear. A corporation can spend money lobbying but it can just as well spend money buying a major media outlet or social media site.
What you need to do is constrain the government from having the power to pass laws that constrain competition. Because otherwise they will. Politicians will never be angels, the best they can be is the subjects of the people instead of their rulers.
In the US it stops at ~35. Lets go all the way to 100%.
> Then that hundred million dollars collects interest every year going forward.
The progressive capital gains taxes also need to go up to 100%.
>Corporations have more money than any individual, but the largest ones are publicly traded, so that would still be the case even if no individual shareholder had a lot of wealth. Because the corporation would, and its executives would thereby be in control of those resources and use them to capture the government.
That is why we have monopoly laws. The point isn't that corporations should not accumulate wealth, the point is that the state should not have a rival in terms of power.
>Why is it that the largest corporations and most corrupt organizations are the ones asking for regulations?
Sure, they want regulations that build a moat, they don't want regulations that reduce their wealth. I'm talking about the latter.
>What you need is to constrain the legislators from passing those laws to begin with, regardless of whether they start off at the behest of a billionaire or a trade organization or just the Senator's brother-in-law.
Yes, and campaign finance reform would reduce some of this donor/lobby culture. Fixed amount of ad-spend per candidate, no PACs, etc.