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Comment by j7ake | Hacker News Reader

What coercive mechanism made people buy JK Rowlings books, and made her a billionaire?

Who did JK Rowling exploit to funnel so much of those book sales towards herself?

If someone buys a Harry Potter book, is she not entitled to a portion of the money?

In winner take all dynamics, like what books parents buy for their kids, a person can easily earn 1000 times more than the average person by doing a similar amount of work.

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Above a certain level I could certainly get behind saying no she's not entitled to it. 100% marginal tax rates above $10 million in annual earnings seem perfectly reasonable to me.

That won’t stop her from being a billionaire. She could have ownership of a company that would make her net worth orders of magnitude higher than any earnings cap.

You cannot put a cap on a company’s worth, because it’s a guess.

They can decide to nationalise those companies as well, but then she could take her skills to another country. Then that country loses all of her earnings for sure.

The other way to stop her from being filthy rich would be to make people stop liking her books. Which at this point one should ask how much damage one is willing to do to stop a person from being rich.

Didn't say anything about taking all their money. Just making sure they actually pay the taxes and not avoid that in million ways they have, both for themselves and for their corporations. Majority of government tax income should come from corporate, not individuals.

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