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Comment by nicoburns | Hacker News Reader

> Do you actually believe that if your taxes went up, power would be less concentrated, or that you or your countrymen would have more power?

Absolutely. The source of most of the corruption I see in the world today is wealth, and specifically wealthy people paying people off to get their own way. If there was less wealth inequality there'd be much less scope for this.

Note: I believe this would be the case even if the money was literally burnt/disappeated rather than being given to the government (not that I suggest that's what we do).

Politics has it's fair share of corruption too. But at least in my country (the UK) it's the lesser evil. And even if you look at a country like the US where there is a lot more political corruption, the source of a lot of that seems to be private money influencing elections.

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Every marginal dollar* taxed is a dollar politicians don't have to scrounge from a wealthy donor, in order to get that politician's pet interests achieved. You are saying MORE taxation means less wealthy donor influence on private citizens. And parent is saying LESS taxation means less policy influence on private citizens.

Here's what I say: how about both? Or neither? I think the scope of the problem is defined too narrowly so far in this particular thread.

*Or say, 10 dollars, since a donor's dollar is leveraged

why assume extra marginal dollars arriving via taxes correspond to less wealthy donor courting, though?

>Every marginal dollar* taxed is a dollar politicians don't have to scrounge from a wealthy donor, in order to get that politician's pet interests achieved.

You fundamentally misunderstand the relationship.

The donors donate because the politician will then direct more money at the donors interests.

I spend $1mil on lobbying, $1mil on bunk science at labs I fund or astro turf'd grass roots support (something the government can point to to justify their action), $1mil on donations I get a preferential change in law or rule, or perhaps even government investment in my industry, that lets my business make billions, bringing back say $6mil in profit to me personally. Repeat for all my other business activities.

Politician, political appointees and regulatory agencies pet interests only matter insofar as I get better value for my money by choose one who's interests align.

If you're getting back $6 million, just spend $1 million each on both candidates so it doesn't matter which one wins.

Now I'm starting to understand why the US seems to end up funding both sides of every conflict in the Mideast

> Note: I believe this would be the case even if the money was literally burnt/disappeated rather than being given to the government

No need to literally burn the money, either: just use the entirety of that increased tax revenue on paying down the national debt, and lower the debt ceiling by the exact same amount so it can't go back up. This is an even better deal if you think "interest rates are too high, the Fed should cut a lot more". It all fits. And we managed this throughout the 1990s.

Burning money might actually be a legitimate thing to do since it causes deflation as far as I can understand

Deflation is a very bad thing...

Of course it is. Things getting cheaper is really bad for the economy.

That's why computers never became an industry, they just kept getting cheaper every year so nobody bought them. If only computing power had kept getting more expensive every year, we might have some kind of tech industry!

A single (luxury) sector getting cheaper is not the same thing as generalized deflation

Computers are not a luxury sector, they're practically built into every device because they're so cheap.

They're also hardly a single sector. What does growth look like if you remove tech stocks?

In the traditional / academic sense of the word, it _is_ deflation. The repurposing of inflation/deflation to refer to consumer price action is much more recent.

Is there a strong correlation between higher taxes and decreasing wealth inequality?

The one part of your comment with which I certainly agree is:

> Note: I believe this would be the case even if the money was literally burnt/disappeated rather than being given to the government (not that I suggest that's what we do).

...except, I am perhaps prepared to suggest actually implementing such a system, at least as an experiment.

Removing spending power from places where it's concentrated seems to have obvious benefits, but giving it to the state (the entity in which political power is maximally concentrated, at least with respect to the legitimate initiation of violence) seems like it's moving the power dynamic in the wrong direction.

> Is there a strong correlation between higher taxes and decreasing wealth inequality?

A sufficiently strong progressive taxation regime would obviously have this effect, assuming you could actually enforce it. For example, if you taxed 99% of earnings above $10 million that would greatly reduce the wealth of the ultra-wealthy, even without taking into account how that money was redistributed.

That's obviously an extreme, and I'm not suggesting we do exactly that. But 80% tax rates were common as recently as the late 20th century, and coincidentally there were much lower rates of wealth inequality during this time.

Well I think we all understand the basic arithmetic; that's not what's in dispute.

The question is,

> even without taking into account how that money was redistributed.

...if you're taking money from people earning $11 million, and giving it instead of the military and prison industrial complexes, obviously you've concentrated, rather than diluting power.

I think there's a real question about how possible it is for a taxation regime to ever have a progressive effect inside the belly of empire.

> The source of most of the corruption I see in the world today is wealth, and specifically wealthy people paying people off to get their own way

This is so wrong, its not expensive to bribe politicians so higher taxes wouldn't stop this at all. The problem is that its possible to bribe politicians, meaning government has too much power, taxes would make that worse not better. And even more important most bribes doesn't come from individuals, it comes from super PACs and corporations, and those would exist regardless how much you tax rich people.

What you need is a less centralized government so its harder to bribe a few key people to get what you want, and a more direct democracy that can eliminate politicians that takes bribes.

When voters can't punish bad politicians since the incumbents has so much power to draw voting lines and decide who is on the ballots then corruption will always escalate out of control.

If the government doesn't have enough power, the wealthy won't need to bribe politicians to do their bidding. They will do their own bidding directly, and there will be nobody to stop them.

It's like, if you want to sell your cyanide penis pills under big government, you need to bribe someone. If you want to sell them under small government, you just... you just sell them, that's what.

There may be ways to design a government where power is better distributed, e.g. using sortition, but ultimately it needs to be richer and more powerful than its wealthiest citizens, otherwise these wealthy citizens will assess, correctly, that when push comes to shove, the laws won't apply to them, and they do not need the government's permission to do what they want.

Even a small government still has courts, in fact they would be a far more sizeable fraction of the government and thus a lot more effective. So if people like Epstein engage in criminal behavior, or even just unlawful behavior that they would be liable for, they can definitely be held accountable.

Courts are only a remedy if you're breathing. If the cyanide penis pills kill you and your family then who is left to file suit?

What stops me, a multibillionaire, from hiring someone to shoot the small government judge in the head?

But suppose you have egalitarian nation N -- what stops the billionaire from non-egalitarian nation B from influencing your politicians? Especially if nation N is small and nation B is large.

Moreover -- why would low-level elites (think: entrepreneurs, small business owners, etc.) stay in nation N if it was more profitable to do business in nation B -- recall this is precisely the type of person that is often most mobile and internationalized.

> Politics has it's fair share of corruption too. But at least in my country (the UK) it's the lesser evil.

Is this a widespread view where you live? As an outsider watching the fall of Britain in slow motion, this explains so much.

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