Comment by betterunix | Hacker News Reader

Comment by betterunix | Hacker News Reader

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"People should keep their money (earned by trading time from their lives)"

What about people born into wealth, who inherited the money their parents or grandparents earned by doing something useful for society? Where do they fit into your picture?

On the flip side, what about people who cannot find any job that pays enough for them to save money, who are literally living paycheck to paycheck. Do you want to live in a society where we have a class of people who have no social mobility at all, and who lack the power needed to change anything about that?

Ayn Rand's image of the heroic capitalist who amasses a fortune by solving society's problems is very unrealistic. Even people like Mike Bloomberg and Bill Gates, billionaires whose fortunes were amassed as a result of their own work, received help early on. Who do you think paid for Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg to go to Harvard, where they met the people that worked with them to build their businesses?

> What about people born into wealth, who inherited the money their parents or grandparents earned by doing something useful for society?

There isn't really any difference. The parents kept the money they earned, and (quite rationally) chose to spend it on giving the children an economic advantage (that the children, more often than not, could not have earned for themselves.) To tax the children is to tax the parents.

"The parents kept the money they earned, and (quite rationally) chose to spend it on giving the children an economic advantage (that the children, more often than not, could not have earned for themselves.)"

So the children, who could not have earned that money themselves, should get it anyway? Why are they particularly special -- why not redistribute money to other people who have trouble earning their way? Why does the fact that you are someone's descendant someone exempt you from having to earn your way just like everyone else?

That depends whether you agree with the parents having the choice of how the money they earned is used. My point is that if we take the money from the children on the grounds that they do not deserve it, we implicitly deny the parents that choice. Which may be what you want. But if you do give them the choice of how to spend what they earn, you must accept that they may choose to spend it on people (or charities, or products etc.) that you consider undeserving.

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