Comment by RivieraKid | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RivieraKid | Hacker News Reader

If the level of wealth redistribution via taxes was higher, than the average member of the society would be better off, that's almost for certain. Reasons for that:

- Let's say A earns $1000 day and B earns $20/day. If A was force to give $20 of his earnings to B, this 2-person society would be better of. Because the standard of living of A would decrease slightly but the standard of living of B would increase significantly.

- There's a rich get richer and poor get poorer effect.

- Lot of wealth gain is a result of pure luck. Wealth redistribution serves like an insurance policy. Examples: bitcoin mining, finding a gold mine.

(Of course, there are lots of negative effect of wealth redistributin. What I'm saying is that the optimal level of w. r. is higher than the current level.)

But - while I know that the society would be better off, as a developer I would be worse off, so to be honest, I'm not really in favor of higher taxes.

+1 for being honest. Nobody likes taxes, I don't either. But you are right: Taxes that increase with income have positive effects on society itself. We had one of the most well balanced societies in the world, as I think, because we have (or better: had) a taxation system that favored little incomes. Since our system changed in favor to the rich, our society begins to erode.

The countries with the luckiest people in Europe are those with the highest taxation. The reason is, that a brought middle-class of people exist.

You could really say, that taxation (that increases with income) is good for society, since differences are leveled out and middle-class is more likely to establish.

Does your "average member of society" creates any wealth, or just sits there waiting for the redistribution he is entitled to to arrive?

Take the wealth created by the society, divide by number of members. If it's more than zero, then yes, the average member of society creates wealth.

There is no "wealth created by the society". Society as a whole does not create wealth, it's individual members do.

Ok, so sum the individual contributions and divide by number of individuals.

> Society as a whole does not create wealth, it's individual members do.

I disagree, but perhaps you have a different definition of wealth.

"Ok, so sum the individual contributions and divide by number of individuals." - why would you ever do that?

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