Institutionalized theft isn't an acceptable solution. Such class jealousy does not, historically, end well.
No one who has wealth created it by themselves. You don't print your own money, you don't extract wealth from a vaccum. Wealth is built by extracting that wealth from a shared economy. Asking those who were able to extract the most wealth to help the most in paying to protect this shared system, and help those who were exploited by it, is not theft.
You are being intellectually dishonest. I would not be surprised if deliberately so.
I create wealth by pure thought. Sure that sounds stupid to some, but it's quite true: with about a thousand dollars' worth of borrowed equipment, I sit here writing software to do things useful to my employer. I am not "extracting wealth", I am creating it, organizing electron flows to do things useful to clients, things they are willing to pay for whereby both of us (client & developer) benefit. It is my right to write software, my client's right to use that software, and our right to work out an exchange of representations of wealth. The only "extraction" happens by contracting the exchange of one thing/service for another, facilitated by the abstraction of currency; this creates more wealth in the system, leaving both in a better place than they would be otherwise.
My country's government was created to facilitate the exercise of rights by delegating limited powers to government. Insofar as the "shared system" goes, taxation exists to fund those limited powers, and arguably provide a minimal safety net to the truly destitute (insofar as charity is unable to). Beyond that, ownership is a respected & protected right, and the economy functions by people creating things to own (wealth) and exchanging representations of that wealth (money).
What you & other "wealth inequality" agitators "ask" for is theft, insofar as it demands - under threat of violence by those unrelated to that wealth - those who create or negotiate more wealth than others must, with no objective basis in ownership & contract, give to those who have done nothing for it.
I understand what we have is not a perfect system; that imperfection is a consequence of what some deem "original sin" (adjust terminology as your values see fit to match the point). Bad as it may be, it is better than any other system wherein one group extorts wealth from others without agreement or moral right thereto. Just because one manages to leverage opportunity better than others does not mean those others can "rectify" the situation by saying "we outnumber you, we've decided what you own belongs to us, and if you don't hand it over we'll do horrible things to you."
Yes, progressive taxation is institutionalized theft. Taxation should fund the costs of government carrying out limited powers to facilitate rights as delegated by the national constitution; insofar as income taxation is the current method, it should be blind (as justice should be). The counterpart to your notion that the wealthy exploit the system, is that the wealth pump the system too: their wealth is not squirreled away out of reach of the shared economy, it is rammed right back in thru investments, creation of markets for luxury goods, and prolific charity; the evil you impute is at minimum balanced by the good it creates. Every dollar should be taxed equally, as (on the whole) those who acquire more income do much in the shared economy with it. Insofar as sheer poverty fits in, I'll acquiesce to deducting a minimum income; if you're better off than objectively poor, you can do your fair share too.
Those agitating about "wealth inequality" always fail to objectively address the charity which the rich give to. Just because someone isn't giving money via taxation doesn't mean they're not doing tremendous good; confiscating more by taxation reduces what they can and do give by other ways.
And, just to hammer the point home yet another way (however palatable it may or not be): in a well-armed population, "majority rules" is not sufficient grounds for confiscation. There are a LOT of people prepared to fight back against the self-appointed redistributors of wealth. They know the consequences, so don't want to go there, but will if it comes to that.
TL;DR:
It's.
Not.
Yours.
Considering most of what you post is full of insults and attacks on people who have moral views which differ from yours in good faith, I would suggest you start at home with this advice. "I think the poors should stay poor because they're worthless while I create wealth, and I'm prepared to shoot anyone who tries to implement a contrary policy, be warned" is not a reasoned debate.
And yes there are lines which, when crossed with threat of force, will be met with force.
This is a very old argument, but the economy is not a zero-sum game.
This is wrong. First wealth is not extracted from people...it is created from a voluntary exchange. Think about why people handed over money to the "wealthy" in the first place. It was in exchange for a good or service that made that person wealthy where wealth is defined by being better off than they were before. Money is just a unit of exchange that we use to move wealth around. Following this logic the wealthy have already paid their dues so to speak by making other people more wealthy.
Again they do not EXTRACT wealth, they GENERATE wealth for their customers. People with a ton of money should be applauded for delivering so much wealth to society not vilified as if they stole it from them.
I think you may be trying to point out that the inheritance isnt deserved because the receiver didnt create the wealth. I see inheritances as how the rich choose to spend their money. Some give it to charity, some give it to their kids (which could be a form of charity), some spend it frivolously. Doenst change the fact that the money was generated by creating wealth in the first place.
Wow, so simplistic. Answer this, then: Why are poor people poor?
So for the simple economic answer: Poor people are poor because they consume more wealth than they create (or at least break even).
Again as to not offend, I fully understand that economic well-being is still dependent on circumstance to a degree that needs to be addressed. But this fact does not change the economic answer to why poor people are poor.
Or would be if it were original.
That is already what happens. e.g. the top 10% by income already contribute >70% of the total federal income tax revenue.
Which would be meaningful, if "federal income tax" was the only federal tax, or even the only federal tax on income.
The Nordic countries of the 19th century looked much different, and much worse. Huge income inequality, entrenched aristocracy, terrible living conditions for the urban working class, etc.
The figure that nets these out is the "net international investment position", which subtracts liabilities from assets. The Scandinavian countries have very good positions here. Denmark's NIIP is +27% of GDP, versus the U.S.'s -17%.
The Scandinavian countries have high debt positions basically because they are advanced (i.e. highly financialized) economies with good credit ratings, so make a lot of use of cheap bonds. Same reason Apple issued a bunch of bonds last year despite their huge cash pile. Due to some quirks at the moment Denmark is actually making money on their bonds, as they are issued at negative interest rates— there has been an influx of EUR into DKK due to fears over the EUR, and to discourage that influx (to protect its pegged exchange rate) Denmark is offering negative rates...
This is in addition to mjn's sibling post noting why "external debt" may not be the right thing to be concerned about to start with.
The very title "Atlas Shrugged" exemplifies the mistake. Your typical "Atlas" in modern society does not look like this: http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131015180238/monster.... He looks like this: http://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Lloyd-Blank....
The rich do not pay taxes to keep the masses from using violence upon them. They do it so the masses will suppress the "men of war" that would otherwise dominate them. In reality, John Galt is not in charge once he shrugs off the yoke of society. Instead, men skilled in violence and war take advantage of that power vacuum and subjugate him, and he works to serve them. This state of affairs is not unprecedented. You only have to look back to Europe during feudal times to see it in operation. The technologists of that time didn't run the world. Barons and Earls and other military men ran the world. The technologists served the military class.
Historical precedents are not, historically, very useful.
Lots of things that worked at some point in time for some country (e.g a revolution) failed at other points in time for some other country and vice versa.
Each era has unique factors -- from technology to culture. You cannot make assumptions based on what happenned in this or that case 50 or 1000 years ago.
Plus, the notion of "institutionalized theft" is politically charged itself. Whole lotta assumptions there ("those who have lots of wealth deserve it", "they got it all by themselves", "society is better off if they don't be made to share it", etc).
How about inequality being "institutionalized theft" and redistribution being "justice"?
By those in power, now and in the past.
>In a society of voluntary contracts, those who have lots of wealth DO deserve it
For one, the form and reach of those "voluntary contracts" were made with no direct involvement from the population. Were you consulted when you grew up on how they'd be, apart from voting every 4 years or so?
Do the grandchildren of an industrial robber barron, "DO deserve" the money they inherited?
How about all the families that got rich by exploiting slaves? Do their descendants deserve their higher status in society they enjoy?
How about people with large real estate? How exactly Native American territories become the property of some real estate tycoons back in the day (and are passed forward now)?
Just because the law accepts a transition from then to now, doesn't mean the "deserve" question is settled.
>"Society" is a mythical being: it has no right to forcibly steal from some more wealthy individuals.
Well, society is the people. Nothing mythical about it. It's the origins of property that are mythical, as land and resources start off as free for all.
Rather, it's a social contract that allows the wealthy individuals to be wealthy. There's no "right" in that (except if you believe in God given rights), just what is deemed acceptable. That's something that can be reversed at any time, as the kings in France found out.
In modern society, we have many brothers who we've never met, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be helping them prosper.