Capitalism is criticized a lot on here (especially by American users, it seems to me). Most of that seems well-founded, but I also have the feeling that most of these complaints are simply venting and not the first step to improvement.
So I would like to know what specific changes you (especially Americans) want to see from lawmakers.
So, capitalism is itself defined more than one way depending on who’s talking, and I only have a problem with some versions of it:
In the sense that certain people get to just own stuff, while others have to work, I’d say capping wealth at like 7 digits would be a simple solution. You can save up a few million across a high-earning but normal career, but nobody makes it to 8 unless they’re a bigshot. Over time random social mobility should hopefully smooth out the remainder of class distinctions. If not, maybe 6 digits, although some dentists are going to be pissed.
In the sense that we organise our economy around profit motive and competition, I don’t have an issue with it because it seems to work well. If you need to buy something, there’s always somebody selling it and vice-verse. If you look at history, or at the crazy supply chains that exist to facilitate that, it’s quite an achievement.
In the sense that people privately own the means of production, there’s a bit of a trick deciding what the means of production even are. A foundry definitely counts, and a toothbrush definitely doesn’t, but what about a van, which you could use personally or to transport people? You could licence them separately depending on use, but then you couldn’t work as a “rideshare” even if there was a major shortage of taxis, which is dumb red tape. It’s far more productive to talk about things in terms of their market value rather than getting any more granular, which is why the law usually does that.
This comment really speaks to how I feel.
In addition to flattening the wealth curve on the high end, I think the first change I would want is to increase the federal minimum wage. For decades wages have been stagnant while cost-of-living has grown which has led to mass economic insecurity. I think a lot of current political tension is a direct result. That makes it difficult to cooperate to implement policies that would help people.
Basic income - probably at right where our minimum wage is now - would be my solution to the poverty at the other end. Honestly that’s more important, but it didn’t really fit into the format of my post so well.
Some other assorted economic policies on my wish list: Publicly-funded elections, the end of restrictive residential zoning, bigger carbon taxes right around the social cost, very open economic immigration policy, a government sponsored system for opening up intellectual property, and maybe some sort of single-payer law system because it’s a bit shit you can buy justice sometimes.
A lot of people would call me a communist for this. Communists are currently telling me I’m an idiot in another thread. Thankfully we live in an open society where I can just do my own thing and it doesn’t matter.
This is way messier than you’ve even begun to imagine. Firstly, you’ve just caused anyone with more liquid money than that to pull their money out of American banks and drop it in Canada, which will gladly take the massive flow of new capital. Secondly, “wealth” consists of a lot more than liquid cash, and isn’t even determined by you - but rather by what other people would pay for your stuff, which changes all the time. Essentially every single plot of land in Manhattan and many other major American cities is worth more than $9,999,999, so what happens to that? If your answer is the government must seize it, then per the Constitution, this must be strongly justified and fully compensated, so now you have the government suddenly buying a massive chunk of incredibly valuable land and you’ll need to greatly expand the civil service to administer it. Government-owned lands are also exempt from property tax, so you’ve just blown a giant hole in every government budged. Beyond land, you also have the issue of ownership in companies. As you of course know, a business does not determine its own stock price; that’s determined by what other people think it’s worth. If a new company is founded, funded by investors, creates hundreds of jobs, and the value of some stakeholder’s shares pokes past $10 million, what exactly are you proposing should happen? Do we just pretend that the value stopped rising? Does the government seize the excess shares? Are the stakeholders forced to sell? How do you handle the massive decline in market investment that this would cause, not to say the total collapse in capital gains tax income?
I’m not saying that these are impossible ideas, but the economy is complicated, and simple sounding solutions like “just cap wealth!” are much much more complex than they sound.
Alright, so my apologies for the wall of text, but I’d argue it’s a credit to you that you gave me this much to respond to.
To be clear, I’m Canadian. And yeah, the policy would have to be billed based on wealth as of a year ago or something so capital flight couldn’t happen. Capital flight is also why I think less severe wealth taxes are a bad idea.
Sure, and assessing stuff for tax, insurance or collateral purposes is famously prone to fuckery - just look at notable court cases going on right now. We make do as a civilisation, though.
They would have to be owned by multiple shareholders. I bet many already are.
Basically, they get the difference on their tax bill, and it’s their prerogative how they cover it. They probably would have to sell.
Maybe they could get some sort of special recognition or ceremony for “winning capitalism”.
Government budgets would need heavy adjustment to accommodate this and several other policies I advocate for. Income taxes work the best, I’d chuck most of the other ones including capital gains and corporate. As for market investment, people who hold less total wealth than that account for most of the shares owned by natural persons, I’m pretty sure, so the transition won’t be too chaotic.
These are all good points, nationality aside, but I’m a nerd and I have thought about them. Unfortunately, I’m also a nobody so it doesn’t really matter, but it’s nice to be able to say I have something constructive to add when a person like OP asks about it. When it comes to real life activism I focus most on basic income, because the poor end of class bites much harder.