Yeah, except for the fact that there’s no one bbs “to rule them all”. The power these platforms have mean they’re up there in terms of influence of govt.
As I saw concisely said on Twitter: If you can silence a king, you are the king
There are reasonable concerns about precedent here, but it's hard to see a reasonable perspective where this particular enforcement action is "silencing". If Trump has something he'd like people to hear, he can simply announce a press conference, and dozens of major news organizations will be ready within minutes to share his thoughts with the world.
How quickly we forget the past. Trump took to Twitter specifically because he believed none of the news organizations were reliable narrators of his messaging.
You view this as a bad thing. As a consumer, I view it as a good thing. I’m not sure if folks remember what “apps on mobile” were like before Apple came along, but it was the goddamn Wild West. The fact that it’s walled in, that I’m not going to get pwned, that my parents won’t (and won’t be tempted to by the promise of an extra $0.99 saving) is to my mind, a good thing.
If all this competition that the article talked about was such a good thing, apps would be cheaper on Android, and I, as a consumer, would switch. Fact is, the fact that Tinder et al are now bypassing Google’s mechanisms isn’t a good thing to me at all. It’s more the reason to stay on iOS.
The article writer is pissed he can’t get access to me without paying Apple’s toll, but what he doesn’t understand is that I am like it like that.
If Apple allowed side-loading tomorrow, their curated App Store wouldn't disappear. You would absolutely have the choice to only download software from the iOS App Store, where Apple is checking everything for you.
I don't oppose the App Store existing. I use it myself, and it's generally a great experience for the reasons you describe.
However, I don't think that a link that says "Click here to start your Netflix subscription" threatens that experience in the slightest; it's only a threat to Apple's revenue model. (While there are legitimate concerns about fraud/phishing/etc, that can be reviewed on a content level by Apple, as they already do in other respects.)
There are perhaps arguments against allowing side-loading; even if the process is cumbersome for non-techies, there remains a "dancing bunnies" [0] problem that might lead to malware on Grandma's phone (or, just a very poor software experience).
But even there, I'm not convinced that there isn't a reasonable tradeoff. While the needs for macOS and iOS are clearly different, the former has a very reasonable default that allows unsigned executables, while discouraging them to non-technical users, and giving a great experience buying and installing software through the App Store. (Strictly speaking, one can pseudo-sideload on iOS via XCode if one has the source, but at the cost of $99!)
I think a more reasonable policy might be requiring all apps to be code-signed (so malware and pirated apps can be shut down), but allow side-loading with a great number of scary warnings. Most people will still prefer the App Store experience, and as with the Mac App Store, the increased audience will usually be worth the 30% cut (which, by the way, if faced with "competition" from side-loading, may be pressured down into a more reasonable 10-20% range.)
Whether it's Apple, Nintendo, or Amazon, any platform that makes itself a mandatory middle-man between third-party buyers and sellers is rent-seeking extraction at best, and a net economic loss at worst (preventing value-creating relationships from existing at all). In my opinion, smart and reasonable regulations of such marketplace platforms would be a win for both economic growth and personal freedom.
I’m far from the biggest fan of Facebook, but I’m absolutely a fan of playing devils advocate in an organization if for no other reason than to solicit reactions and get people engaged. As someone who will use this device sparingly when appropriate, that’s really what this post looked like to me (as opposed to someone who was in it to get terrorists signed up to fb... really?). I honestly feel sorry for the guy
On the other hand, have we really gotten to the point where we have to try to provoke others into a debate? Why can't we state what we mean, what we think, what we're uncertain about, what questions we'd like to discuss in order to foster discussion instead of provoking it. Playing devil's advocate is fine when it's understood what's going on and why you're playing devil's advocate, but when there's ambiguity you play this game of "yes I said that I didn't mean it though" which ends up sounding weak as it does in those case. Devil's advocate is a great cognitive strategy for exploring an issue together, but it's a very poor conversational strategy.
No, I don't see anything that says provoking others into a debate is the only means of conversation, just one possible way of prompting a discussion. I imagine a straightforward discussion as your described is the norm, and this could be one case where they were provocative and so was selected to be leaked. But I agree with your second point that this does not appear to be such a case.
You don't inspire this sort of debate by putting up a straw man.
You inspire this sort of debate by thought exercise and ask about actual application - you couch the conversation to direct your staff to stronger ethics.
If this conversation were at Uber, in their self driving car division the consequences of this would be human life. The way to have that conversation, with context would be to couch it in the "trolly problem" - because that would keep the framing.
Ethics, the word is ethics - Facebook is clearly lacking them. Were "dumb fucks" according to FB's chief - and the fish rots from the head down.
And the staff's response "find the leakers" -- funny how many groups of people I find despicable seem to chant this.
It’s really not a good idea to play the devils advocate as a high ranking individual in a company without being super extra explicitly clear about that. People might mistake it as the companies position, especially if no other high ranking individual contradicts or clarifies he companies position.
An alternative approach I’ve long been fond of is to lengthen time horizons. In the long run, bad behavior is much more likely to come back and bite you. If you can get incentive structures on a longer term time horizon, you’re much less likely to engage in risky behavior that might have short term payoffs but sinks you in the long run.
The civil rights movement was in no way about the abolition of the rule of law. Hitler's promise of greatness actually did seduce a ton of the economically and socially devastated German population. Hitler was a known outlaw. Even if you can't yet think your premise through to the end, at least consider the consistency and truth of your own words.
We are all better off because uber willfully disregarded these laws and regulations. These laws once had a good reason, but are now still on the books only because incumbents have regulators in their pockets.
As for lobbying to have the laws changed, if you expect startups to be able to lobby in every jurisdiction to get the law changed against incumbents when the regulators often come from the industry the startup is disrupting, then I got a bridge to sell you.
> We are all better off because uber willfully disregarded these laws and regulations.
The thing is, we're not. What we've got is a cab company that can offer better and cheaper service than everyone else because it's breaking the law, and it's good at throwing VC money at lawyers to avoid the consequences. What we've got is further damage to the respect for the rule of law and thus to the fabric of civilization, as people see how Uber gets away with illegal activities. Hell, there are many people who are inspired by their antisocial behaviour, and see Uber as an example to follow.
Consider a hypothetical business in a historical era that provides great service by employing colored people to serve white customers. Imagine said business becomes successful, and even pushes some jurisdictions to change their laws against this practice.
I'd argue that this business is great - it's helping consumers and fixing the world.
One might argue that we are not better off because of this:
The thing is, we're not. What we've got is a business that can offer better and cheaper service than everyone else because it's breaking the law, and it's good at throwing money at lawyers to avoid the consequences. What we've got is further damage to the respect for the rule of law and thus to the fabric of civilization, as people see how this company gets away with illegal activities. Hell, there are many people who are inspired by their antisocial behaviour, and see Uber as an example to follow.
Your argument seems to apply equally well to this case - after all, your argument is not dependent on the law being just or unjust. It completely ignores that point.
Are you willing to follow your argument where it leads? Or do you recognize the flaw in it?
It's about the defaults. I believe laws should be obeyed by default, and only opposed in special circumstances. The burden of proving that the circumstances warrant disobedience should be on the disobedient party. And most importantly, breaking the law should be expensive, so that it never becomes a viable business strategy.
I'd even cut Uber some slack if they weren't so smug about what they're doing. This is just as much about breaking arbitrary laws as it is about how they keep showing that they don't give a shit about society.
> your argument is not dependent on the law being just or unjust. It completely ignores that point.
It does, because in real world, regulations are not uniformly distributed throughout the possibility space. In any working society you can - and should - assume that most laws are there for a reason, and that this reason is just. When that assumption doesn't hold, your country pretty much disintegrates. Hence, going against the law is a special case.
The way I see it, none of Uber's "innovations" actually required illegal actions. They simply don't care, because this way is faster and brings in more money.
As a proof of that I want to point out that many places in Europe managed to implement all those Uber "innovations" some time ago, and it didn't require breaking laws in the way Uber does. Sure, old cab companies were pissed, but things got settled in courts and regulations were updated - just like it should happen in any civilized society.
Ultimately, if Americans want to run their society this way, it's none of my business. I would be happy though, if they stopped exporting their "innovative" methods to countries with working regulatory frameworks.
I think Uber has proven that their disobedience is beneficial. In the US and India they have made the transit sector vastly better than it was before. Even ignoring the benefits of the app over hailing a cab, the drastic reduction in racial discrimination is an amazing improvement.
Note that India also had apps/SMS driven taxi hails - autowale.in started in Pune (my city). But Uber fixed transport and the political situation, whereas autowale.in is just a footnote in history.
In any working society you can - and should - assume that most laws are there for a reason, and that this reason is just. When that assumption doesn't hold, your country pretty much disintegrates. Hence, going against the law is a special case.
Then by your standard, the US and India are not working societies.
Then again, by your standard, it's pretty clear that not all of Europe is working. For example, witness how often French unions and others engage in violent and illegal actions (both assaulting Uber drivers/passengers and others) on a regular basis.
In any case, you seem to be backing away from your original claim and accepting that some laws are unjust and breaking them is ok. Do you argue that American or Indian taxi protectionism laws are just?
You are arbitrarily assigning Uber's disruption a positive social outcome, which appears to be the lynchpin of your argument. Your argument could be applied to many outcomes that would appear on the surface to be negative. A few (admittedly exaggerated) examples:
"ArmzDealR is providing a great service by eliminating government bureaucracy and providing access to arms that citizens should have. It's good that they help people avoid those onerous registration requirements."
"TraffiKR makes it easy to find cheap labor. There's no paperwork and the workers never complain!"
Are you willing to follow your argument where it leads? Should businesses be allowed to push against any rule at all? Are all laws 'unjust' or are there some laws that are in place to protect public good?
I'm simply pointing out that Temporal's argument that breaking the law is always wrong is simply incorrect.
I'm not saying all laws should be broken. I'm saying one must decide whether or not the law is just, and support those who break unjust laws. I see no one even attempting to make the argument that taxi protectionism laws are just. Do you have an argument that they are?
I haven't researched the rationales behind taxi protectionism laws, so I can only offer conjecture. Two two reasons I can imagine we have such laws are traffic congestion control and accident liability.
On the surface congestion control seems far easier to implement (especially in a pre-mobile phone context) via restriction of medallions. I don't have arguments one way or the other as to the necessity of congestion control because I've only rarely experienced large cities (NYC, Chicago, London). I believe they are popular for various reasons, but I am not familiar with the arguments for or against.
Determination of liability seems like another obvious reason for a medallion monopoly. Presumably taxis are a higher risk pool for insurance claims, due to the presence of multiple parties. It's unclear to me where the liability falls if an Uber driver is in an accident that mortally wounds a passenger; will their standard insurance (that presumes a certain risk profile) cover the claim? I'm simply not familiar enough to definitely comment, unfortunately.
The latter argument holds more weight with me, but I'm sympathetic to arguments against it.
You do see the problem with encouraging the erosion of mutual social trust? If "following the law" collapses as a percieved social expectation it would impoverish everyone.
That being said, it is clear that abusive and overwraught law and regulation invites this impovrishment.
Breaking the law always erodes the fabric of society. Normalizing it is worse.
Certainly, there can be laws that are worth breaking. You should be extremely careful before assuming that's the case in any given scenario, and I don't think taxi rules are it, no matter how dysfunctional the USA might be.
Really though we are. Even if Uber goes out of business, taxi companies are going to get wise that customers want the Uber experience and all of a sudden they'll all have to get apps to compete.
Uber broke a status quo in the state of the transportation industry and we should all be grateful for that. They also became a champion for a certain type of activism that I think a lot of us would like to see more of.
Think carefully before you deny Uber the activist label. Using ethically shady methods to push through social agendas is precisely what activism is. Not everyone falls on the same side of the line, but you can't not call it activism. Labor strikes were considered extremely problematic to many.
I have a perspective of an European. Here on the Old Continent, we've already had that "Uber experience", and it didn't require companies to blatantly ignore the law and burn money to keep regulators at bay (not to say there weren't regulatory tensions, but they quickly got resolved in courts and regulations were updated; that's how a civilized society is supposed to work). So excuse me if I don't see Uber as innovative.
As for their activism, this is the flavour we know from dystopian movies about evil corporations disregarding the laws to eke out some profits. In a way, I can't wait for an Uber in biotech sector - maybe a small engineered pandemic is what people need to understand that regulations should not be ignored on a whim by companies seeking profits.
We're all better off? That's an incredibly broad statement.
The laws on the books still exist for a good reason. Even if you feel that Uber is somehow exempt/makes good choices with the people it chooses to employ via the platform, does that apply to any other "uber-esque" groups with more lax enforcement?
"The laws on the books still exist for a good reason."
That's... optimistic. Many laws were put in place to benefit other (incumbent) businesses, or in reaction to conditions that no longer hold, or due to ideas proven false or at least no longer fashionable.
That's not necessarily good reason to break the law (though sometimes it is), but anyone shold feel free to lobby for removal or change of a law.
This isn't the right answer. There are times when you need government intervention, and there are times when you don't. The trick is figuring out which is which.
As they often say, libertarians didn't defeat Nazism.
I'm a left libertarian and therefore I have a natural allergy to statist solutions for problems but I acknowledge that government is a necessary evil that in many instances do good things but the fact remains that large bureaucracies, whether governmental or not, tend to corrupt over time and that's why the smallest size of government possible to carry out its function should be the goal of society.
To reply to the people below as to why @themartorana might be against estate taxes: if the tax system does its job properly, death shouldn't be a taxable event. Treating capital gains as normal income, closing shitty loopholes etc - people are paying their fair share that way. Taxing at death would be double dipping. Instead, it's used as a way to claw back failed capital gains tax and it's an awful way to do it (making people sell property, etc)
No, the point of estate tax is to prevent generational inheritance, not to re-coupe failed cap gains.
The purpose is to prevent a class of non-working super rich that live for generations off of the estate.
So you can be rich and have lots of fancy toys and swim in pools of money while you're alive, but once you die that's it. Your children benefit by starting with a (very large) head start relative to their peers, but they shouldn't necessarily be set-for-life. It's economically bad to have a vast pile of money sitting in one place for a long time, you want to get that back into circulation. And success should be earned, not granted at birth.
The only alternative would be something like actively taxing net worths that exceed some amount, which is less palpable.
And of course practically speaking, death is a great thing to tax, because one of the problems with taxation is that it can be distortionary - when you tax something, people tend to do less of it. That's obviously not a problem with estate taxes.
>It's economically bad to have a vast pile of money sitting in one place for a long time, you want to get that back into circulation.
Although I agree with your point overall this point specific point is flawed unless someone is literally storing physical cash in large volumes.
If I have a big bag of assets that is passed from generation to generation it is not sitting in one place or in any way out of circulation. Businesses do their thing regardless of whether a family member or someone else owns them. Real estate portfolios are similarly unaffected by who happens to own it. Even money sitting in a bank account is not actually just sitting there.
Sweden only very recently (2005) repealed its inheritance tax after centuries of having one. So the current inequity levels in sweden occurred under inheritance tax. Prior to 2005 the inheritance tax rate in sweden was 60%, higher than the estate tax in the US. And vastly more people hit the tax in sweden as the exemption was a mere $8600 USD.
So if anything Sweden is evidence that a stiff estate/inheritance tax helps prevent inequity. We'll see if that changes.
Regardless of its purpose, it is extremely unfair, at least from a purely pragmatic perspective. The money was earned, and the government has no right to take it away just because you die.
No, it isn't taken away. The person that owned it is dead.
If you decided to give it to your children or whatever, it'll get taxed just like if you tried to give them that much money before you died. If in your will you decide to give it to a non-profit charity instead, it's not taxed.
You aren't taxed for dying. The person who died isn't taxed at all. It's the people that are still alive that are now receiving money that are taxed.
How is any of this unfair? Your children didn't do anything to earn that money. Why should they get it at all?
That's not true. Families build wealth together. My children don't do my work, but they work with mom to keep the house in order while I do. It's a family effort. Without the support of my wife and children, I would not be able to produce nearly as much as I do (note: I'm not wealthy, I just happen to value the money I make).
If your children provide you support, great! You have that advantage vs. people that don't have children or that have children that are, let's say, a drain on their time.
Your children still did not earn income, you did. And you got a tax break for that as well in the form of dependents. You are asking to double-dip here, which is unfair.
If you think that's double dipping, then you have a sad view of the world. Here's some news - when you actually earn a decent income, child tax credits do very little to offset taxable income, especially when you are a business owner.
Even if people pay full capital gains, that doesn't prevent the existence of a multi-generation estate. And those kind of estates are the whole point of the estate tax.
If a tax directly taxed holdings on an ongoing basis (a wealth tax, or much better, a land value tax), I could see an argument for doing away with an estate tax, but only then. (And I'd say not even then)
What's inherently wrong with a multi-generation estate? What's wrong with me wanting to pass on wealth to my kids and grandkids without this already-taxed money to be double-dipped by the government? If I want to work so hard that I can leave significant money for my descendants, why should the government get to tax that money twice? That seems incredibly unfair to me.
Look at it as a regular income event. You were taxed when you got that money from whoever gave it to you and now your kids are being taxed when they get the money. Your kids aren't you. Money isn't a taxed-once thing, it's taxed every time it changes hands. Death is an event at which money changes hands (from you to your kids), and is taxed appropriately.
Anyway multi-generation estates are very well tested as being bad for society over time. Just look up monarchies.
There's always a cutoff just due to practicality. If you give a friend $5 probably neither of you filed taxes for that. If you give a friend $10m, well, the IRS will probably notice that one.
If you want to work so hard that you can leave significant money for your employees, the government taxes that twice: once when it goes to the business, and once when it goes to the employees. Why are children different?
Well, not in the US. The money paid to employees is tax-deductible to the business, so it's only taxed once (the employee pays taxes on the money paid to them, but the business doesn't.)
I am failing to see where - salaries are write-offs, and sales tax, which doesn't necessarily apply to all situations, are a tax on the buyer, not the recipient...
Wealth tends to translate into power. Multi-generation wealth transfer translates into dynasties. Dynasties are the antithesis of democracy.
Hence, multi-generation estates are anti-democratic.
Of course there is nuance in the extent of the effect. Some inter-generational wealth transfers are fine. Multi-generation estates wouldn't be a problem if everybody had them. And so on. But the core of an important argument against multi-generation estates is very plain. (Other arguments can and have been made as well, of course, including fairness arguments - I didn't work for my inheritance, for example.)
A wealth tax is inherently limited; for example, you can't tax 100% of wealth-- that would be pure confiscation.
However, a land value tax can scale up to 100%, because you're taxing rent, and not wealth that is bought/created by any individual.
An estate that has its rent taxed 100% will eventually dissolve, unless it's constantly generating new value aside from rent (which is in general not the case).
This seems like an interesting idea but, every time I read about a land value tax (LVT), the description is very high-level and leaves me with more questions than it answers:
- How do you measure the basic value of the land?
Is is it the amount of rent collected minus
maintenance-and-improvement expenses? Does
this mean it is impossible to turn a profit
as a landlord?
- Is the tax also applied to land that is not
rented? Is it harder to assess the value of
that land?
- Does this system discourage conservation by
incentivizing everyone to sell their unused
land to someone who is going to develop it?
- A common type of investment in today's no-LVT
world: I buy an undeveloped plot of land that
noone would pay anything to live on in a town
just outside of Worcester, MA. I spend $100k
building a house on the premises, and then I
proceed to rent out that house for $1k per month.
Under an LVT system, do I still have any reason
to buy that land and build a house on it? How
much money can I make?
I agree that a lot of the questions it raises need to answered (in practice, LVT has run into issues because of poor practices by the assessors office).
To answer your questions to the best of my abilities:
- A landlord should be able to make a profit because the building itself would
not be taxed. The only kind of landlord would which not see a profit is the
kind that rents out land use, but does not actually develop or perform
maintenance.
- Land that nobody wants wouldn't get taxed. (A few square feet of land in
Alaska, for instance) But if there's any demand to own the land, it would have
a rental value.
- It highly discourages sprawl, so it's good for conservation in that
sense. However, I recognize that greenlands near city centers need special
consideration. For instance, the Muir Redwoods in Marin absolutely would have
needed intervention to be saved; the LVT would have been an incentive to
develop so close to SF.
- In a LVT system, undeveloped land would always sell for $0. The tax on the
land is equal to the return on the land itself. So in the current system,
you pay $100k for the land, $100k on the house, get taxed $2k/yr in
property taxes, get taxed on the rental income, etc.
In a LVT system, the land would be free, but would be taxed at $5k a year.
(Assuming 5% rate of return). You're not going to get $5k for that land unless
you do something with it, so you absolutely have the incentive to build a
$100k house and rent it out for $1k per month.
But let's say that the land was worth $500k instead of $100k. Now the LVT
would be $25k a year; you'd have an incentive to build much more than a
$100k house; you'd want to develop it even more to generate even more
return. This is how the LVT aligns the incentives for land use better
than the current system (where property tax on improvements leads
as a discentive to develop, and encourages restrict zoning laws).
I think the valuation of the land is the hard part, but active markets and self-valuation may have secrets to accurate and convenient pricing. I think it merits more research on this field, at any rate.
You want to read Alexis de Tocqueville's comments on early American inheritance law; it's always been structured to try to prevent the accumulated heritable wealth and power that built the European aristocracies, and the estate tax is simply one tool in that toolbox.
This is one of the more common anti-estate tax arguement but I dont see it. At the end of the day the government will raise a pool of tax dollars. They can tax you more while you're alive, or tax you less while alive + estate tax when you die. If you look at it like this, estate taxes actually allow you to pay less tax over your lifetime. So to not have estate tax, one could argue people are paying too much tax during their lifetime.
Ok, I expended sweat and tears and made $X, and obviously I should be able to benefit from my labors in my life. Too much tax denies me that, but too little is unfair as I used the resources of "the commons".
But receivers of inheritance did not earn any of it. It's not obvious that 100% estate tax is unfair.
@hype7 is correct. To others in the thread, I don't mind Canada's system - basically, tax the income from (the potential) full liquidation of assets. In many cases, everything needs to be liquidated before an estate is divided anyway. Income gained would be taxed anyway. That said, I don't live in Canada so I don't know the finer points.
To those speaking of multi-generational wealth, I'll bypass the "it's bad" argument and point greatly towards the "1/10 of 1 percent" that have gained something like 90% of all newly created wealth in the past couple decades (and the innumerable ways they can keep that wealth from the estate tax) as evidence of it being a failed policy, again only hurting those somewhere in the middle.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the super rich if you think that hard currency represents any significant fraction of their assets, late in life.
It's only a concern for the middle class, and there are other rules that cover them.
Estate taxes are a problem, but only because inheritances aren't treated as normal income for the recipients. Death shouldn't be a taxable event...but receiving income (even as a result of someone else's death) should be. If there is a desire to allow some level of ubtaxed inheritance, then instead of exempting estates below a certain size, we ought to exempt a certain amount of inheritance income per recipient.
Not really the point. In general, money is taxed when it changes hands. Payroll taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, etc. Taxing on death is just taxing money that is transferred from the decedent to their heirs. It's not a matter of how many times you "dip": the same money has likely been taxed quite a few times for different reasons before it ended up in that person's estate anyway.
No, it just means that after your death your descendants don't benefit unfairly. Instead, the money that would be used to set a trust fund baby for life is redistributed among all people.
In the US, you can give your property to whomever you like... and they have to pay taxes on it as income.
I'm not sure why your children should be exempt from paying taxes on the gift of an estate. Call it "death tax" if you want, but really the lack of an estate tax is tax break privilege for the wealthy. The estate tax is simply a decision of what the income tax will be on income in the form of an gifted estate.
The giver is generally on the hook for gift taxes and it is calculated similarly to the estate tax.
That the giver pays is not really a super important distinction, the money is coming from the same place either way, but procedurally it's the giver that has to do the paperwork.
That is typically not true in the US (2015). In the US there is an exemption on estate tax up to $5.43 Million and the transferred wealth above that amount is 40%. Compared to the highest regular income tax bracket is 39.6% and that is on the income above $464,850. So, it is essentially an income tax on the transfer -- except typically much much less. For example, an estate of $5.44 Million would be $4,000 (on the excess $10,000). Or an effective tax rate of 0.074% not 74% or 7.4% but 0.074%.
Edit: So, yes, if you are transferring 500 Million or 50 Million then you will get close to the 40% tax (slightly higher than the regular 39.6% tax), but if you are transferring 5 Million or below there will be no tax.
That's your definition of a "free society", as is "fruits of your labor". You know, I might say that societies with our concept of property, where a state monopoly on violence guarantees rights, and where wealth is largely the product of appropriation of people's productivity based on those state-sanctioned property concepts, is very far from a free society.
No, wealth does not accrue to "those who solve people's problems the best".
For example, let's consider what I do, cancer research. In my field, lots of scientists and doctors work very hard to develop new therapies for treating cancer. At the end of the day, this results in a product that is covered by a patent, a form of property.
This property is owned by some very rich people who have never lifted a finger to do any cancer research or solve any problems; all they have done is own things. In this case, because of the specific form of property, they are able to make hundreds of billions in profits without having done any work other than the contribution of some capital. That is, literally, property ownership is the only contribution these people make to drug development, yet they accrue essentially all of the resulting wealth.
The extent of this accrual is a product of the specific forms of property that exist and how much they allow this sort of appropriation.
Every form of property is the product of government - property as we know it cannot exist without government help. For a practical example, until 2013 it was possible to own genes via patents, and about 20% of the human genome was under patent. There were companies that were entirely built on the fact that they owned certain human genes, e.g. Myriad Genetics, which made hundreds of millions of dollars off this. Then the Supreme Court decided this was NOT a form of property, and suddenly this possibility of accrual vanished.
This applies to everything we might think of as property - patents, trademarks, land titles, etc., they exist because of legal force guaranteed by the government.
Some of these property forms are extremely arbitrary measures that seem almost designed to produce wealth transfer (for example, granting mineral rights) to certain individuals.
I'm not going to argue for the continued existence of patents or intellectual property.
In the case of cancer research, you sold your time to your employer for a fixed amount of money (maybe you had equity, but it doesn't sound like it). That was the end of the transaction for you. The investor took a risk and was rewarded for it, all within the current system, which is not a free society.
When you spend money on a consumer good, you're going to choose the product that works best for you, given your budget. For the same money, you will not choose a product you deem to be inferior. Thus, you reward the maker of that product with your dollars because they solve the problem better than the maker of the inferior product.
As for "appropriation of productivity," if you're alluding to the workers vs capitalists struggle from Marx, then I can't help you. I will simply point out that nobody in a free society is compelled to work for another. Thus, all salaries / wages / employment agreements are entered into voluntarily. There is no appropriation: each voluntary employee knows the terms of employment and agrees to them.
> I will simply point out that nobody in a free society is compelled to work for another.
Ah, the plaintive cry of the college Libertarian. Of course people in our society are compelled to work for another; you cannot live without eating. You may not be compelled to work for a specific employer, but you are compelled to work, and in an economy where there is massive unemployment and wealth inequality, employees and employers are not on the same bargaining terms.
Let's put it this way: someone comes to you and says, "I have your wife in a secret location. Go and murder my boss, or you'll never see her again." You might accept this contract and we might call it "voluntary" since you agreed to the terms, but that's hardly a fair characterization of the situation. Power differentials matter, and they absolutely produce compulsion.
>You might accept this contract and we might call it "voluntary" since you agreed to the terms, but that's hardly a fair characterization of the situation. Power differentials matter, and they absolutely produce compulsion.
But noo, you enter into a contract voluntarily, it's not exploitation because you can leave your employer. Agh! Marx got it right on the money 150 years ago. It's incredible how the obvious escapes these misty eyed libertarians.
>In a market economy, wealth accrues to those who solve people's problems the best.
That is simply it true, and it baffles the mind how some people obtusely insist on that bunch of wishful baloney, pardon my bluntness.
So a capital holder/landowner simply buys stock/rents out a flat, and by essentially doing nothing but owning stuff he gets to earn a large amount of money while people actually doing stuff are rewarded as lowly as the market can squeeze them. How does this fit with your worldview of "money goes to those who work harder"?
"In a market economy, wealth accrues to those who solve people's problems the best."
By passing large sums of money from generation to generation, you end up with a class this won't apply to. It'll be the family of some relative long since past who once upon a time, solved some problem the best.
Why should I care if someone else inherited family money and doesn't have to work?
Inherited wealth must be invested continually to defend against inflation. That investment will continue to power the market economy, even if the holders of the wealth are not entrepreneurs.
>Inherited wealth must be invested continually to defend against inflation. That investment will continue to power the market economy, even if the holders of the wealth are not entrepreneurs.
This assumes that wealth is being invested correctly, and that money acts in some sort of neutral fashion, automatically flowing where it is most needed. In fact, money just shores up wherever there is some sort of place for it to grow.
It turns out that it is much easier for concentrated wealth to use games and tricks of the economic, financial, political system to make money grow than it is to actually invest it in high-risk areas that might provide stronger growth.
The more diffuse wealth is, the less this will be an issue.
Yes. Every dollar in the pocket of a trust fund baby is a dollar missing from an underfunded public school, a homeless relief program, a cancer research center, a library...
You and you alone have the right to the fruits of your labour. Once you are dead you are not gonna benefit from it anymore, so your children do not have any more claim to it than anyone in the country. Therefore it should be redistributed back to all people.
Do you think your children should have more rights than other people?
They've proposed that, but as far as I can tell it's less of a serious proposal and more an instance of an "overcoming objections" sales tactic. I don't see how a flat sales tax can achieve revenue-neutrality (itself a major selling point of FairTax) while also offering a large enough "prebate" to avoid being enormously regressive in practice. Considering the misleading nature of a bunch of other FairTax claims [1], I pretty much consider distrust to be the only tenable default position with respect to anything else they say.
There's nothing unfair about your descendants (or other heirs) acquiring your belongings once you pass away (assuming proper tax was already paid on said belongings).
As I saw concisely said on Twitter: If you can silence a king, you are the king