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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
More than 250 billionaires and millionaires on Wednesday reiterated their call on elected representatives of the world’s leading economies to introduce higher taxes on the very richest in society.
In an open letter to political leaders gathered at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the rich signatories said they wished to deliver a clear message: “Tax our extreme wealth.”
“We are surprised that you have failed to answer a simple question that we have been asking for three years: when will you tax extreme wealth?” the letter said.
“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society. This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”
Because capitalism.
The less glib answer, though a bit of an over simplification, is that the current trend of neoliberalism discourages self limitation and collective collaboration. If regulation is not put in place and enforced by forces (government, social contract, etc) then people are incentivize to push and make use of any advantage available. Not doing it risks being displaced by those who do. Competition becomes toxic and self perpetuating
So basically “please put rules in place that protect us from ourselves”.
They have enough self awareness to know that it’s bad, but too much greed/drive/whatever to risk someone else getting ahead of them, so they need an outside entity to step in and change the playing field.
Look at the US. They thought there were all these rules restricting a variety of things relating to governmental powers. Trump ignored a bunch of them, and it turns out there weren’t laws in place to prevent or enforce repercussions. Just conventions that most politicians abided by. Now they’ve got that cluster fuck. Or more directly related, there were laws regulating the stock market. Those regulations have been eroded over time by those who would benefit. We let them, and now inequality is off the charts. Systems this big and intertwined need structure. You can argue about whether you want it centralized or decentralized, but it needs structure. Letting people decide what is right for themselves leads to what we have now. Those with money have the power, and they are free to keep taking from those at the bottom.
And let’s not fool ourselves. I’m sure that at least some, if not most, of these signatories aren’t doing this out of some altruistic streak. Doesn’t take morals to see that we’re headed for class war. That or economic collapse. They are giving up some money/power/control so they don’t risk losing it all.
“Ourselves” as in the collective, not “ourselves” as individuals. It doesn’t matter how well-meaning the world’s billionaires are, if you don’t put guardrails in place eventually one of them will abuse the “norm but not outright illegal” system and we’ll be right back here.