Remember that we already said 10M was below the cutoff of the wealth tax, so they aren't being taxed heavily. Furthermore, they should be able to live their whole life without investing it if they are already like 35.

I think you underestimate how fast $10M can be spent. There is a reason why most lottery winners go broke.

Whoa, so they can't afford toys that should generally be banned for ecological reasons anyway? Again, if you can't figure out how to live a happy life without a personal plane, you probably need to go to rich guy rehab. Just fucking find some cozy spot and live in idle luxury.

So basically you want them to just live like you do, without any extra luxuries? I'm guessing they also can only afford a modest house since even a normal house is $500k+ and then triple that if they have a mortgage.

I don't think it's a problem if people own a private plane as a hobby (you know, like a private pilot) or a big boat for enjoyment. I'm not talking about crazy expensive stuff here, even middle class people are owning private planes.

People don't functionally own land, they nominally own it at the mercy of the state. Many things work this way. Your problem is that you can't see beyond a narrow paradigm of how society is organized, as though a particular version of liberalism was ordained by God as being the natural order. It is not.

You and others here have explained your version of liberalism, I believe you call it Marxism, right? I don't believe it's the answer for anyone but communist countries like China, and I don't think that's the answer for the US or most other countries. Do you have another version you are proposing?

Turns out money laundering can actually be stopped and assets can and have actually been seized for various reasons.

We aren't talking about money laundering or anything illegal, we are talking about people wanting to move for a better life. Only the worst of the worst countries will punish you by stealing everything from you simply for leaving.

but it objectively is a large amount of wealth for one person to have, enough to never work again.

If they drastically reduced their lifestyle, don't get taxed heavily, and are able to invest it, then sure. However if you don't allow them to invest and they don't drastically reduce their standard of living, that's not nearly enough to retire on.

Even a fairly modest personal plane or small yacht will cost a million or more over years of use.

but I don't think I can teach you how to do philosophy coherently.

If your idea of philosophy involves theft, I don't think I want to learn it from you.

That is to say, in this hypothetical, large-scale capital flight is illegal,

Ah, this concept is so insane that I just can't imagine it ever happening. In reality the companies and rich would leave and there would be nothing you could do to stop it.

10M is nothing to someone who owns billions, it's all a matter of perspective. I have a problem with people who use or suggest immoral actions, and that includes you. Stealing from anyone is immoral, I don't care how much they have or how big of a company it is.

What is against the law here? It's not illegal to move your business outside the country, it's not illegal to leave the country, what you are assuming is illegal is actually perfectly legal. It's not smuggling if you are just moving legal goods. Even you can leave a country like the US and transfer your money to wherever you go, it's not illegal at all.

Yes, I am. It's as easy as "don't engage in capital flight" to not get hit by it. We can even be generous enough to leave them just a tiny bit, say 1% if they have exactly 1B, since 10M is quite a lot for a human.

You are suggesting the most immoral thing I've heard yet. To just take everything from someone and leave them with nothing just because they want to leave the area that is hostile to them. Oh wait, nevermind, this sounds exactly like someone as communist would say, and something communist countries have done in the past.

Even a progressive tax is going to fuck over retirees, unless you are suggesting 0% below like $10M. Even then they are still paying taxes either when they put the money in or when they take it out, so taxing on the value is just double tax dipping.

So you are actually suggesting if billionaires want to move we steal everything from them? How is that even remotely ok?

What about the middle class that relies on stocks to retire? If you aren't aware, retirement accounts are usually mostly stocks, do we tax the middle class retirement money?

I think your last paragraph is pretty telling, just blindly supporting anything that hurts billionaires simply because they are billionaires, no matter how unfair or unjust it is, or even his bad the consequences would be for the country.

I think there is a reason the most successful companies are from the US, you would have them move their bushes elsewhere that's more supportive of their size?

Because the price you quoted wouldn't be nearly enough if we built in expensive cities, it has to be built in cheap to build areas for that number to make sense.

The only acceptable way to use that much money is to reinvest it in the society that enabled you to become a billionaire.

Bill Gates seems to be doing a decent job of that, I'm glad he made the choices he has to redistribute his wealth, and I'm also glad it's his choice.

It would cost around 20 billion dollars to end homelessness in the US, why should people be allowed to have net worths of 100 billion+ when it would only cost 1/5th of that to provide everyone with a home?

I really doubt it's that simple. Where are these houses being built, in the middle of nowhere I suspect? How many homeless people want to move there? Will there be jobs out there? What about electricity, gas, and Internet?

So how do we calculate wealth if it isn't based on what the market says it's worth? If we are going to tax Musk on his wealth, most of which is stock, how do you figure out the "real" wealth to tax?

I don't get why this obsession with undefined "risk" is so important. What's the absolute worst case scenario? Their business shuts down and they have to go work for a wage like everyone else?

The risk is losing their life savings or having debt the likes of which makes your student debt look like nothing. If the risk means nothing to you, you should try it, make a great business that follows your ideals, and if you fail no big deal, right?

Economically, China, Cuba, and Vietnam operate under Marxist governments using different approaches to planned economies that place a large emphasis on worker power within businesses

As I suspected, your examples are of countries that are not exactly great places to live, and where US companies go to get the cheapest labor they can. They have worse workers rights than the US

Nowhere on earth aiming for socialism isn't in a process of active struggle against the global capitalist powers-that-be, and that struggle looks very different under different circumstances

It sounds like we really shouldn't be trying for that if it only works when everyone does it. It's one thing to try and change a country, but to change the whole world? Might as well be impossible.

I don't just want the US to change to the Chinese model or something, but I do want an economic model much closer to the examples I've given here, though substantially adjusted to the conditions of the US (and the need for the US to make reparations for imperialism).

I just can't picture how that would look though, which is why I asked for the examples. It sounds like there really isn't a great example of where you think the US should go?

Maybe a workplace and a government are different and shouldn't be run the same way? Just a thought.

Is it someone you knew or just a random person off the street?

The owner at the very least risked a lot of time and money to get the business going, and it would have been a while before they hired someone else to do the job. It's not like they just sat back and did nothing.

The owner took on 100x+ the risk any employee is, should they not get rewarded for taking that risk?

I mean, co-ops and governments all over the world already do it, so yes, I don't see why it would suddenly stop working.

On a very small scale they sometimes work, when they get larger scale they usually have a CEO and upper management like any other business. In the end it's really not that different. Look at REI for example, it's a co-op, has a CEO, and at least in my area has pretty average pay and benefits. They have laid off people recently due to profit concerns, and have ok ratings on job sites. What is the advantage to these exactly?

These ideas not untested, however - many countries implement some component of worker ownership and state planning into their economy at all kinds of different scales

Can you give me the best example of a current city, country, or whatever that is closest to what you think is best for the US to change to?

I hope you can realize this is a false equivalency, but maybe you can't?

So in the moral system you're proposing, it would be an offense to use those buildings without their owner's permission. The fact that people denied access to those buildings will die as a result, though, is just a part of nature

Well, yes. Do you donate every least penny you have to the homeless, since it would save lives? Or do you instead spend your money on luxuries for yourself? There are right and wrong ways to go about helping people like the homeless, stealing and ruining property isn't one of those ways.

So, why would you expect a perspective which values property more than people to stir anyone's moral feeling? If you don't expect that, then why are you bothering to frame it in terms of right and wrong?

I assume you have some property, right? If you are an adult you are probably at least renting an apartment and have some basic stuff like a TV. Why don't you let a homeless person sleep on your couch every night? If you don't have your own place yet, would you allow some random homeless person access to your couch for free every night?

It's much easier when it isn't your property in question, but when it's your place you might start to care about random people living rent free in your place.

They'll get as much as they continue to put in.

Since they run the business I assume they will be making a lot more than the rest of the employees, right?

State and worker directed capital funds that vet and invest in new firms.

Do you really think that can work? I think you will have a very hard time getting people to agree to put their money into stuff like this.

We will structure access to capital such that we don't depend on profit-sucking capitalists to grant it to us.

Ah, yeah, let's just restructure the whole system into some untested idea, that's going to go over great with everyone. How would you even start making this change?

So we should just sell items for what they cost? Doesn't matter if you spent all day working, you get nothing because you just sold everything for what it costs? That's a better society?

Businesses first need to pay employees, that's an obvious one, nobody is going to work for free. Then they need to pay for all the raw materials they buy, and the electricity, etc. If they can't make a profit they aren't paying any of those.

It's a huge financial risk to start a business, most require a lot of upfront costs.

Maybe check a dictionary before you talk more nonsense.

So the people who put in the most risk and started the company get nothing more than someone who joined 20 years later? How do you expect companies to get created if the owner constantly loses more and more of their company the bigger it gets? Why risk any of this money in the company when it isn't even his anymore?