Dear America: You should be mad as hell about this!

I'd like to back up to "fair." What does that mean and why should it be fair? Why isn't a Darwinian outcome fair? It's at least based in nature and not century-old Marxist drivel.

Originally Posted by canndo

Many if not most corporations are actually owned by groups of individuals or organizations, thus they hold the wealth. Families? they can have a portion but inheritance taxes should be very high.

Any law enacting this should include a provision about putting the money back in circulation, possibly even in accordance with the will of said dead estate holder.

Originally Posted by canndo

The solidificaton of wealth in this country is staggering. It is a fact that without government interference that solidification will grow to finally become unbalanced. I am more likely to be able to turn my one million dollars into two million than you are to turn your 100,000 into 200,000. If I can influence my government to give me breaks (with the money I already have amassed), I will aquire more. Now the only real way to equalize this trend is to level the playing field and one way to do that is to require the total divestiture of every fortune when the controler of that fortune dies. The dead have no rights.

You grossly contradicted yourself by claiming, without government interference, solidification will grow to finally become unbalanced, and in the next paragraph you admitted that with government interference, you can influence them into giving tax breaks!

So without the federal government interfering in private sector business, crony capitalism cannot thrive, I agree!

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Originally Posted by Illegal Smile

I'd like to back up to "fair." What does that mean and why should it be fair? Why isn't a Darwinian outcome fair? It's at least based in nature and not century-old Marxist drivel.

Please go on about right wing Darwinism. The phrase, "survival of the fittest" was not coined by Darwin, although he did use it in his 3rd and 4th editions but not in later or in the first editions of "On the Origin of Species". It was coined by right wing economist Herbert Spencer and it is not considered by biologists to be a law of nature as it does not honestly convey natural selection. Cooperation is a trait that many species preserve.

Furthermore, the idea that competition is the only force behind innovation is also preposterous, cooperation also drives innovation.

Originally Posted by abandonconflict

Any law enacting this should include a provision about putting the money back in circulation, possibly even in accordance with the will of said dead estate holder.

That's a brilliant concept, for somemone that will never accumulate wealth that is.

Of course another way to deal with this is to penalize individuals who insis upon "cashing out". So long as their money is going toward suitable interests, manufacturing facilities, businesses and the like, their taxation is rather low, but otherwise, they simply can't keep much of their money. It is patently unfair, it is rude beyond measure but I am sure the rich will get over it. We had just such a system from about '45 to the mid 60's. Curiously, our economy did quite well.

Originally Posted by beenthere

That's a brilliant concept, for somemone that will never accumulate wealth that is.

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