Income cap...<out of envy and spite>? No, I was thinking to allow more personal responsibility and efficiency by keeping the economic system economically based. <Because it is unfair that some people make more money than others?> It is less the 'make money' than 'make over what they earn'.
{Income Cap Proposition, simplistic working model: Any income over, say, 200k/yr is not accepted, but retained by the payer.}
Neocon,
<Well, they either do so because their skills are more economically valuable than others, or because they are lucky. >
You say either 1) Luck* increases income, or 2) Value* increases income. [Not too much a paraphrase?] By value, I assume you talk of the deliberate actions of the individual. I would add a third: The deliberate actions that do not add value, but do add income. I will dub this 3) Power*. In examples of power income I would include: the investment made in a legislator to sway legislation favorable to his company, or to his personal taxes. The personal and 'business' practice of short term milking a concern despite long term loss to others affiliated to the concern: the 'golden parachute' leaps to mind. The [alleged] competitive technique of a company, Microsoft, say, that stifle long-term competition in an industry. Entitlements are already recognized as Power income. These transfers are deliberate, but add no value. I think stealing was your word.
The view I have is that much more income is considered Value or Luck when it is actually Power. Externalities--passing on the negative of your process to others is poorly accounted for. Income that comes from Value, but is paid for with abusiveness, drunkenness, sexual predatoriness, ..., is actually Power income. Income inseparably generated is power income to the powerful who can assign separate credit. My mother often said that Dad made the company 50 million on that deal, doesn't he deserve at least 1? With 4 living CEO immediate relatives and 2 more immediately up the tree [all unrelated companies], discussions of this sort were limited. As few else want such a conversation, I feel experienced, but non-verbal. I have to ask, rhetorically, should a Ford worker keep 1 of every 50 cars he makes? The CEO's position sets the share of value of each position's contribution and [resulting] share of benefit; yet the values are inseparatable from any others; and yet his wage is enormous. Imagine x+y=10. Using only positive integers, at least 9 ways are contained within 10. Our system allows the Valuable employee control over the Group value. No safeguard exists that he isn't appropriating some Power income into his; nothing but traditions of the system. Skyrocketing salaries for the few, and basic psychology, point to it happening.
As promoting of productivity and personal responsibility is Value income, at least that much the opposite is so of Power income. Luck is different.<Luck is neither fair nor unfair, it just is. Should we put a cap on beauty and intelligence? Should we not let people have great parents because not all parents are so hot?> Beauty, intelligence, parents, wealth, and life itself are all assets. Nowhere do I speak of assets. I speak of the use of assets, ie: income. Income that doesn't matter from which asset it originated. Brawn, Endowment, Time, Lucky Dice, Contract Killing--doesn't matter here. Assets just is. Luck <just is>, a constant to ignore, the base that each has been given upon which, or by which he adds Income. Great assets do generate great income, which are eligible for the proposed cap.
The Power of money is it's fungibility, changability: money buying guns or roses is exactly the same. Money earned selling bread or roses is identical. A major Problem with money is it is fungible. It can buy authority, influence, power, respectability, leadership, values, priority, direction, safety, security, health, beauty, friends, family and even time. All the things that money can't buy, can be bought, or at least extended, enlarged, prolonged, restored, improved, and substituted. These items belong to other systems than economic: politics, religion, family, and social systems. No system can incorporate great inputs from outside safely.
Ideally, the better all systems work, the more the outcomes will be the complimentary, not destructive. The economic system works on Value income. The more Power income there is, the less well our system works. Though Government solutions are poor solutions, until the system can right itself, or other system can defend, Government solutions do damper the ill cross effects. Much to the cause of Power income is psychological, so removing the incentives that feed excess power income is useful in itself. |
