I am far from an expert in the practical aspects of calculating wealth, but seems doable by the fact that wealth tax exists in countries today.

I too think it would be nice to tax capital gains higher than labour, but I am unsure how it would impact pension savers - both those who save by owning a home and those who invest in equities and bonds. I think I could only accept a very high capital gains tax if state funded retirement would cover full costs of living in cities, and reasonable lower bounds on retirement age. But this seems impossible with large shares of private ownership of homes in cities - they would likely be able to charge exorbitant prices for living if every old person had a comfortable pension. So I guess we shouldn’t have private ownership of homes. But I dunno.

Speaking of a one time wealth tax, would a 100% inheritance tax accomplish what you want? Just curious about how you see the redistribution of wealth happening, as I am myself unsure how it should happen in practice.

When you say we don’t need the rich, do you mean that we don’t need those particular individuals, or that we don’t need them having their wealth? Is getting rid of them achievable by getting rid of their wealth and the means to hoard?

Well put. A nice follow-up to the post, I think. Thanks

After skimming through the Country section of the Wikipedia article on capital gains tax, it seems that the rate of capital gains tax is commonly lower than that of labour. Quite a few places also had capital gains tax removed in favour of a total tax rate on income + capital gains.

Personally, I think it’s important to tax capital gains closer to labour tax rates, to better distribute wealth. But a more efficient way is maybe by wealth tax. I would even consider lowering taxes on businesses for a wealth tax (as to not cause exodus of the rich - the point is not to get rid of them, just their massive wealth and means of hoarding too much).

What are examples of indignities caused by social hierarchical structures I might experience but dismiss due to habit?

Edit: thanks, all! Were some examples I thought of before, but many “novel” ones too. Definitely nice to try to be explicit about it, I think

In the region of the world I’m from, waiter unions themselves are against tipping. The reasons I have heard are that

1. wage negotiations should not happen between customers and employees
2. the principle of everyone’s salary being enough to cover all costs of living
3. neither customer nor employee will benefit from service staff having too low wages
4. worker’s rights cannot practically be built using funds from tipping
5. normalising tipping will be used by the employer as an argument to pay below liveable wages

That being said, waiters are given a liveable wage here. And locals also sometimes tip for great service. But that’s just a bonus for the waiter, not the expectation.

I would personally suggest you reevaluate your pro-tipping stance given the above, but I don’t know where in the world you’re from, nor how waiters are treated or paid there