Line up any bunch of political lefties anywhere and their key to delivering free stuff is taxing the rich. This applies to all of the Democrat presidential candidates in the USA. In addition to confiscatory income taxes, Pocahontas (aka Elizabeth Warren) wants to impose a wealth tax, in the style of French socialist economist Thomas Piketty.
Apparently, those rich people are selfishly keeping goodies from us ninety-five percenters. This is the grievous money delusion (GMD) which seduces callow minds. It can only be compared to the grievous warming delusion (GWD) which has swept away reason among so many in recent years. It is perhaps no coincidence that those particularly susceptible to GMD succumb to GWD.
It is also disappointing that economists, worthy of the name, in other words, excluding sad lefties like Paul Krugman and his ilk, hardly ever explain the position clearly. They generally go to the point that high taxes undermine incentive. They do to an extent. But only to an extent.
There was an instructive survey of Ford Motor company workers in the late Sixties I think it was. They were asked whether they thought their fellow workers would likely work less overtime if taxes were increased. Something like ninety percent said yes. They were then asked whether they personally would work less overtime. Something like ninety percent said no.
The real argument against confiscatory taxes is not to do with incentive, it is to do with the with the driving force of successful capitalist economies. That driving force is capital investment fuelled by saving and augmented by invention. Saving some of what is produced and using it to sustain life while things are built like, factories and machines, which help make more goodies, cheaper goodies, better goodies and new (previously unthought of) goodies.
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See Also:
(1) Rich Like Me: How Assortative Mating Is Driving Income Inequality
