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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023

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This will strongly incentivise, as you put it, lazy bum money, and other difficult to access forms of wealth.

People who park their money in a completely unproductive manner are already granted total tax- exemption. The state can’t possibly incentivize them more. Plus the destruction of income/capital gains tax would obviously incentivize successful kinds of investment.

Every individual will have to do extensive bookkeeping of all their belongings

They already do if they file for income tax. Impractical? Somewhat, like most changes. That’s all small stuff, the status quo is far more “horribly distortive”. Most of the capital base of society is effectively stored in a dark room instead of being put to productive use. The minority of actually working capital is being bled dry so that working class grandma doesn’t ever have to sell the family castle.

Never underestimate the capacity for things to get worse! Currently, the most pragmatic place to park your money is on a bank account. This is not the most accessible & liquid place for the greater economy, sure, but it also is far from unproductive. In most countries, the banks can use it for investment or lending with decent leeway. A wealth tax can easily make people bury their wealth figuratively in their backyard (hell, maybe even literally), where it is actually entirely inaccessible.