Discussion yesterday (54 points, 23 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47925109

Or the day before (50 points, 56 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47913782

Taxes are, in a sense, user fees for public infrastructure. Google may believe that it already pays enough, but taxes are also the price of the social strength, institutional capacity, and infrastructure that made such companies possible in the first place. If billionaires do not pay their fair share of taxes, local communities are damaged, and that eventually affects the talent pool as well.

I sometimes find billionaires difficult to understand. They are far smarter than I am, and they have far more money. I can understand, at least emotionally, why they might feel that taxes are a burden. But the function of taxation is to maintain and improve national infrastructure. When tax revenue is invested in welfare and social safety nets, the likelihood of crime decreases. Safer communities can provide better education, and residents can enjoy a higher quality of life.

Conversely, when taxes are not properly paid, inequality deepens, social mobility breaks down, and society itself begins to lose respect for the value of labor. Of course, under capitalism, labor may be valued less than many of us would like to believe. Still, I find Sergey Brin’s position somewhat difficult to understand. Perhaps this is because I am still attached to an older set of values.

Sergey Brin might think something like this:

> “If I keep $13 billion, I can invest it in AI, quantum computing, and life-extension technology, thereby advancing technology for all of humanity. But if I hand that money over to California state bureaucrats, they will waste it on inefficient bureaucracy and failed homelessness policies.”

I understand that argument to some extent. Inefficiency is everywhere, and I agree that governments often waste money. But GPS, the internet, and the basic scientific research and education behind the talent that Google hires are all forms of public infrastructure funded by taxes.

Technological progress does not necessarily mean social progress. Billionaire capital can produce profitable innovation, but it cannot reliably build unprofitable social safety nets. California bureaucrats may look inefficient, but in my view, much of what they are dealing with is not simply bureaucratic failure. It is the messy exception-handling required to cope with the holes created by capitalist greed.

I do not understand why people who are already so extraordinarily rich hesitate to invest in the poor. Sergey Brin has already earned more than enough money, and he could be respected far more than he is now. I do not understand why someone so concerned with reputation would choose the harder path to recognition, when there is a much easier one available: to help repair the society that made his success possible.

California must fix spending. There is rampant waste - in the form of inefficient government work but also reckless spending on programs that support grift through nonprofits and private companies. I also wonder about the pensions and how they get exploited by workers who artificially boost their compensation in their final few years to secure a high pension. A one time tax won’t do anything to fix these issues. If they can’t cut spend in half and reduce taxes, they will be in decline and their credit ratings will fall.

He fled socialism twice! ;)