> Low capital gains tax incentivizes investment and venture capital, so the rich can grow their wealth faster than the poor, while creating a job market.

You forgot the most important part. Let me add it for you: "Low capital gains tax incentivizes investment..., while creating a job market, [and, more importantly, providing goods and services that are beneficial to society as a whole]."

> The former creates more liquid assets (stock) with no clear connection towards meeting the needs of regular people. The latter creates more solid assets with no clear connection towards meeting the needs of regular people.

These claims are demonstrably false. Paper assets provide no tangible benefits. You cannot eat a stock certificate, nor can you use it to heal an infection, nor can you ask it to repair your refrigerator. To receive a tangible benefit such as these, you must consume a good or service. And what is the economy but a machine that produces the goods and services that the people within it consume? Therefore, it is the mix of goods and services consumed (which equals that produced) that determines how society benefits. And, as you've already admitted, a low capital gains tax incentivizes the wealthy to buy paper assets instead of luxuries for themselves. But luxuries are real goods and services, aren't they? In other words, doesn't that policy incentivize wealthy people to consume less and, therefore, claim a reduced share of economic benefits? Consequently, doesn't an increased share of economic benefits go to "regular people"?

▲

amavect 2 hours ago | parent [-]

>[and, more importantly, providing goods and services that are beneficial to society as a whole].

I think enshittification, cost externalization, and rent-seeking behavior cancel this out, muddying the connection towards meeting the needs of regular people. For example, we needed cap-and-trade to internalize the costs of acid rain back onto power plants.

>These claims are demonstrably false. Paper assets provide no tangible benefits.

I think my rhetorical bait worked: you seem to agree with incentivizing luxury spending on real goods and services (instead of incentivizing capital gains)? Adam Smith argues to take that vanity and drive it towards public recognition. For example, many universities put the names of rich donors on the opulent buildings they donate to build. That's good! (My college's music building was amazing!)

>In other words, doesn't that policy incentivize wealthy people to consume less and, therefore, claim a reduced share of economic benefits? Consequently, doesn't an increased share of economic benefits go to "regular people"?

I thought trade doesn't make a zero-sum game? Money supply is a zero-sum game (I think), and I want money sinks to spread the money. We want them to spend their stored money to generate more tangible wealth for all. Luxury goods often push the limits to what can be done, advancing technology and generating wealth while also depleting their money stores. But while investments and venture capital might also advance technology and generate wealth, they continue to concentrate the money supply to the rich. Not good!

	▲	tmoertel an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> I think enshittification, cost externalization, and rent-seeking behavior cancel [general societal benefits] out. While I agree that the factors you cited are drags on the economy, I think historical evidence suggests strongly that they do not cancel out net benefit to society in general. The fact that poor people today benefit from refrigeration, air conditioning, electronic computers, vaccinations, safe anesthesia, cancer drugs, dialysis, HDTVs, cell phones, and a host of other things that the wealthiest people of yesteryear could not have purchased with all their wealth, suggests that the net trend of the economy has been to produce benefits for all of society, including regular people. > you seem to agree with incentivizing luxury spending on real goods and services (instead of incentivizing capital gains)? No, that is the opposite of my original claim. My claim, put simply, is that a low capital gains tax shifts the economy's output away from luxuries and toward meeting the needs of regular people. > I thought trade doesn't make a zero-sum game? But resource allocation is a zero-sum game. In any given year, there are only so many productively employable atoms and human hours. If less of those resources are being used to produce luxuries for wealthy people, they can be employed to produce benefits for regular people.