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| ▲ | triceratops 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Not at all. Before the widespread availability of currency, taxes were always paid in property. Farmers paid with bushels of wheat or turnips or whatever. | | |
| ▲ | lazide 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Those are goods. Shares are also not property, in the real sense. They are fractional ownership. | | |
| ▲ | triceratops a day ago | parent [-] | | > Those are goods. Potato property. A property is whatever you own. Do you or do you not own the contents of your fridge? > Shares are also not property, in the real sense. I assume by "real" you mean "land". Who cares? > They are fractional ownership. So you acknowledge that shares are property then. | | |
| ▲ | lazide a day ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | triceratops a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Thanks for conceding that I'm right. | |
| ▲ | AnimalMuppet a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | No, there was a valid point there. "Fractional ownership" and "not property" don't seem to fit together - unless your claim is that only land counts as "property". You didn't explain at all how that works. To a post pointing out your contradiction, you said "ignorant word salad". That's not an answer; that's an evasion. So at the moment, to this bystander, you're losing the discussion, because you're the one evading the other guy's point. Would you care to actually answer it? Or should we conclude that you have no actual answer, but still won't admit you're wrong? |
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| ▲ | scotty79 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Shares aren't a real thing. They are paper invented out of thin air with intent to pull the money out of capital market. There are already many rules about what you have to do be allowed to sell them to the public. Adding a rule that 10% of whatever you print must be put under national democratic control is not inconceivable. | | |
| ▲ | lazide 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Shares are proxies for ownership/control. What you are proposing is literally what China does to ensure CCP control of all businesses. Do you really want whoever is in power at the moment to have (even more direct) control over every business in the country? Because that is literally how you do that. | | |
| ▲ | triceratops 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Shares are proxies for ownership/control. But they don't have to be. There could be a law that shares paid as tax have no voting power. The government gets capital gains and dividends but no votes. The sovereign wealth fund could be required to be structured as a black box, with visibility into it severely constrained. Selling is governed by a strict mechanical algorithm, or at random, to prevent indirect pressure by the government ("Do what we say or we'll dump all your shares"). | | |
| ▲ | lazide 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Hahah, why? | | |
| ▲ | triceratops a day ago | parent [-] | | To tax automation. That's where this thread started. Someone said you can't tax automation and I showed how you could tax it. I'll expand on a theme I've written about many times before. We want businesses to become more efficient and productive. We want them to produce more with less labor. This is highly desirable. But we tax that ever-shrinking pile of labor more and more to make government finances pencil out. That makes no GD sense. |
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| ▲ | inigyou a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | China is currently the most prosperous country in the world. Maybe we should copy whatever they're doing. | |
| ▲ | scotty79 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Shares are proxies for ownership/control. Connection between shares and ownership is tenuous at best and rarely exercised. > What you are proposing is literally what China does to ensure CCP control of all businesses. 10% is not control. China is not democratic. Given that, Chinese companies seem to be doing quite well under those conditions. Better than Western ones. > Do you really want whoever is in power at the moment to have (even more direct) control over every business in the country? Do you really want all economic power to be controlled in undemocratic manner rather than democratic? Because that is literally what we have now and society and governments are getting impoverished and companies are getting outcompeted too. | | |
| ▲ | lazide 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Hardly, it's quite a clear relationship and exercised constantly - if you do the math re: share classes and look at what a corporation actually does. In most large corporations, 10% is often the largest single shareholder and/or bloc. In democratic countries, we pass laws and let that do the talking. If the gov't owns direct shares, whoever is in charge of the gov't is de-facto the 'controller' of them, eh? So no congress, no laws, no vote of the people after they pick whoever is 'in charge'. Doesn't sound very democratic to me? | | |
| ▲ | scotty79 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > Hardly, it's quite a clear relationship and exercised constantly - if you do the math re: share classes and look at what a corporation actually does. Look at the stock market. Out of billion trades maybe one is related to actual ownership of actual company. “Shares are mostly casino tokens tied to the success of a company - or rather, the perception thereof. > In democratic countries, we pass laws and let that do the talking. If the gov't owns direct shares, whoever is in charge of the gov't is de-facto the 'controller' of them, eh? It could be shares without any control rights. Still reduces the amount of resources outside of democratic control. Not by taking control yourself but by removing it from unelected individuals. |
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