Let’s Set a Maximum Wage for the Rich | The Tyee

you dont need a max wage if you tax effectively. it would be 100% past a certain, massive amount.

Not necessary. Just tax the fuck out of them.

LoL yeah as if they won't put loopholes in there like they did with taxes.

As others have said, the problem isn't wages, rich are rich because of returns, dividends and other stuff that, depending on the country or city, is tax exempt, precisely to avoid paying anything. A cynical asshole might even go so far as to say that it creates jobs for lawyers and accountants, which is technically true. It's a win-win-lose for the rich-those ethically wrong workers-everyone else.

Unless the UN or really big blocks like the EU+BRICS start pressing every tax haven to stop pretending that they're doing nothing wrong (which, let's be honest, won't happen, ever), the rich will just move around. They have that luxury, thanks to effectively infinite money.

Let’s put aside the fact that the super rich don’t have a wage. How the fuck are you going to make and apply laws against the people who have the most power in the system you’re supporting?

Let’s just say if they have too much, we just put them in a big stew and eat them.

Wage is not the issue

One of the challenges is of course that the wealthy don't get paid. They own and control assets that appreciate in value.

What if we ended private ownership of businesses. I don't mean ending ownership of businesses, but that every business became publicly tradeable. No more private ownership of businesses.

I'm not actually advocating this (yet), just curious what people think would happen if we did this.

They usually dont get paid much in wages. I think zuckerberg got paid $1/hr?

I think the word you're looking for is "income" or "net worth"

Setting a maximum wage for them wouldn't do a damn thing. They'll just use the wealth they already have to hoover up more through things like insider trading or flat out stealing company money.

Adding a maximum wage for the rich would be like trying to drain the ocean using a toy bucket.

Taylor Swift is the new posterchild for billionaires, but honestly, she's the least egregious example of a billionaire. She makes a fuck load of money because her concert tickets are like $1000 a pop. She's known to give huge bonuses to her tour staff. If anyone is getting exploited, its her fans, but she's literally just a performer. She's hardly manipulating stock prices and doing pump and dump schemes and not paying her staff a livable wage.

And tie it directly to the minimum wage...

The author mentioned in this article was recently on The Grey Area podcast and the arguments and reasoning is pretty compelling. It's also about the discussion and civic involvement and not a particular limit. But the reasoning behind a Limitarianism makes a lot of sense.

If person A makes 100million a year, that's 1,000 times more than person B making 100k a year. Can you honestly say that person A is working 1k time harder, or is contributing 1k times more than the person B? Also remember that we're not talking about the hordes of people working below person A who execute most of the work. We're just talking about that one individual and their contributions.

Either way, the discussion about the subject is the important thing here. What do you want your society to look like in the future and for the next generation? Even if it's not Limitarianism, starting the conversation and cival discourse to push society towards a better version of its current form is worth the effort.

This is going to get downvoted ):

Preventing people from becoming rich is not what we should be focused on. A maximum wage is a good headline but doesn’t make any sense at all (read other comments on this post).

We should be focused on eliminating poverty and building up the middle class.

I hate the reality of super rich people existing in a world where millions starve to death or don’t have access to clean drinking water, but rather than focus on eliminating the ultra wealthy (which just won’t happen), we should be pushing to lift people out of poverty, which might happen if push comes to shove.

How about we just execute the richest person every 3 months?

maximum wage? maybe it works for ceos and such but most billionaires are way beyond their wages. lets start by employing preventative measurements that prevent billionaire charities to be used for money laundering or agenda pushing. then we continue by forcing strict regulations on tax havens. what else? we can also limit the number of estates a person can own and don't allow companies to buy estates. finally, limit operational size of the media conglomerates and how much a single group can have influence on media. Support the hell out of small independent media operations. I know all very vague but very critical problems imo.

Why on Earth would they use Taylor Swift as an example. Seriously?

100% agree with all the people saying it's not enough, but it could be a start, which potentially forces interesting changes at the company level even if it doesn't do much with the economic system.

I would rather see no shareholder influence, but weakened shareholder influence and less incentive for CEOs and execs to be douchebags can still be meaningful (though perhaps not alone). Unfortunately, since people who want to lead others tend to be empathetically challenged, they still need explicit incentives for them not to just go through the same old exploitative and abusive patterns. Say this went through, the people who replace the spoiled CEOs who decide to leave would just end up being corrupt as well if some kind of positive reinforcement doesn't also exist.

100% tax over 100 million or something?

I'd like to know more about how this is supposed to work.

What is considered a wage? Is it net worth, increase in worth from one year to the next? Liquid capital?

Are benefits (insurance, child care, etc) counted towards this wage cap? What about company cars or housing? What about profit sharing through bonuses and / or stock grants?

Would loans be counted towards the wage cap? If not, can you borrow more than the wage cap?

What happens if you own a home or business that is worth more than the wage cap? Would you only be able to sell that commodity for the wage cap or would any excess of the wage cap be spread over multiple years?

Would inheritance or "gifts" be tallied towards the wage cap? Would donations to charitable organizations offset the wage cap?

Would companies be subject to these caps? What if a person incorporated, had all of their wealth and earnings go through that incorporation which they had sole discretion and control over the use of those funds?

What about foreign entities? Would people, companies, or even governments from other countries who exceed the maximum wage be allowed to buy / sell goods, direct / manage corporate interests, invest in land or stocks, or even reside in a country with a maximum wage? What authority or oversight would exist to even identify such a wage of a foreign entity? Or

Every single one of those questions represents a potential loophole that could be exploited to circumvent a "maximum wage" and I'm sure that somebody who has studied or worked in finance could think of others.

I have better idea: 100% tax

Reddit is shit-for-brains but one take that's been living rent free is to have a law where you kill the richest person in the world. Won't be long before people start scrambling to distribute their wealth so they're not next on the chopping block 😄

lol imagine being so poor that you earn a wage

Wouldn't it be better to set a maximum wage/compensation for Congress/parliament? That way they couldn't be bought. I don't have as much a problem with people trying to become billionaires. I have a problem with an uneven playing field. Hell, by the time they get that rich, I'm not even on a playing field. Frankly I'm not even on the same planet.