Why don’t we have a maximum wage? Asking that question is another way of asking why some people can rake in millions while others struggle to earn enough
Is it because the people that we need to worry about don't get paid massive wages? Instead they leverage their massive stock ownership as collateral for loans. And stock bonuses are not regulated or taxed in the same way as real wages.
Because making 400k/yr by sitting on a pile of assets and living a low-cost life in a paid-off small-town cottage is not the same as making 400k/yr as a debt-saddled surgeon renting in a high-cost city center, so targeting income instead of wealth gets us farther from a fairer economy.
I've often said we don't need billionaires. That when one reaches that milestone anything above $999,999,999 should be taken as taxes from that person.
When I say this people often become defensive saying that the government shouldn't be able to dictate how much wealth one person can accumulate. (It also happens that many of these people are prolife but that's neither here nor there.) Often times comparing this action to communism which of course it isn't.
The issue of course is that many people don't understand what a billion of anything is. The human brain can't comprehend such massive numbers. But nevertheless, there are people that are approaching the trillion dollar mark a number even further removed from a billion by several magnitudes.
Should there be billionaires. Probably not... What do you think?
If the minimum wage was a comfortable living wage --- like it should be, in my and many other folks' opinion --- then it wouldn't matter. One person's excess isn't a problem, unless it's at the expense of someone else (which, you know, is kinda the case...).
Maximum wage only makes sense as a percentage of other people in the company. Ie. The maximum allowed is 10x more than the minimum wage paid in the company
Anything else means the money would just go to shareholders
And obviously, a minimum wage permitted too by amount
Jello Biafra proposed this as a policy when he ran for mayor of SF in 1980 and has been humping this idea ever since. It wouldn'f fly legally but as someone else here noted, you can tax at 90% above a threshold and do it that way.
personally i absolutely support billionaires if you remove the actual issues like them being able to lobby and remove legal forms of tax evasion so that the country is benefitted more, especially when they are creative(ish) like elon and do stuff actually beneficial to humanity like space programs (may be wrong but i believe hearing news abt him making that and running it), and honestly it would be great if more billionaires focused on space exploration as well as the governments, its just the next step in mankind tbh
Call it crab bucket, but I would hate to work in a system where my labor value is capped by someone other than me, or the person I'm selling it to.
Edit love downvotes with no rebuttal. Any system where a laborer is told they cannot market services at a rate accepted by a client is an oppressive system.