You can't seriously think that the incredible defensibility and natural resource wealth of the USA would suddenly go away if we taxed the shit out of rich people. Norway is rich and effective and much flatter than the USA so I think perhaps flatness isn't as rigidly tied to negative outcomes as you seem to think.
Venezuela is one of the most oil-rich countries on Earth - and they had gas shortages.
It isn't enough to have resources in the ground. They are worth zero until extracted and turned into products and services. And for that you need technology, companies and entrepreneurs.
When you tax "the shit out of rich people" that's what you lose. You can do it exactly one time - next time you won't have what to tax.
This is such a ridiculous argument. You can't equivocate the USA to Venezuela. The USA has SO SO much more going for it. The USA wouldn't suddenly turn into Venezuela if we taxed the hell out of rich people, don't be absurd. The GINI coefficient of Venezuela is WORSE than the USA, it is LESS flat. Venezuela is stupidly corrupt, has had like a million coups, has it's affairs constantly meddled with by other governments. The Netherlands, Finland, Norway etc are much flatter than the USA and weirdly they haven't turned into Venezuela.
Many other socialist experiments happened in the world during the last 100 years. Take your pick - they all failed miserably compared to the amazing increase in prosperity of the USA.
> The USA wouldn't suddenly turn into Venezuela
I never said that, please re-read my post.
> Netherlands, Finland, Norway [...] haven't turned into Venezuela
They haven't turn into the economic power house the US is right now either. In fact, the whole EU is waking up to the fact that they're being left behind.
And they haven't "taxed the hell out of rich people", just slightly more. But coupled with just slightly more regulation, turns out the more socialism you impose on your economy, the less competitive it is.
And we're talking about much smaller countries, too - but not that flat actually. Sweden is ahead and Norway is just 3 spots behind USA in the billionaires-per-capita ranking, with Finland and Netherlands not that far behind.
> They haven't turn into the economic power house the US is right now either.
And literally nobody else has in the history of the planet. There’s zero reason to ascribe 100% of this to our socioeconomic system, particularly given how much that system has changed and evolved over the years.
We also might have overall wealth but that doesn’t mean much when the life of the median person is demonstrably worse than that of one in many other wealthy nations. Further, we are getting crushed on happiness in life. And isn’t that the metric we should actually give a shit about?
> literally nobody else has in the history of the planet
Literally every single western country who embraced free markets in the last 100 years did. Conversely their growth slowed the more they adopted leftist measures.
> zero reason to ascribe 100% of this to our socioeconomic system
My favorite A/B test was when Eastern Europe switched from communism to capitalism: we went from starving to plenty literally overnight.
> life of the median person is demonstrably worse
Please demonstrate it then. Statistics tell us the opposite.
> happiness in life. And isn’t that the metric we should actually give a shit about?
That is probably one of the worst metrics I can think about. How do you define it? How do you measure it? When do you measure it? How do you account for fluctuations? Delayed gratification? How to you account for the long-term vs short-term discrepancies? How to you account for self-induced unhappiness? Or artificial happiness through pills and other drugs?
The only worse metric I can think of is pleasure. Pursuit of either is a highly debatable individual strategy but for a society - it's deadly.
