Re: tax on capital

["Barry Brooks" <barrybrooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Let's get utopian. Imagine an good economy. What would it have? It would
have a lots of wealth held for use value, it would provide economic security
for all,  machines would do all the work, and it would be sustainable.
Let's not tax those things.

Idle capacity is not bad.  For non-economic reasons we often choose to hold
items for rare use.  It's convenient to have large local inventories, and a
can opener waiting to be used.  Fire extinguishers and idle doctors are very
good.  Don't tax them either.

Industrial capacity in utopia would be far in excess of normal demand.  For
one clean watt of sound one needs a one hundred watt amplifier to handle the
random peaks.
Even the checkers at my grocery store have been automated and the human
checkers cut back. Later the store will learn they need enough automatic
checkers to prevent lines during peak demand.

Idle workers are good if they still have income.

Maybe growth in demand can't provide full employment once automation reaches
high levels, regardless of wages. Human labor is being replaced by
automation and more growth can't fix it without finally reaching
astronomical levels of consumption.

If people already had a stock of wealth and lived efficiently there would be
no need to produce at full capacity. The best measure of economic success
might be the degree of satiation of demand.

Wealth held for use is not a good thing to tax because it's one thing we
want to encourage.

Income is the indication that wealth is not held for use.  Tax income
instead of wealth.

Barry