May

16

"I understand your here to collect your share?" said the Keeper.

"My share of the taxes, yes," said the Visitor, "Piketty sent me."

"Are you sure you want to tax capital? I mean, really sure?" said the Keeper.

"It's only fair," said the Visitor.

"Well, to register and receive you must put on this headset," said the Keeper, handing over a kind of halo object, "it will read your Identity Number, calculate your distribution and begin making a fair deposit."

"Perfect!" said the Visitor, and popped the contraption onto his head. The Keeper stared at him directly, a thin smile on his lips.

The Visitor pressed the power button on the halo. "Aaaah! No, please. What." The Visitor spasmed wildly. "Aaargh! Oh my God! Please, please." The Visitor's flight reflex kicked in, his muscles began to shake violently, bringing him to his knees. The tension in his bladder collapsed and piss soaked his pants. The Visitor writhed on the floor, "MAKE IT STOP! What is this?!"

The Keeper quickly pulled a handset from his pocket and clicked the interrupt. Nobody so far had completed the deposit in full. The Visitor fell to the floor, exhausted. With his eyes blood shot, watering, the Visitor cried out, "how dare you, what was that torture? You fiend! This is criminal."

"You asked for your share," said the Keeper, "and your bank account is in credit now. Your share of the capital taxes have been delivered, proportionately."

"Are you some kind of SICKO?" screamed the Visitor.

"No. You see, you asked for your fair share. We decided in transferring capital taxes, we should also make an additional deposit to keep it balanced. We gave you a concentrated dose of every sleepless night, strained relationship, cheating business partner, every lie heard, every deal that didn't close, every set-back, every busted asset, every temptation skirted, idea stolen, regulatory intervention, bankrupt supplier, every loss adjusted insurance policy, every giant competitor… all of it. And there's much, much more. Should I complete the deposit?" asked the Keeper.

The Visitor staggered up to his feet, raised his eyes to the Keeper and paused to speak. But nothing came. Instead, he ran straight for the door.

Jared Albert writes:

I think the basic problem with Piketty style wealth redistribution is that everyone wants to read poetry, while no one wants to take out the trash.

That effort is often necessary for wealth, doesn't answer his basic point that in a fairer world we'd help those who strove and failed as well.

Victor Niederhoffer writes: 

Yes, Mr. Albert has encapped the idea that has the world in its grip. When I played ball, I always wished that my opponents would share their points when they beat me. There should have been a law. 

Jared Albert replies: 

A lot of effort has gone down dead ends in battery technology. Those efforts uncovered what doesn't work, and provided methods that may end up pushing some methods forward. Those failures benefit all of us.

According to an ideal Piketty model, the losers should be compensated in some form by winners as they helped move the sum of the effort forward.

I don't know for sure obviously, but I doubt you can find a nobel laureate who doesn't feel that they stood on the shoulders of others.

My point is that in general people are dis-incetized to try any of the routes if their reward has nothing to do with effort.

Stefan Jovanovich writes: 

In a fairer world we do help those who strive and fail; that is how successful teams (right now and for the past 5 seasons under Bruce Bochy, the SF Giants) and families (the anonymous R-Man's to take one of many examples from the List) and enterprises all work. As with most Leftist ideas Piketty has a valid complaint; as with all ideas based on the sacrifice of individual freedoms for collective good his Marxist solution is catastrophically bad. Some people do want to take out the trash rather than let it pile up, but no one does it for very long for the sake of strangers without getting paid in money that he or she gets to keep and spend. That is why inventive and naturally poetic people in Cuba live in a world of uncollected trash and free medical care where the patients bring the medicines to the doctors. But it is fair — everyone lives under the same collective incentive to read official poetry.
 


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