This is one of those topics where there is no easy and straight answer because when you logically examine both sides of the argument, you will realise they both have their pros and cons but ultimately you may end up picking a side based on emotions. I mean, a lot of people in the lower class will choose to have a limit on how much everyone earns just to checkmate the rich but is that even fair in the first place? It might make sense at first but then what should the rich do with the excess money they make after reaching that limit, donate all of them to the poor?
Let's say a limit is placed on earnings, what will be the limit? A million dollars? A billion? Also, will the limit be placed on the total money in the person's account or it will be based on the total they have earned all through their life? Let's say it's based on the total money in the account, what will stop people from just using the excess money to buy luxury items they won't even need? And let's assume it will be based on the total money earned in a lifetime, what happens when a person gets up to that limit? Will they be forced to stop working and making money or all the money they make from that point onwards will be donated?
You can see how something like that will be very difficult to implement and if it's eventually implemented, it doesn't seem fair that some people will be forced to stop earning or start donating whatever they earn when they reach that limit. Let's imagine you built a business from scratch, put in a lot of effort and hard work over the years, managed to take it to the next level and become a mega cooperation, and then someone comes one day and says "Hey, you have reached the earning limit of $1 billion, so whatever you earn from now will be distributed to everyone else," will you be happy with such news?
Let's not forget that these big companies and corporations buy raw materials for their businesses, so it doesn't make much sense that they will have to start relying on their savings to keep running the company without getting anything in return. Or maybe it's the case where the limit is based on how much you have in all your bank accounts, then again, the rich will just start stashing their excess money in cryptocurrency or buying luxurious items just to make sure their account is below that limit. You can see how crazy the whole thing will be if something like that is implemented.
On the other hand, it might actually turn out to be a good thing because it will mean that wealth will be distributed all over the world. I mean, the excess money of the rich will be given to the poor but there's another problem I'm seeing from this; it will encourage laziness. A lot of people will not even bother to go to work anymore if they can just earn directly from the rich without doing anything. Of course, it will make things easier in the sense that poverty and hunger will be reduced but laziness will prevail. The opportunity to accumulate a lot of weight is a big motivator that drives people to innovate, create value and take risks.
So, putting a limit on earnings will eventually reduce that motivation and zeal to bring up new innovations. A company that excels at coming up with new technology will suddenly stop doing that after it hits that earnings limit because what's then the point of going further? We humans most of the time do things because of what we will get in return and if there's nothing to be gained, the motivation to do something reduces. But while I don't fully support putting a limit on earnings, I also think it's unreasonable for a few people's wealth to surpass the combined wealth of billions of people.
The wealth of the top 1% is higher than the combined wealth of the rest of us, isn't that insane? The most insane part of all this is that those billionaires won't be able to spend all their wealth in a lifetime, even 3 generations won't be able to spend all their current wealth. If Elon Musk, the current richest man in the world decides to spend 1 million dollars every day, in a hundred years he will have spent around 36 billion, add another 200 years and that's around 110 billion, meanwhile, his net worth is over 200 billion. Yeah, I know that his net worth isn't all money, but in the end, the value of all his assets is in that range. But despite this, he won't stop amassing more wealth and I keep wondering what's really the point.
Rather than setting a limit on earnings, the rich should be taxed more than everyone else and a lot of countries are already doing this (progressive tax). They should also carry out community development, ensuring that they contribute a fair share towards developing the communities around them. One thing I hate about the rich is that most of them got to where they are today by getting their hands dirty. It might not be them who did it but as we all know, some of these billionaires didn't start from scratch, they have wealthy parents or even grandparents who engaged in questionable practices just to make it to the top.
Tax evasion, monopoly, exploitation, corporate sabotage, shady government deals, corruption, nepotism and a whole lot of other illegal or morally wrong practices are what got most of them (or even all) to the top. Forget all that bullshit some of them are saying about hard work and luck, we have seen and heard of some of their questionable business actions over the years. In an ideal world, nobody should be able to amass the kind of wealth some of these guys have but we are not living in an ideal world, are we?
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