Will The Economy Collapse?

[jonb]

I agree. Actually I'm not making a case for the reverse of communism, total free market (look what it got us into!). Rather I think the problem is not that easy to solve, given all the forces currently at work. When a wealthy man's wealth is threatened he will unite with others to keep his place.

Getting back to the OP, I'm not so sure that something like a progressive tax at this point will fix it. Aren't we too far in the hole? Wouldn't we need to decrease entitlements drastically AND increase taxes on everyone to balance the budget?

So you could envisage social change by economic means which is socialism. But that is what all governments are doing anyway. This is why I stand against seeing this debate though existing terminology, because it tends to draw lines rather than examining the problem.
Current taxes tend to be around earnings and expenditure, which results in those that work the hardest being taxed the most, however it does not have to be that way. Ownership could be taxed rather than income. Tax of that form would produce a different set of winners and losers.

Any society has to protect its key institutions, The problem is what are the key institutions of a society. Even a simple idea that the fundamental part of society is its people leads to problems. For instance 'Rayaan', and 'A theist' might think what constitutes an American are different things. Now even if you can decide that the main purpose of a society is to protect its people and you can identify who those people are, what tools do you need to do that? For instance should you protect financial institutions? If you do during a falling market this is going to damage your own people, but if you don't your society will loose a lot of power, the power it needs to protect your people.

My personal view is that our governments are very much locked in to the paths they are on. As such as resources for each individual becomes harder to get, there is a sort of inevitability that societies in general will become less equitable.