Apology accepted for assuming.
I've been quite wealthy and I've been quite poor - such is life when one makes a nice income, has zero dependents, but has a penchant for for "investing on margin" (read: "gambling") on risky NASDAQ tech upstarts.
But my personal situation is completely beside the point.
The point is, SURE, in a vacuum, overall utility might actually rise if the billionaire is taxed at a much higher rate than the pauper.
But that neglects three extremely important things:
(1) That the billionaire entrepreneur *IS* discouraged from taking risks when the tax on his potential successes are dramatically increased - and these are risks that when he takes them, and they are successful, benefit EVERYONE;
and
(2) It simply IS NOT FAIR.
I've never met either one of them in my life, but I would bet just about anything that Bill and Melinda Gates feel a whole lot better about all of the help they do because they got to CHOOSE to donate humongous amounts of money, rather than if the exact same amount of money was STOLEN from them by poor people (via the government, of course) through ridiculously high taxes on the successful.
and
(3) Further, when people who NEED actually CONTRIBUTE (anything - make a product, sell a service, write a song, play the trumpet on the subway platform, ask someone for help POLITELY and actually contribute utility via politeness - ANYTHING), I guarantee you that they feel a whole lot better about themselves than if they were to receive the money by government handout.
As to your statement that "everyone should be paying what they can toward the common good," that's a fine personal opinion to have, but your opinion, in my opinion, does NOT give the government the right to play Robin Hood.
I thought that this past century has shown that, even with its flaws, Capitalism is CLEARLY preferable to any other economic system that's been tried.
And as to the original thread title of "Do The Rich Seal From The Poor," I would answer this:
SOME rich people/corporations do indeed take advantage of SOME of the less sophisticated, and that is a shame.
But for every one of those people and corporations, I can point to a boatload of people (professional entertainers, people/corporations who are ethical and actually DO NOT take advantage of the poor, and who actually treat their employees well, because they feel better about themselves by doing so - the list goes on and on and on).
And as to taxing the rich SLIGHTLY more, just so we can give the lazy and the irresponsible enough so they won't start a revolution, I personally consider that to be self-defense - a coerced "choice" by the successful to give out hand-outs so that evil envious people will have less incentive to do evil things to those whom they envy.
And thanks for the "enjoy your self satisfying rationalizations" in your post to me, Shakti - was that you "substantively engaging" this conversation, or, alternatively, just a cheap ad-hom?