The people being criticised are very different. We’re talking about individuals or households with assets of more that $50-million or executives with compensation of $5-million/annum. In order to protect and preserve that income they have to engage in more unethical practises than you ever will, all of which result in many of their fellow citizens being unable to achieve something close to the economic security you and I enjoy as a member of the 10% or 20%.
Just keep in mind that the old “if you make $35k/annum you’re in the global 1%” saw is readily seized upon by the 0.1% in the West as another way of telling people who are always one bad day away from bankruptcy “shut up, you ingrate.”
It’s difficult to separate the moral, ethical, and welfare-improvement arguments when you’re talking about multi-billionaires stepping over homeless people in NYC on their way to their limousines.
Do you pay your taxes? Do you support higher progressive taxes when they’re called for? You’re already taking those measures. Especially since you live in a much more civilised and equitable society than the U.S., and especially since your personal wealth isn’t being applied to purchases like private jets or $300k wristwatches.
That’s largely because UHNWIs in the West have spent the past 40 years ensuring that those voters (and here I’m not talking about the write-off Know-Nothing 27% but standard conservatives and independents) that neoliberalism is the default and natural economic state of humanity. Until that value is wiped out (and it’s definitely on the wane these days) that group won’t vote for policies that oppose it.
Again, the kind of incomes and wealth being talked about as the initial, tone-setting priority for increased taxation is way outside the realm of day-to-day workplace operations. Your theoretical multiplier wouldn’t do much to change the current distribution of wealth, where the top 1% owns more than 35% of the wealth and where things get more disproportionate when you talk about the percentage of wealth the top 0.1% owns.
The real question is: how do you convince them to vote for a policy that sets that cap or multiplier. The answer is, you don’t. It’s not something that can really be set directly by legislation outside a command economy. It usually occurs from a combination of indirect factors (e.g. requirements for labour representation on corporate boards plus activist shareholders clamping down on compensation plus different tax laws and definitions of compensation)
By making the country a more pleasant, open, tolerant and economically dynamic place to live. In contrast to what “free”-market fundies would like everyone to believe, money isn’t the only driver. Things like political stability and a relative lack of corruption and a larger overall market (with the greater choice and professional exposure that implies) are just as important. There are other, more personal preferences and obligations that can also keep one from emigrating.
I think you mean in-sourcing: H1-B visas or the Canadian equivalent of bringing in skilled labour. Impose the kind of cap you discuss and they’d still be out of their home countries’ poverty by a wide margin. And getting the other benefits in the bargain.
Alternately, if money and what it buys is the priority then tech workers could just do what they do now: stay put in their home countries, work remotely for rates in between the North American standard and their home country’s (still leaning toward the former) and live like kings there (all the Western consumer goodies plus large houses and full-time domestic staffs that would be out of reach if they were working in the U.S. or Canada).
Despite the “leakage” of inequality and corruption from the U.S., Canada still holds its own pretty well as a nation-state. It doesn’t exist in isolation and isn’t perfect, but it’s made much better policy choices than the U.S. as a result of its status as a nation-state. Until we live under a one-world government, inequality must first be addressed on the basis of a nation-state’s domestic policies (if it can – relative equality might be just another aspect of the larger post-war economic anomaly).
